Rewriting the ending of Pinocchio trough words and pictures

Abstract

Many literary critics and writers do not appreciate the happy end of Pinocchio, in which the rebellious puppet is turned into a bourgeois child. Some of them have even supposed that Carlo Collodi did not write the ending, but it is a groundless assumption. Others, such as Garroni and Manganelli, can accept this conclusion, but only by rewriting the story: at the end, the puppet is not really transformed, he is dead.

In the first part of this article, after examining these interpretations and rewritings, I will demonstrate that this criticized ending is a very complex and subtle construction, in which the author reworks narrative patterns of some French fairy tales he translated in 1875, based on the final metamorphosis of the hero as a reward.  In this case, there is not a transformation, but a duplication so that the hero can build his identity through both identifying with and differentiating himself from the puppet. As the witty and ironical remark closing the novel suggests, the hero is not really a «good boy», but simply a boy who is more mature and responsible.

This is an ambiguous ending, showing at the same time the positive evolution of the character and the dramatic aspect of any change: the lifeless puppet leaning against the chair represents the part of himself that Pinocchio has lost growing up. The second part of this article focuses on the illustrations of this ending. Some illustrators try to represent the pedagogical value of this conclusion. Others, refusing his supposed moralism, rewrite the ending with images in order to exasperate his tragic and doleful aspects, as Garroni and Manganelli do through their words.