Less than Human. A true-life portrait of child abuse in Matilde Serao’s (1856-1927) short story Canituccia (1883)

Abstract

In the short story Canituccia (1883), Matilde Serao denounces the conditions of solitude and violence endured by abandoned children in the harsh farmlands of late-nineteenth-century southern Italy. The raw prose with which Serao portrays reality from life becomes a precious historical testimony. In Canituccia, we also read the writer’s subtle unveiling of stigmas, their implicit connections to deeply held beliefs, and the ominous alibis they offer for violence against those considered weaker and, as such, perfect, expendable victims. Violence that continues to torment children, even today, perpetrated by those who are supposed to care for them.