(Re)productive devices

A central concept of my argument will be that of production. In one of his famous Six Walks in the Fictional Woods, Umberto Eco highlighted that:

The author is therefore taken as a double producer: both of the reader and of the narrative space.Footnote ³ Not dissimilarly, Edward Said argued about the inner functioning of orientalist knowledge:

In this case, the stress is on the density of knowledge allowing Europeans to actually speak about the Orient. As a matter of fact, the exoticising process is the result of the diachronic and synchronic cooperation – both with other texts and with the reader – of images, knowledge, ideologies, and imaginaries. The production of the Other, whether in spatial, cultural, or anthropological terms, might ultimately turn into a radical epistemological invention (Mudimbe Reference Mudimbe1988).Footnote ⁴

Connected to this, I adopt the perspective according to which not only ‘the pleasure of the text’ (Barthes Reference Barthes1973), but ‘the very existence of texts’ (Eco Reference Eco1979, 3) is linked to their cooperative nature. The communicative act cannot exist outside the relationship between a sender and a receiver, inasmuch as that relation is simultaneously produced by and producer of itself. Therefore, I implement a viewpoint which sees the communicative act as a process tending to (re)produce a specific hierarchical asset within society through what might be considered a cluster of different, ever-conflicting ideologies (Hall, Reference Hall, Hall, Hobson, Lowe and Willis1991). In other words, I am here referring to the power of ‘interpellation’ of the text (Althusser Reference Althusser and Althusser1976).Footnote ⁵

To assume the point of view of the (re)productive character of the text, nonetheless, does not mean to interpret its foundations as monolithic. Conversely, looking at the functionalities of the text allows a lateral reading of its ideological contents. Locating this standpoint in the historical context means to recognise the contradictory nature of Fascist racism, a point of view widely shared among scholars (e.g. Cassata Reference Cassata2011; De Donno Reference De Donno2006; Giuliani Reference Giuliani2019). The originality of my contribution in respect to the secondary literature lies in the access points from which I approach this problem. Firstly, I look at this relation through the lens of the representation of meticciato. Miscegenation, in fact, was a transverse issue in most strands of colonial racism (Gillette Reference Gillette2001; Poidimani Reference Poidimani2009). Its over-representation testifies to the extent and the diffusion of anxieties over the purity of the white race. Whether interpreted in the light of the partial refusal of a too strict biological interpretation of race or in the terms of a physical repulsion about racial impurity, miscegenation results in a prism through which it is possible to look at the shifts in the ideological conflicts in the Italian racist debate. Secondly, as shown in the next section, I look at the colonial novel in terms of the popular novel, and therefore as a primary source capable of demonstrating both the intention of the producer and the expectations of the reader.

The unpopularity of a popular novel

Given the premises delineated above, it should be clear that, to understand the phenomenon of the colonial novel, it is critical to locate the target audience that writers, publishers, and sponsors had in mind. In other words, it is necessary to detect the material condition of existence of the communicative process.

First of all, it should be remembered that the reading public of the time was not substantial. In 1921 illiteracy in Italy still stood at 30 per cent of the population (McLean Reference McLean2018, 8), a figure which would slightly decline in the following five years, reaching 21 per cent in 1927 (Tranfaglia Reference Tranfaglia and Vittoria2000, 24). However, as the analysts of the time were well aware, even among the literate population the consumption of published material was very limited (Ciarlantini quoted in Tranfaglia Reference Tranfaglia and Vittoria2000, 244). In this context novels and romances played an even more secondary role to other literature. Between 1919 and 1930 the percentage of published novels more than doubled, even though at the height of production they did not amount to more than 12.21 per cent of overall publication (Tranfaglia Reference Tranfaglia and Vittoria2000, 300).Footnote ⁶

Nevertheless, some novels became bestsellers. As reported by Michele Giocondi, more than 50,000 copies – the minimum for a bestseller –were printed of several novels: in some cases this was even 300/400,000 copies (Giocondi Reference Giocondi1978, 17–23). So a certain reading public did actually exist. According to Giocondi, the genres this public was interested in were basically six (in descending order of success): romantic, ‘daveroniano’, pornographic, fascist-heroic, bourgeois-realist, and comic.Footnote ⁷ Notably, there is no explicit reference to the colonial novel, even though some novels of the canon are subsumed under the ‘fascist-heroic’ category.Footnote ⁸

To my knowledge, the first time the colonial novel as such is considered among the plethora of popular novels of the time is in Maria Pagliara's contribution to the collective volume I Best-seller del ventennio (Pagliara Reference Pagliara, De Donato and Gazzola-Stacchini1991).Footnote ⁹ In her essay the Italian scholar considers the colonial novel as a propaganda project aimed at diffusing ideology via popular literature – a project that actually met consistent failure.Footnote ¹⁰ The main sources usually employed to demonstrate this point are the two ‘surveys on colonial literature’ published respectively in 1931 and 1933 in L'Azione coloniale.

The first of these (1931), aimed at authors, mainly demonstrates the attempts made by each novelist to be considered the primary initiator of the genre and, at the same time, the only one actually entitled to write on such issues.Footnote ¹¹ Conversely, the second ‘survey’, launched on 6 July 1933, was directed at publishers. It consisted of five questions, the most interesting of which – at least for our purposes – was concerned with the actual success of the publications.The responses were invariably negative. The publisher Giacomo Agnelli, for example, reported ‘very little interest in the public, certainly not designed to induce people to publish works of this kind’ (6 July 6 1933, 3).Footnote ¹² Treves – probably the most successful publisher of the time (Decleva Reference Decleva1993) – added a further point of view, dragging in the role of the regime: ‘But we would perhaps be straying from the truth if we said that these remarkable works usually win a large readership. Their diffusion depends almost entirely on the initiatives and effort put in by the Istituto Nazionale Fascista di Cultura’ (31 August 1933, 3).

However, despite their probable commercial failure, almost 150 colonial novels were published within about twenty years (1921–43),Footnote ¹³ an important fact given the substantial lack of a stable reading public at the time. One possible factor to explain this apparent contradiction – the commercial failure and the continuation of the editorial project – is governmental interest in the issue.

Since the very beginning of the Fascist government, literature had played a critical role in the ‘bonifica integrale’ project and the production of the ‘new man’ (Ben-Ghiat Reference Ben-Ghiat2001). As much as scholarly education, literature was seen as one of the main channels through which to directly address individuals and include them in the cultural fabric of the nation (McLean Reference McLean2018). The very act of reading, in particular, underwent a major transformation, from a bourgeois, solitary activity to a collective one (Scotto Di Luzio Reference Scotto di Luzio1996). This is why, in order to understand Fascist political culture, it is necessary to look primarily at publishing output during the period (Galfrè Reference Galfrè2005).

The colonial novel, in this sense, is epitomic. In relation to this genre, the state did not only act as a commissioner – a role that was perfectly clear to the publishing houses (Scotto Di Luzio Reference Scotto di Luzio1996, 10) – but also as a patron to the authors. In 1925, the Ministry of the Colonies launched a 10,000-lire prize for the best romanzo coloniale written up to that point. The trophy was won by the former colonial soldier Mario Dei Gaslini with his Piccolo amore beduino (Reference Dei Gaslini1926), and his win brought him other advantages. Mainly, it resulted in a never-ending source of legitimacy and free advertising. ‘L'idea coloniale’ – supplement to the more famous ‘L'Idea Nazionale' , gave ample significance to the award, and depicted the novel as the new ‘beginning for Italian colonial literature’ (quoted in Tomasello Reference Tomasello2004, 153). The prize, moreover, was pretentiously mentioned on the title pages of the first edition of the novel, and readers were also reminded of it in the bibliographical note preceding the text of a later work, Natisc, fiore dell'oasi (Reference Dei Gaslini1928).

The popular nature of the colonial novel, as a consequence, acquired a new meaning: it was not popular in reference to its material success, but in relation to the will of those who produced it. In this sense, the ideological objectives of authors, publishers, and state actors, were the hidden drivers of the genre.

Paternity: patterns of action

One of the most frequent propaganda themes of the 1920s was the Fascist reconquest of Libya (Labanca Reference Labanca2002, 137–49, 240–6). Hundreds of articles, short stories, novels and movies recounted the bravery of the Italian army, the weakness and cowardice of the anticolonial fighters, the leading roles of Marshal Graziani and General Badoglio. Colonial novels were no exception. In particular, books by former colonial soldiers – such as Dei Gaslini or the Spahi officer Gino Mitrano Sani – attracted publishers’ attention (Boddi Reference Boddi2012; Tomasello Reference Tomasello2004). However, the influence of the Libyan war was not limited to those novels explicitly written to narrate it. More generally, between 1925 and 1930, the first wave of massive colonial propaganda – focussing also on Eritrea, Somalia and the Dodecanese – contributed to the preparation of a suitable environment for colonial novels in general (Giuliani Caponetto Reference Giuliani Caponetto2015).

Moreover, the late 1920s saw a considerable increase in centralisation by the regime (Gentile Reference Gentile2018), at the apex of which came the enforcement of the bonifica integrale project (Ben-Ghiat Reference Ben-Ghiat2001). In this context, Mussolini's Ascension Day speech of 1927 marked ‘the definitive sunset of early Fascism and the abandonment of its anti-traditional, anti-matrimonial, Futurist, and anarchical orientation in favour of continuity with the virilist tradition of conservative nationalism’ (Giuliani and Lombardi-Diop Reference Giuliani and Lombardi-Diop2013, 40). In other words, it is at this point that Fascism eventually adopted the pro-ruralist, pro-natalist, and orthogenetic project already began with the foundation of Opera Nazionale Maternità e Infanzia in 1925, establishing a perfect continuity of direction in its presentation of race and gender roles (McLean Reference McLean2018, 25).

The two novels analysed in the following pages were conceived, written, and published exactly at this juncture. Enrico Cappellina's Un canto nella notte. Romanzo coloniale, published in 1925, was soon followed, in 1927, by Guido Milanesi's La sperduta di Allah.Footnote ¹⁴ Although they originated in the same context, these two novels proposed conflicting narratives of Italian colonialism and of Italian masculine identity and its role in both colony and metropole. Where Cappellina viewed the colonial encounter as rooted in the Europeans’ civilising mission, Milanesi argued for a form of colonialism of dominion, justified by the natural right of superior nations. Recalling Zocchi's incisive definition, we can say that while Cappellina was concerned with ‘the destiny of the Africans’, Milanesi was only interested in the fate of the Italians (Zocchi Reference Zocchi2019, 21). This distinction perfectly mirrored the legislative and institutional definitions of Italian citizens and colonial subjects (Bonmassar Reference Bonmassar2012; De Napoli Reference De Napoli2009). In other words, where Cappellina imagined meticci (those of mixed race) to be Italians by right, Milanesi strongly refuted this option and firmly relegated mixed-race individuals to indigenous society. As a consequence, these two novels – even though forming a minuscule part of the overall number of colonial novels – represent a valuable access point to the complexity and contradictory nature of Fascist racism in the late 1920s.

Renato Severi, the main character of Un canto nella notte, is a First World War veteran. He has fought bravely and when he returns from the front, he discovers his mother is dead and his fiancée has left him. Moreover, the political situation in Italy does not satisfy his proud, warlike spirit. Fearing the Fatherland might pull him down in its decadence he decides to move to Eritrea, hoping for a new life. There, he eventually meets the woman to whom he was once betrothed. But he also meets Medin, a naïve young indigenous woman with whom he starts a relationship that will culminate in his fathering a child. As Renato is about to leave for Libya to fight the anti-colonial rebels, Medin confesses she is pregnant. Renato has no doubts: he will recognise the baby as his own and name him after himself. The offspring of a white man and a black woman will, in fact, be a white by right. Severi is not only moved by a strong sense of duty (‘man of conscience, he felt that a great new responsibility was weighing on him’ [281]); he has an affective connection with the baby. On the doorstep of his house, about to depart for Libya, he whispers to Medin: ‘I am leaving in you more than my life’ (Cappellina Reference Cappellina1925, 279). Despite his commitment, Severi will never meet his own son – he will die heroically in Libya. However, following a pattern of behaviour already documented in scientific literature, the child will not stay with his mother (Sorgoni Reference Sorgoni2001). On the contrary, he will be cared for by Renato's former betrothed and taken to Italy, to ‘the environment he rightfully belonged to in virtue of his father's name’ (Cappellina Reference Cappellina1925, 319).Footnote ¹⁵

The protagonist of La sperduta di Allah, Ugo Albertenghi, is, in this sense, a mirror image. He is an Italian colonist as well, a First World War veteran, and the father of a meticcio boy. The colonial setting, however, is Libya, prompting the author to reflect on Italo-Arab relations. Although considered racially closer to their European masters than sub-Saharan Africans, Arabs were represented as even less inclined towards integration/civilisation (Airelli Reference Airelli2010; Goglia Reference Goglia and Di Febo2005). Their culture and religion, then, if accepted as such – which is to say, recognised as a valid, complex structure of identity – resulted in a much greater obstacle to colonial communication than the total lack of civilisation of sub-Saharan populations. Therefore, the sexual relationship between Ugo Albertenghi and the Libyan woman Neschma could not result in the continuation of Italian stirpe (lineage). The meticcio baby born out of their relationship could not be Italian. Killed by his Arab grandfather – incapable of accepting a half-Italian, half-Arab grandchild – the baby is buried in the necropolis of Gadames. Albertenghi makes a pilgrimage to the headstone, which is surmounted by a star and crescent, and bears only his son's Arab name – Ahmed Ben Uhg. He realises that he feels no connection to his dead son: ‘Even the memory of that son was no longer left to his father. The land of Allah had received him but had given him the mark of the children of Allah in order to make them Saharan dust’ (Milanesi Reference Milanesi1927a, 329).

These two novels are dominated by two issues in relation to mixed-race babies. On the one hand, there is the question of citizenship: are meticci to be considered Italians or indigenous? Is their race determined by their father's whiteness or by the non-Europeanness of their mother? As is clear, this issue went far beyond the personal beliefs of the authors and was deeply rooted in the fabric of Italian presence in the colonies, as a look at the changes in the civil status of the meticci over time confirms.Footnote ¹⁶

On the other hand, there is the issue of affection. Could an Italian, European individual feel any connection towards his own meticcio son? As is clear, Cappellina and Milanesi gave two completely different answers to these questions. However, moving the focus from the actual meticci to the condition which gave them birth – the relation between the white man and the black/Arab woman, and the question ‘can a European feel any connection to a non-European person?’ – means that the arguments employed by the two authors end up extremely similar.

‘A new soul’: the interracial sexual encounter

According to Luciano Zuccoli, one of the founding fathers of the Italian colonial novel, the specificity of this genre in relation to the more general exotic, adventure, and travel novels, lies in the authors’ interest in representing the indigenous psychology rather than the European experience of the colonial encounter:

Such an attempt, according to Zuccoli, was typical of the British colonial novel, and specifically of the work of Rudyard Kipling. At least theoretically, Italian colonial novelists accepted this guideline, but apart from a few exceptions, this did not result in a proliferation of non-European main characters.Footnote ¹⁷ At best, the attention given to ‘indigenous populations’ produced an increase of non-European secondary characters, mainly female ones.

As stressed by several scholars, female characters are the critical access point to the racist structure of colonial novels (Boddi Reference Boddi2012; Giuliani Caponetto Reference Giuliani Caponetto2015; Lenci Reference Lenci2001). First and foremost, the narrative structures of these stories provide clues to the stereotypes with which the image of the colonial Other was built. Along with movies, short stories, comic strips, poster designs and so forth, colonial novels are an incredibly fertile archive of stereotypes of colonial women (Faloppa Reference Faloppa2013; Giuliani Reference Giuliani2019; Pinkus Reference Pinkus1995). Secondly, the ways in which native women are represented provides the negative of the positive strategies used to build the identity of white men. Through the narrative opposition to subaltern characters the virtues of the dominant ones were defined as (universal) moral and political models (Stefani Reference Stefani2010). Finally, the depiction of the encounter between white man and indigenous woman can clearly be seen as a metaphor for the colonial encounter as a whole (Deplano Reference Deplano2012). It provides evidence for the authors’ interpretations of the ways colonial expansion is justified and ‘allows light to be shed on the main symbolic objectives pursued by the regime’ (Bonavita Reference Bonavita2009, 78). In this sense, an analysis of the narrative functions embodied in these two kinds of characters might help to illuminate the ways in which interracial relationships were perceived and normativised.Footnote ¹⁸

The two main white characters in Un canto nella notte and La sperduta di Allah, Renato Severi and Ugo Albertenghi, share most traits. Both men, first of all, are disgusted by the degeneration of their own land. Just returned from the front, Renato Severi is faced with an unbearable situation. On the personal level, he has lost his mother and his fiancée; on the political level, he witnesses the emergence of anti-patriotic, socialist movements, ‘a terrible disturbance of consciousness contaminated by a pernicious plague’ (Cappellina Reference Cappellina1925, 2). As a solution, he decides to move to the Eritrean colony to ‘begin a new life in a different environment’ (Cappellina Reference Cappellina1925, 2).

Ugo Albertenghi, who is already in the colony when the reader meets him, is moved by similar feelings. After having left Libya to fight on the Karst front, Albertenghi is faced with the degeneration of the country for which he has made so many sacrifices. Specifically, he is struck by the feminist movements, seeing them as the ultimate attack on the established order. Speaking with his former betrothed Doretta Doraudi, he is disgusted by her, by this ‘woman sprung out of the postwar society’ (Milanesi Reference Milanesi1927a, 213):

Once again, removal from this unhealthy environment is seen as the only alternative to degeneration. So Albertenghi decides to go back to Libya, where ‘he felt an exact correspondence between his spirit and the rough, elementary, schematic landscapes he was surrounded by, created to offer the strong ones a free space for all the images of their future and make them reality’ (Milanesi Reference Milanesi1927a, 118).

In other words, both Severi and Albertenghi strategically move to the space of the colony with the aim of limiting their individual degeneration. Embittered by the ‘tragic hilarity’ of the Versailles treaties (Milanesi Reference Milanesi1927a, 209), they apparently give up their duty towards the imagined community of the nation.Footnote ¹⁹ They renounce collective political action and take shelter in their own individual autonomy. At the same time, though, as soon as Fascism emerges, they will immediately regain trust in mass action. And so, while Severi will volunteer for Libya and eventually die in the endeavour, Albertenghi will totally dedicate himself to Fascism, defined as ‘such a great thing that the history of our days, tumbling already like a torrent towards the abyss, will be clearly stopped and will be compelled by a unique miracle, to go back to its source’ (Milanesi Reference Milanesi1927a, 229).

Before that moment, however, the homeland's degeneration has already followed the protagonists to the colonies, embodied in the sensuality of native women.Footnote ²⁰ Both Severi and Albertenghi will resist these temptations, but through two different strategies. Severi, on the one hand, overcomes the sexual danger through civilisational rhetoric. As he states in the first pages of the novel:

Renato Severi is here reconfirmed in his superiority through contact with the inferior Other. Medin, being both a woman and African, must obey her lord and, through this relationship, elevate herself to a higher societal level. The Italian civilising mission, therefore, is here metaphorised. Just as Severi is responsible for Medin's spiritual growth, so the Italian dominion over East Africa is destined to raise the spirit and civilisation of the colonial subjects.

In contrast, Albertenghi surrenders to Neschma's sensuality, ultimately experiencing a deep disgust for her inferiority. There is no attempt at civilisation, since he believes that he could ‘expect from her nothing but the schematic ideas of a primitive mind’ (Milanesi Reference Milanesi1927a, 286). The lack of a civilising mission will eventually frustrate the very foundations of their relationship: ‘His love for Neschma was but an exaltation of his own flesh, without any corresponding nurture of the spirit; he lived only for the poisonous essence of voluptuousness; an ecstatic, necessary and murderous cocaine’ (Milanesi Reference Milanesi1927a, 289).Footnote ²¹ This representation, however, does not relate only to the narrative necessities of the novel. Rather, it is rooted in the equivocal understanding of the racial determination of Arabs. Seen on the one hand as keen to integrate and basically compatible with the Italian character, and on the other as totally alien to any possibility of civilisation, Arabs were substantially interpreted within an Orientalist framework (Proglio Reference Proglio2016). Consequently, they were represented in an ambiguous manner, allowing contradictory assumptions on their disloyalty and trust, submission and pride, animal sensuality and uncorruptible chastity, to coexist.

The white man's role is invariably linked to the African woman's condition. Medin, the Eritrean woman, is the modern image of the ‘good savage’. She is an empty vessel waiting to be filled with civilisation:

As a consequence, the relationship between the white man and the African woman, described as a teacher-pupil relationship, produces a new colonial subject, perfectly known to the European master: ‘But then does the eye of the white master see the whole soul of the black pupil? Yes, my dear, I read in your soul because I wrote there’ (Cappellina Reference Cappellina1925, 83). This relationship, even if positive for the colonial subject, presents advantages for the dominant character as well. Through this relationship he can ultimately regenerate himself: ‘I [Renato Severi], in the regenerating sun, in the solemn silence of this fascinating land, burned my burden of sad memories, and in your eyes I saw the new flame of my life igniting’ (Cappellina Reference Cappellina1925, 103).

Once again, Milanesi fills the same narrative structure with opposite values. The native woman, Neschma, is as submissive to Albertenghi as Medin is to Severi. However, Neschma's is typical of the inner submission of the Arab race: ‘She reproduced the absolute submission of her race, the sense of never bothering and of knowing how to remove every shadow from the path of the Sidi and make an idle cult out of this’ (Milanesi Reference Milanesi1927a, 198). And it is exactly this strong racial determination that prevents her from converting to Christianity. The conversion, in fact, would result in a denaturing of her own being: ‘Can you empty all your veins to fill them with another blood and continue to live? No: I answer no. Then why are you tormenting me with these questions? Can't you live with me without emptying my veins?’ (Milanesi Reference Milanesi1927a, 262). The only solution to this deadlock is separation. Albertenghi cannot accept Arab inferiority (‘the more the violent and sinister demonstrations of Arab life amassed around him, the more he felt extraneous to them, driven out by a limitless disgust’ [336]), and Neschma cannot betray her race: she must remain ‘on the other side of the abyss’ (Milanesi Reference Milanesi1927a, 113).

The difference between Medin and Neschma, it might be said, is therefore articulated through a double gaze. The first is that of the white Italian man who, in Libya, recognises a difference impossible to overcome because it is rooted in the strength of the pre-colonial culture; in Eritrea, in contrast, colonisers disavow any legitimacy of precolonial systems and activate a strictly paternalistic, civilising rhetoric and action. The second gaze, however, is that of the white author. Cappellina and Milanesi embodied two different conceptions of racial and cultural encounter. Where Cappellina recognised the right of indigenous populations to be civilised – therefore endorsing a paternalistic form of dominion – Milanesi harshly refuted such a possibility and argued in favour of a strictly segregationist colonial society. However, this different approach to inter-racial encounter (whether sensual or procreative) is less rooted in the specific colonial Libyan or Eritrean environment than in an all-encompassing, flattened view of the colonies, considered as basically interchangeable.

In this perspective, the life experiences of the authors may have been critical to their literary creations. In the case of Cappellina we cannot examine this, because of the complete lack of biographical information about him. In contrast, references to Milanesi's life are easily accessible. His experience in the Italo-Turkish war of 1911–12 clearly played a major role in defining his attitude to colonial issues. Already in his first novel, the representation of Arab characters was primarily rooted in a religious understanding (Milanesi Reference Milanesi1913). In the late 1920s, at the very moment when the ‘pacification’ of Cirenaica and Tripolitania was taking place, the nationalistic themes he had developed in Anthy. Romanzo di Rodi erupted violently in the political arena. Milanesi's representation of Neschma as basically compatible to Europeans if it weren't for her religious heritage, was related on the one hand to a pre-Fascist system of signification, but on the other hand it clearly owed a major debt to the representation of Sanussyya (the anti-colonial Sufi order) as the main adversary of Italian military action. To be more clear: if the ambiguity with which Arab characters were presented surely derived from the variety of images Italians gave them since the Italo-Turkish war in 1911/1912, in a new juncture, those same meanings were maintained and risignified, ultimately operating through ‘revisione nella ripetizione’ (‘revision in repetition’) (Proglio Reference Proglio2016, 361). Milanesi's system of reference was more rooted in contemporary propagandistic themes and in a radically ethno-centric narration, than in a desire for faithful and realistic representation.

The locations of the two novels, therefore, were meaningful in their own right, but were also strictly linked to the ideological standpoints of their literary creators. In other words, it is impossible to state unequivocally that, as regards the Horn of Africa, colonial authors employed a civilisational rhetoric or, in contrast, that they always employed a segregationist one when the narrative was set in Libya. At the same time, though, it would be naïve to assume that there was no relation between the ideological standpoints of the authors and their preference of one setting over the other. Rather, a conjunction of these two elements seems more plausible.

In conclusion, in order to get to their point, both authors develop a quite similar narrative structure. Moreover, they employ the same set of values to be found in Fascist culture in general, such as the exaltation of war, the virility of the male, and voluntarism (Griffin Reference Griffin2007). The production of national, racial, and gender identities, then, is obtained through recourse to a common symbolic imaginary, an imaginary built around the normative model of masculine whiteness.