Female voice - male rhetoric (<i>Inferno</i> V)

Abstract

Francesca's speech is surprising for its elaborate eloquence. As the explanation of her drama is supported by indirect quotations, she is, in fact, using someone else's language, a male rhetoric. Her language does not prove to be a tool for understanding and remains ambiguous for the reader, divided between pity for her sad story and suspicion that she might be trying to deceive; more probably, it is her confusion as well as her inability either to appropriate male rhetoric or to create her own that is reflected in a language which can only generate contradictions.