About Luigi Pirandello
...e, but failed when the old revolver she used failed to fire. His wifešs illness had a profound effect on Pirandello's writing as well, leading him to impose madness, illusion, and isolation in many of his plays. It was only in 1919, with the financial success of his plays, that he was able to sent Antonietta to a private sanitarium. Pirandellošs first widely acclaimed novel, The Late Mattia Pascal, was written in 1904. Within the next ten years, up until the First World War, he published two other novels and numerous short stories. In 1916 he first focused his attention on the theater and quickly became enthralled by the possibilities it presented. Inspired, Pirandello wrote nine plays in one year, including his first three plays, Better Think Twice About It!, Liola, and It is So!, If You Think So, which were all each written in less than a week. In 1920 he achieved critical success with As Before, Better than Before. In 1921 his career culminated in a five week period during which he wrote his two masterpieces Six Characters in Search of an Author and Henry IV. Six Characters opened successfully but scandalously in Rome and later succeed with its opening in Milan as well. Soon the play was being directed by Komisarjevsky in London, Brock Pemberton in New York, and Max Reinhardt in Germany. In 1922 he watched as two more of his plays opened: Henry IV and Naked. In the years 1922 through 1924 Pirandello finally became an important public figure. He received the Legion of Honor in Paris, and in 1925 opened his own Art Theatre in Rome. Supported by Mussolini at this time, his relationship to the dictator has created a great deal of controversy. It is openly known that Pirandello supported fascism, though whether out of practicality and in order to advance his career remains obscure. He is well known for the statement that "I am a Fascist because I am an Italian." Later critics have drawn on his play The Giants of the Mountain as a sign that he was starting to realize the anti-cultural aspects of fascism and used it to defend his actions. However, on his last appearance in New York, Pirandello voluntarily issued a statement supporting Italy's annexation of Abyssinia. Worse, he handed his Nobel medal over to the Italian government to be melted down for the Abyssinian campaign. Whatever his motives, Mussolini's support brought him international fame and introduced the major theatrical centers to his version of the theater. He wrote two acknowledged masterpieces during his career, Henry IV and Six Characters in Search of an Audience. Henry IV seems to have been largely influenced by his wife's illness, and contains the themes of madness, illusion and isolation. The protagonist goes mad after falling from a horse in a masquerade and imaging that he really is the character he was pretending to play, Henry IV. His madness is supported by a wealthy relative who provides him with retainers. Twelve years later he wakes out of his delusion, but continues to feign insanity when he realizes that he prefers the stability of his world to the vagaries of the real world. When he is visited by the woman he used to love, her lover, her daughter, and a doctor, he becomes very angry with them for trying to snap him out of his madness. The play ends with the death of her lover, and Henry IV continues with the pr...