Morality in Pirandello's Come tu mi vuoi

The choice ending Luigi Pirandello's Come tu mi vuoi (As You Desire Me, 1930) has not received the attention it deserves. L'Ignota's decision to go off with Salter rather than remain with Pieri comes as close as any decision by a Pirandello character to making a moral choice. Domenico Vittorioi's view that the decision is that of a soul "that has tried to live on this earth and could not" is, perhaps, not so overstated as John Gassner would have one believe. Nonetheless, the role's being often thought of as simply an acting vehicle for Marta Abba (for whom it was written) and Pirandello's allowing Hollywood to alter the choice have lulled critics into minimizing the decision's moral significance, provided, of course, that whatever decision occurs is convincingly presented. The play's historical and literary antecedents argue for the film 's "happy" ending. The Bruneri-Canella controversy and trial which inspired it ended finally with the amnesiac choosing to stay with the wealthy "wife," and Giovacchino Forzano's libretto for Giacomo Puccini's Gianni Schicchi (1918), which is cited as another source, ends with Schiechi better off than when he began, if one discounts the negative afterworld aspects of Dante's: telling in the Inferno (30: 25-45). All the same, L'Ignota's decision offers a resolution to the quandary of identity that audiences were left in with Cosi e (se vi pare) (Right You Are [If You Think So], 1917) and the rejection of normal reality in Enrico IV (1922). L'Ignota decides who she is in a reality which audiences can accept, and in doing so, she chooses what strikes playgoers as apparently the less attractive alternative because, presumably, it offers growth.