Main characters
The characters of "The Gadfly" caused a lot of controversy among researchers. This was especially true for the main character. Polish literary scholars believed that his prototype was a leader of the social revolutionary Polish party. Russian readers and literary figures immediately saw in him the features of Russian revolutionaries.
The writer herself E.L. Voynich later said that only one character from the novel had a prototype. This is Gemma, whose image was based on a close friend of the writer.
Gadfly or Arthur is the main character, a revolutionary.
Lorenzo Montanelli is a priest, Arthur's real father.
Gemma is the main character's lover.
Giovanni Bolla is Arthur's friend, his rival. Gemma's deceased husband.
Zita Reni - Gadfly's lover, a gypsy.
Arthur's family secret
The young man confesses to Lorenzo Montanelli that he is a member of the Young Italy society. Arthur tells him that he will fight for justice and freedom. Lorenzo tries to dissuade him from participating in revolutionary plans, but in vain.
Together with the young man, his childhood friend, Gemma Warren, is also a member of Young Italy. Montanelli goes to Rome for a while. While he was away, the young man in confession confesses to the new clergyman his love for Cem and the fact that he is jealous of her for her comrade Bolle.
Arthur is arrested, and in prison the young man fervently prays. During interrogations, the young man does not reveal the names of his party members. He is released, and Jem tells him that he is considered to be to blame for Bolla’s arrest. Arthur realizes that the new priest has violated the secret of confession. Thus, he accidentally confirms the assumptions of fellow party members. The girl slaps him in the face, Arthur does not have time to explain to her.
The brother's wife is outraged by what happened. And in a fit of anger, he reveals to Arthur the secret of his birth. His real father is Lorenzo Montanelli. The young man is horrified by this confession. He writes a suicide note, throws his hat on the river and secretly leaves Italy.
13 years later
The first meeting with the Gadfly takes place at an evening hosted by Grassini, Gemma Bolla, the widow of Giovanni Bolla. Rivarez gives the impression of a daring man who is not accustomed to respecting decency. His face is disfigured by a scar on his left cheek; when he spoke, he began to stutter a little. The Gadfly shocked everyone by appearing at this evening in the company of his mistress Zita Reni.
Meanwhile, Montanelli appears in Florence. Gemma saw him only once after Arthur's death. That day Lorenzo was crushed with grief. He told the girl that it was because of him that the young man died, because he hid the truth from him. Gemma wanted to meet him again. Therefore, she and Martini go to where the cardinal will pass.
Is the Gadfly Arthur?
The gadfly begins to recover. He tells Gemma about himself. In turn, she tells Rivares about her grief: she believes that because of her, the man she loved and who was dearer to her than anyone in the world died. Signora Bolla is tormented by doubts: she thinks that the Gadfly is Arthur. But Rivares does not betray himself in any way.
He asks Gemma to help him deliver weapons to the Papal States. She gives him her consent. Zita says that she knows who he loves most - Cardinal Montanelli. Rivares doesn't deny this. He manages to talk to Lorenzo in the guise of a beggar. He realizes that the cardinal is still suffering. The Gadfly wanted to tell him everything, but then he remembers everything that he had to endure. Returning home, Rivares learns that his mistress left with the camp and is going to marry a gypsy.
The tragedy of Rivares
In Voynich's "Gadfly", the third part reveals the identity of the main character and the culmination of the main storyline. A person involved in the transportation of weapons is taken into custody. Rivares goes to Brisighella to help him. Gemma again fails to prove that the Gadfly is Arthur.
The Gadfly is arrested: the man lost control of himself when he sees the cardinal during a shootout. You need the cardinal's permission to conduct a military trial. During a meeting with Rivares, he insults Montanelli.
The revolutionaries help him escape, but during the escape, Gadfly loses consciousness. He is shackled despite his condition. He asks to meet with the cardinal. During their meeting, the Gadfly tells Montanelli that he is Arthur. A man confronts his father with a choice: either him or religion. The Cardinal leaves him.
Lorenzo agrees to a military trial. Rivares is sentenced to death. The soldiers were imbued with warm feelings towards him and shot past. But Arthur still dies. His last words were addressed to the cardinal, who came to be executed.
Friends learned about the death of Gadfly. Gemma is brought a note in which Rivares tells her that she was not mistaken, and he is Arthur. Martini tells her that Cardinal Montanelli died of a heart attack.
"The Gadfly" Voynich touches not only on the theme of revolution, but also on the difficulties in relationships between people. Therefore, it should be considered more broadly than just a revolutionary work.
Popularity of the novel
The work was very popular in England. In Russia it was first published in 1896, when the first congress of the Democratic Party took place. Later, "Gadfly" became widely known in the USSR and the USA. The struggle for democracy appealed to the revolutionaries of these countries.
Screen adaptations of "The Gadfly"
Three films were made based on the work. In 1985, a rock musical was staged. Also based on the novel, ballet productions were made in 1982 and 1987, which confirm the popularity of the book.
This was a brief analysis of the work "The Gadfly". This is a novel not only about the ideals of the revolution, but also about how difficult it is for a person to make a choice. This work is also about how the priority of a person’s values can change throughout life.
I express my deepest gratitude to all those in Italy who helped me collect materials for this novel. I remember with special gratitude the kindness and benevolence of the staff of the Marucelliana Library in Florence, as well as the State Archives and the Civic Museum in Bologna.
- “On the healing of a leper” - here it is!
Arthur approached Montanelli with soft, silent steps that always irritated his family. Small in stature and fragile, he looked more like an Italian from a 16th-century portrait than a young man of the 1930s from an English bourgeois family. Everything about him was too elegant, as if chiseled, long eyebrows, thin lips, small arms, legs. When he sat quietly, he could be mistaken for a pretty girl dressed in a man's dress; but with his flexible movements he resembled a tamed panther, albeit without claws.
- Did you really find it? What would I do without you, Arthur? I would always lose everything... No, enough writing. Let's go to the garden, I will help you understand your work. What didn't you understand?
They went out into the quiet, shady monastery garden. The seminary occupied the building of an ancient Dominican monastery, and two hundred years ago its square courtyard was kept in impeccable order. Smooth borders of boxwood bordered neatly trimmed rosemary and lavender. The white-robed monks who once tended these plants were long buried and forgotten, but the fragrant herbs still fragrant here on mild summer evenings, although no one collected them for medicinal purposes. Now tendrils of wild parsley and columbine were making their way between the stone slabs of the paths. The well in the middle of the yard is overgrown with ferns. The neglected roses have gone wild; their long tangled branches stretched along all the paths. Among the bushes there were large red poppies. Tall shoots of foxglove bent over the grass, and barren vines swayed from the branches of the hawthorn, which nodded sadly with its leafy top.
In one corner of the garden rose a branched magnolia with dark foliage sprinkled here and there with splashes of milky white flowers. There was a rough wooden bench against the trunk of the magnolia tree. Montanelli lowered himself onto her.
Arthur studied philosophy at university. That day he encountered a difficult passage in the book, and he turned to the padre for clarification. He did not study at the seminary, but Montanelli was a true encyclopedia for him.
“Well, I guess I’ll go,” said Arthur, when the incomprehensible lines were explained. - However, maybe you need me?
- No, I finished my work for today, but I would like you to stay with me for a while, if you have time.
- Of course there is!
Arthur leaned against the tree trunk and looked through the dark foliage at the first stars flickering faintly in the depths of the calm sky. He inherited his dreamy, mysterious blue eyes, fringed with black eyelashes, from his mother, a native of Cornwall. Montanelli turned away so as not to see them.
“You look so tired, carino,” he said.
“It was in vain that you were in a hurry to start studying.” Your mother's illness, sleepless nights - all this has exhausted you. I should have insisted that you get a good rest before leaving Livorno.
- What are you doing, padre, why? I still couldn't stay in this house after my mother died. Julie would drive me crazy.
Julie was the wife of Arthur's older half-brother, his longtime enemy.
“I didn’t want you to stay with relatives,” Montanelli said softly. “That would be the worst thing you could think of.” But you could accept the invitation of your friend, the English doctor. I would spend a month with him, and then go back to studying.
- No, padre! The Warrens are good, warm-hearted people, but they don’t understand a lot and they feel sorry for me - I can see it in their faces. They would console her, talk about her mother... Gemma, of course, is not like that. She always had a sense of what not to touch, even when we were children. Others are not so sensitive. And not only that...
- What else, my son?
Arthur plucked a flower from a drooping foxglove stalk and squeezed it nervously in his hand.
“I can’t live in this city,” he began after a moment’s pause. “I can’t see the stores where she once bought me toys; the embankment, where I walked with her until she went to bed. Wherever I go, everything is the same. Every flower girl at the market still comes up to me and offers me flowers. As if I need them now! And then... the cemetery... No, I couldn’t help but leave! It's hard for me to see all this.
Arthur fell silent, tearing the foxglove bells. The silence was so long and deep that he looked at the padre, wondering why he did not answer him. Dusk was already gathering under the magnolia branches. Everything blurred in them, taking on unclear outlines, but there was enough light to see the deathly pallor that spread across Montanelli’s face. He sat with his head bowed and his right hand gripping the edge of the bench. Arthur turned away with a feeling of reverent amazement, as if he had accidentally touched a shrine.
“Oh God,” he thought, “how petty and selfish I am compared to him! If my grief were his grief, he could not feel it more deeply.”
Montanelli raised his head and looked around.
“Okay, I won’t insist that you go back there, at least now,” he said affectionately. – But promise me that you will truly rest during the summer holidays. Perhaps you'd be better off spending it somewhere away from Livorno. I can't let you get completely sick.
– Padre, where will you go when the seminary closes?
– As always, I will take the students to the mountains and arrange them there. My assistant will return from vacation in mid-August. Then I'll go wandering in the Alps. Maybe you'll come with me? We will take long walks in the mountains, and you will become familiar with alpine mosses and lichens. I'm just afraid you'll be bored with me.
- Padre! – Arthur clenched his hands. Julie attributed this familiar gesture to “a mannerism characteristic only of foreigners.” “I’m ready to give everything in the world to go with you!” Just... I'm not sure...
“The Gadfly” (Voynich E.L.) was a very famous work in the USSR. Khrushchev even wrote out a special prize to the author for reprinting the book multiple times. What attracts readers? For those who have not read The Gadfly, a brief summary of parts will help to get an idea of the work.
History of the novel in Russia and the USSR
“The Gadfly” (Voynich E.L.) was first published in the USA in 1897. The translation in Russia was published a little later - in 1898 as an appendix to the magazine, and 2 years later - as a separate book. The work was distributed by famous revolutionary figures; many people in the USSR said that the novel “The Gadfly” was their favorite work. In the Union, 3 film adaptations of the novel were filmed, a ballet and a rock musical based on the work were staged.
"Gadfly". Summary of the novel
The main character of the book is Arthur Burton, he is a student and member of the secret organization “Young Italy”. His secret is revealed by the confessor, and the young man is arrested, and along with him his comrade. The organization considers Burton a traitor. It seems to Arthur that everyone has turned their backs on him, to top it all off, he quarrels with his beloved girl, and from a scandal with his relatives he learns that his father is the rector of the Montanelli Seminary. The young man fakes suicide and leaves for Buenos Aires.
After 13 years, Arthur returns to Italy and calls himself Rivares. He writes satirical pamphlets under the pseudonym "Gadfly". As a result of an armed conflict, Burton ends up in prison, and after a trial he is sentenced to death. Montanelli offers help in escaping, but Arthur does not agree and sets a condition: the cardinal must renounce his rank and religion. As a result, Gadfly is shot, and the priest dies after preaching.
Arthur Burton is 19 years old, his mother died a year ago, and now he lives in Pisa with his brothers. The young man spends a lot of time with his mentor, the rector of the seminary and his confessor, Lorenzo Montanelli. During one of the confessions, the young man reveals his secret: he became a member of the revolutionary group “Young Italy”. Arthur wants to fight for the freedom of his native country. The mentor, sensing trouble, opposes this idea, but he fails to dissuade Burton. In addition, Gemma Warren, with whom the young man is in love, is also a member of the organization.
After some time, Montanelli leaves for Rome, because he is offered a bishopric there. A new rector is appointed to replace Lorenzo. In confession, Arthur talks about how jealous Gemma is of Bolle, a fellow party member. Soon the young man is taken to the police, but during interrogation he does not confess to anything and does not name the names of his comrades. Despite this, Bolla is also arrested; Young Italy thinks that it was Arthur who betrayed him.
Burton guesses that the priest violated the secret of confession. Subsequently, he quarrels with Gemma, and he cannot explain himself. At home, during a scandal, his brother's wife tells Arthur that his real father is Montanelli. Then the young man decides to fake suicide, he writes and throws his hat into the river. He himself goes to Buenos Aires.
Part two
The action of the novel "The Gadfly", a brief summary of which is discussed, continues after 13 years.
In Florence, the Gadfly meets Gemma Warren, now Ball's widow. Toy thinks that Rivares is Arthur Burton. At the same time, Montanelli, who became a cardinal, finds himself in Florence.
Rivares falls ill, fellow party members take care of him. He doesn’t let Zita near him. During one of Gemma’s duties, she manages to get Gadfly to talk, and he talks about many of the difficulties of his life. She also shares her sorrows and says that because of her, a loved one died. To test her guess, Gemma shows Rivares a medallion with a photo of Arthur. But the Gadfly does not show that he is Burton. Rivarez speaks very disdainfully of the boy shown in the photo.
After recovery, Gadfly returns to revolutionary activities. One day he meets with Montanelli, during the conversation he wanted to open up to him, but never dared.
Zita, offended, leaves with the camp and plans to marry the gypsy.
Part three
“The Gadfly,” a summary of which is given here, ends tragically.
It turns out that the weapons supplier has been detained, Gadfly goes to his aid. In one of the shootouts, he is arrested and taken to prison. A priest, Montanelli, comes to the prisoner. However, the Gadfly insults him.
Friends help organize the escape, but it fails. The gadfly is again chained. He asks Montanelli to visit him. The priest comes and Rivares confesses that Arthur is him. The Cardinal realizes that his son is alive and offers to help. But Gadfly agrees only on the condition that Montanelli renounces rank and religion in general, which he cannot do.
The cardinal agrees to a military trial, Arthur is shot.
During the sermon, the cardinal imagines that there is blood everywhere.
Gemma receives a posthumous letter from Rivares, where he says that he is Arthur. The woman laments that she has lost her beloved again.
Montanelli dies of a heart attack.
Italy, 30s of the 19th century. Arthur Burton is still very young, only 19 years old, and has no real life experience yet. The young man devotes a lot of time to communicating with his confessor Lorenzo Montanelli, trusting him in everything and considering him perhaps the best of people. In addition, Arthur sees Montanelli as his only friend, because his mother Gladys passed away about a year ago, and his half-brothers, who are much older than the young man, have always treated him coldly and indifferently.
The guy informs the priest that he has joined a revolutionary organization called “Young Italy”, from now on he, like his comrades, intends to devote his life to the struggle for the freedom and happiness of his homeland. Montanelli has a presentiment that this activity could lead Arthur to real trouble in the future, but he does not know how to dissuade his ward from his plans, because young Burton is firmly convinced of the correctness and nobility of his goals.
Arthur’s longtime girlfriend Gemma, to whom the young man is not indifferent, also joins the same organization. Burton's confessor goes to Rome for some time, having received the title of bishop, and Arthur himself, in confession, tells another clergyman that he is in love with Gemma and is jealous of a party comrade named Bolla, who is also courting this girl.
Soon Arthur finds himself under arrest. During interrogations, the guy remains steadfast, not betraying his comrades in the organization, but after his release, he learns that it is he who is accused of betraying Bolle. The young man realizes with horror that the priest allowed himself to betray the confession of the confessor. Burton receives a slap in the face from Gemma, who believed that he really committed treason; Arthur does not have time to explain to the girl how everything really happened. Upon arriving home, his brother's wife Julie, losing her temper, tells the young man that in reality his father is Montanelli. Deeply shocked and disappointed in the person closest to him, Arthur illegally sails to South America, hiding on a ship, leaving a note about his intention to drown himself.
13 years pass after these events. Members of a revolutionary organization in Florence decide to recruit a certain Felice Rivares, nicknamed the Gadfly, who successfully engages in political satire and is known for his sharp, merciless tongue. Gemma Bolla, who over the years has become the wife and then the widow of a member of Bolla's party, sees this man for the first time at one of the social evenings, noticing his limp, a long scar on his face and some stuttering. Montanelli, who managed to become a cardinal, also arrives in the same city.
Gemma and a high-ranking church minister are connected by a previous tragedy. More than ten years ago, the girl, like everyone else, believed Arthur had drowned and blamed herself for his death, but Montanelli claimed that the young man committed suicide because of his many years of lies, which became known to Arthur. Nevertheless, throughout all these years the woman continues to mercilessly reproach herself for what happened.
During further communication with the Gadfly, Gemma accidentally recognizes the lover of her youth in this man, and this discovery horrifies her. Shortly after this, Rivarez begins to experience attacks of severe pain, and his party comrades are forced to take turns standing next to him, trying to alleviate the unbearable suffering. At the same time, the Gadfly forbids his mistress, the gypsy Zita, from even entering his room, which is very painful for the woman, because she sincerely loves Felice.
When Gadfly feels somewhat better, he tells Gemma a little about how terrible, full of hunger and humiliation, his existence was on the South American continent. A certain sailor brutally beat him with a poker, Rivares was forced to work as a clown in a traveling circus, regularly being subjected not only to insults and bullying, but also to beatings. According to him, in his youth he committed a very rash act, leaving his home. At the same time, Gemma does not hide her feelings about the death of her loved one through her fault; the woman openly talks about how she continues to suffer every day because of what happened in her young years.
Signora Bolla suspects that in fact her supposedly dead childhood friend Arthur is now the Gadfly, but she is not completely sure of this, and Rivarez remains impenetrable and does not betray himself even when looking at the portrait of little Burton at the age of ten. At the same time, Gadfly and Gemma decide to organize the transportation of weapons necessary for revolutionary activities to the Papal States.
The dancer Zita reproaches Rivares for not loving her at all, but only Cardinal Montanelli is truly dear to him, and the Gadfly does not deny she is right. By coincidence, the revolutionary in the guise of a beggar talks to his real father, he sees that his mental wound has not healed. He has a desire to open up to Montanelli and confess everything to him, but Gadfly holds back, realizing that he will still never be able to forget his monstrous past in South America and forgive the cardinal.
After some time, Rivares is forced to go to Brisighella to replace a comrade who was under arrest. At the sight of Montanelli, he loses his vigilance and is also captured. The Cardinal insists on a meeting with this prisoner, but the Gadfly at the meeting is not only defiant, but also downright rude, never ceasing to insult the clergyman.
His comrades are trying to arrange for Rivares to escape. But due to a new attack of his illness, he faints in the prison yard, and the head of the fortress does not allow him to be given an anesthetic, despite the persistent requests of the local doctor. Montanelli again comes to Gadfly, seeing his condition and the conditions in which the revolutionary is being held, the cardinal comes into sincere horror and indignation. It is at this moment that the son still tells him about who he really is. Rivarez insists that Montanelli choose either him or Jesus, but the clergyman is unable to reject God and religion, and in deep despair he leaves the cell.
Montanelli is forced to agree to the verdict of the military court, and Gadfly is placed in the courtyard in front of a line of soldiers. True, they try to shoot past, because they are not indifferent to this courageous man, who tries to joke to the last, despite the torment he experiences. But finally he dies in front of his father.
Rivares' party comrades learn of his heroic death. During the service, the cardinal blames everyone for the death of his son, at which point he almost loses his mind from immense grief. Gemma receives a letter from Gadfly, written by him on the eve of the execution, and realizes that again, and now she has completely lost Arthur. At this moment, her longtime friend and party comrade Martini informs her that Montanelli died after suffering a broken heart.
Gadfly - 1
I express my deepest gratitude to all those in Italy who helped me collect materials for this novel. I remember with special gratitude the kindness and benevolence of the staff of the Marucelliana Library in Florence, as well as the State Archives and the Civic Museum in Bologna.
“Leave it; what do you care about us?
Is Jesus the Nazarene?
Part one
Chapter I
Arthur sat in the library of the theological seminary in Pisa and looked through a stack of handwritten sermons. It was a hot June evening. The windows were wide open, the shutters half closed. Father Rector, Canon Montanelli, stopped writing and looked lovingly at the black head bending over the sheets of paper.
Can't find it, carino? Leave it. I'll have to write it again. I probably tore up this page myself, and you lingered here in vain.
Montanelli's voice was quiet, but very deep and sonorous. The silvery purity of tone gave his speech a special charm. It was the voice of a born orator, flexible, rich in nuances, and caress was heard in it every time Father Rector addressed Arthur.
No, padre, I will find it. I'm sure she's here. If you write again, you will never be able to restore everything as it was.
Montanelli continued his interrupted work. Somewhere outside the window a cockchafer hummed monotonously, and from the street came the drawn-out, mournful cry of a fruit merchant: “Fragola! Fragola!
- “On the healing of a leper” - here it is!
Arthur approached Montanelli with soft, silent steps, which always irritated his family. Small in stature and fragile, he looked more like an Italian from a 16th-century portrait than a young man of the 1930s from an English bourgeois family. Everything about him was too elegant, as if chiseled: long eyebrows, thin lips, small arms, legs. When he sat quietly, he could be mistaken for a pretty girl dressed in a man's dress; but with his flexible movements he resembled a tamed panther - albeit without claws.
Did you really find it? What would I do without you, Arthur? I would always lose everything... No, enough writing. Let's go to the garden, I'll help you figure out your work. What didn't you understand?
They went out into the quiet, shady monastery garden. The seminary occupied the building of an ancient Dominican monastery, and two hundred years ago its square courtyard was kept in impeccable order. Smooth borders of boxwood bordered neatly trimmed rosemary and lavender. The white-robed monks who once tended these plants were long buried and forgotten, but the fragrant herbs still fragrant here on mild summer evenings, although no one collected them for medicinal purposes. Now tendrils of wild parsley and columbine were making their way between the stone slabs of the paths. The well in the middle of the yard is overgrown with ferns. The neglected roses have gone wild; their long tangled branches stretched along all the paths. Among the bushes there were large red poppies. Tall shoots of foxglove bent over the grass, and barren vines swayed from the branches of the hawthorn, which nodded sadly with its leafy top.
In one corner of the garden rose a branched magnolia with dark foliage sprinkled here and there with splashes of milky white flowers. There was a rough wooden bench against the trunk of the magnolia tree. Montanelli lowered himself onto her.
Arthur studied philosophy at university. That day he encountered a difficult passage in the book, and he turned to the padre for clarification. He did not study at the seminary, but Montanelli was a true encyclopedia for him.
Well, I guess I’ll go,” said Arthur, when the incomprehensible lines were explained. - However, maybe you need me?
No, I'm done with work for today, but I would like you to stay with me for a while, if you have time.