The Leopard

“Wouldn’t things be just the same? Just Torinese instead of Neapolitan dialect; that’s all.”

For a Sicilian noble like Fabrizio, the prospect of Italian unification means swapping one foreign ruler for another. Both will speak dialects of Italian, but neither will be Sicilian. In practical terms, unification means swapping one foreign accent for another while continuing Sicily’s centuries-old tradition of being ruled by outsiders.

“It was against them really that the bonfires were lit on the hills, stoked by men who were themselves very like those living in the monasteries below, as fanatical, as self-absorbed, as avid for power or rather for the idleness which was, for them, the purpose of power.”

The rebels in the hills light visible bonfires, making no attempt to hide themselves from the people they seek to overthrow. They are, in effect, not really seeking revolution. They are seeking replacement, and the bonfires are warning lights, designed to usher out the old nobility and replace them with alternatives in the same social structure.

“If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.”

Tancredi’s belief that things will need to change to keep things the same is a turning point in the novel. Fabrizio is struck by this paradox, which he turns over again and again in his thoughts. Tancredi’s theory becomes the guiding light of Fabrizio’s attitude toward revolution and unification. He repeats variations on this phrase like a comforting mantra.