| First publications: Corriere della Sera, August 9, 1911; later included in La giara, Bemporad, Florence, 1928. «He was an old, crooked man, with twisted, knotty joints, like an ancient Saracen olive stump. It took a hook to get a word out of him. A sullenness, or sadness rooted in that deformed body; or perhaps a distrust that no one could truly understand and rightly appreciate his merit as an inventor not yet patented.» |
The Jar – Summary and Analysis of Pirandello’s Short Story
By Lidia Fera.
By courtesy of the Author.
The Jar is the title of one of Pirandello’s short stories. This work was written in 1906 and published in the Corriere della Sera in 1909. Later, in 1916, the story was adapted into a one-act play, and in 1917, the Sicilian author’s work was included in the collection Novelle per un anno (Short Stories for a Year).Set in the Sicilian countryside, among farmers, olive trees, and a perpetually quarrelsome landowner named Don Lollò, The Jar unfolds as one of Pirandello’s most original tales. It is a concise yet impactful piece that meticulously portrays the characters, setting, and mentality that define its content.
The story begins in the wine press of a country house, where a large jar—so large that it could fit a person—is stored. This jar was used to hold the oil produced from the ongoing olive harvest. The jar is found broken, and no one can provide a valid explanation for this misfortune, which represents a significant financial loss for the landowner. Don Lollò, who constantly feels like the victim of theft by those around him, squanders his wealth by repeatedly consulting a lawyer for every minor issue, even when there is no real need.
To remedy this disaster that has befallen Don Lollò’s property, he must turn to a craftsman, a repairer named Zi’ Dima Licasi, who boasts of having discovered a miraculous glue. However, Don Lollò’s distrust prevents him from accepting this new method as reliable. Instead, he insists on another method he considers foolproof—using wire stitches—and even demands that both methods be used to ensure he doesn’t waste his time and money. The craftsman, though offended by the lack of recognition for his innovative method, complies with the orders.
The repairer begins working from inside the jar, first applying the glue to the broken pieces and then threading wire through holes drilled on both sides. Once the job is done, he realizes that the size of the jar’s neck prevents him from escaping, leaving him trapped inside with no way out. As the symbol of prosperity is compromised, with all the characters witnessing the scene, the comedy emerges from the personal tragedy of the landowner. The craftsman, unable to resolve the situation due to Don Lollò’s orders, finds himself stuck, and Don Lollò, in turn, sees no way out except to consult his lawyer. The lawyer points out that Don Lollò could be accused of false imprisonment but offers a solution.
At this point, Don Lollò returns to his estate, the scene of the mishap, and proposes the lawyer’s solution to the trapped craftsman: to estimate the value of the repaired jar so it can be broken to free him, but the craftsman would have to pay for it. The comedic tone intensifies when Zi’ Dima Licasi points out that the jar, now repaired with wire, is worth much less than its original value and that he has no intention of paying for it to be broken. In fact, he declares, “I’ll grow worms in here.”
Here, a world collapses—a world built on security, material possessions, and an excessive sense of superiority. Once again, a mask falls: the arrogance toward the workers and a skilled craftsman suddenly crumbles, leaving Don Lollò alone, facing the incomprehensible. None of his possessions can help him; his mask no longer protects him. Exasperated, he succumbs to blind rage. While the farmers and Zi’ Dima Licasi celebrate the latter’s payment for the work done, Don Lollò pushes the jar, causing it to roll and inevitably break beyond repair.
The farmers witnessing the scene fully grasp the comedy and the futility of Don Lollò’s efforts to avoid being swindled. The story ends with the loss of the jar by his own hand. They watch helplessly, unable to reason with the landowner, who is completely lost in his delusion. Faced with this pitiful spectacle, they cannot help but burst into laughter. The mental blindness of someone who firmly believes in their own reality sometimes leads to vain, ephemeral attempts to fix what cannot be fixed, all in the pursuit of triumph over everything and everyone. Don Lollò loses his jar and destroys it himself, after having paid for useless services. Meanwhile, the true desperate ones—the workers who depend on him and his whims—laugh at his absurd despair. They can do nothing but laugh and pity the way of being of the one who commands.
Lidia Fera
Received via email on August 20, 2024
The Jar – 1909
That year was bountiful even for the olive trees. The sturdy plants, laden the previous year, had all held firm despite the fog that had oppressed them during flowering.
Zirafa, who had a fine grove on his estate at Primosole, foreseeing that the five old glazed earthenware jars in his cellar would not suffice to hold all the oil from the new harvest, had timely ordered a sixth, larger one from Santo Stefano di Camastra, where they were made: tall as a man’s chest, beautifully round and majestic, to be the abbess of the other five.
Needless to say, he had also quarreled with the potter over this jar. And with whom didn’t Don Lollò Zirafa pick a fight? For every trifle, even for a pebble fallen from the boundary wall, even for a straw, he would shout to have his mule saddled to rush to town and file a lawsuit. Thus, with all the stamped paper and lawyer fees, summoning this one and that one and always paying the costs for everyone, he had nearly ruined himself.
They said that his legal advisor, tired of seeing him appear two or three times a week, to get rid of him, had given him a little book like those used in church: the legal code, so he could look up the legal basis for the lawsuits he wanted to file.
Before, all those with whom he had dealings, to mock him, would shout: “Saddle the mule!” Now, instead: “Consult the code!”
And Don Lollò would reply:
“Sure, and I’ll strike you all down, sons of dogs!”
That new jar, paid for with four shiny ounces, while waiting for a place to be found for it in the cellar, was temporarily placed in the wine press. Such a jar had never been seen before. Placed in that den reeking of must and the sharp, raw odor that lingers in airless, lightless places, it was a pitiful sight.
For two days, the olive beating had begun, and Don Lollò was in a frenzy because, between the beaters and the muleteers who had come with their mules laden with manure to deposit in piles on the slope for the new season’s planting, he no longer knew how to divide his attention, whom to attend to first. And he cursed like a Turk and threatened to strike down this one and that one if a single olive, just one, were missing, as if he had counted them all one by one on the trees; or if each pile of manure wasn’t the same size as the others. With his big white hat, in shirt sleeves, bare-chested, red-faced, and dripping with sweat, he ran here and there, rolling his wolfish eyes and angrily rubbing his shaved cheeks, where the stubborn beard was already sprouting again under the razor’s scrape.
Now, at the end of the third day, three of the peasants who had been beating the olives, entering the wine press to deposit their ladders and canes, were struck by the sight of the beautiful new jar, split in two, as if someone, with a clean cut, taking the full width of its belly, had detached the entire front flap.
“Look! Look!”
“Who could have done it?”
“Oh my! And who will tell Don Lollò now? The new jar, what a shame!”
The first, more frightened than the others, suggested quickly closing the door and leaving quietly, leaving the ladders and canes leaning against the wall outside. But the second:
“Are you crazy? With Don Lollò? He’d be capable of thinking we broke it. Stay here, all of you!”
He went out in front of the wine press and, cupping his hands, called:
“Don Lollò! Ah, Don Lollòoo!”
There he was, down the slope with the manure unloaders: gesticulating as usual furiously, from time to time pushing his big white hat back with both hands. Sometimes, from all that pushing, he couldn’t even pull it off his neck and forehead. Already in the sky, the last fires of twilight were fading, and between the peace descending on the countryside with the evening shadows and the sweet coolness, the gestures of that always furious man stood out.
“Don Lollò! Ah, Don Lollòoo!”
When he came up and saw the damage, he seemed about to go mad. He first lunged at those three; grabbed one by the throat and pinned him against the wall, shouting:
“By the blood of the Madonna, you’ll pay for this!”
Grabbed in turn by the other two, their faces twisted and beastly, he turned his furious rage against himself, threw his hat to the ground, slapped his cheeks, stomping his feet and wailing like those mourning a dead relative:
“The new jar! Four ounces for the jar! Not even used yet!”
He wanted to know who had broken it! Could it have broken by itself? Someone must have broken it, out of malice or envy! But when? How? There was no sign of violence! Could it have arrived broken from the factory? But no! It rang like a bell!
As soon as the peasants saw that his first fury had subsided, they began to urge him to calm down. The jar could be fixed. It wasn’t badly broken. Just one piece. A good repairman could put it back together, good as new. There was just Zi’ Dima Licasi, who had discovered a miraculous glue, the secret of which he jealously guarded: a glue that even a hammer couldn’t break once it had set. So: if Don Lollò wanted, tomorrow, at dawn, Zi’ Dima Licasi would come there and, in no time, the jar would be better than before.
Don Lollò said no to those exhortations: that it was all useless; that there was no remedy; but in the end, he let himself be persuaded, and the next day, at dawn, punctually, Zi’ Dima Licasi appeared at Primosole with his basket of tools on his back.
He was an old, crooked man, with twisted, knotty joints, like an ancient Saracen olive stump. It took a hook to get a word out of him. A sullenness, or sadness rooted in that deformed body; or also a distrust that no one could understand and rightly appreciate his merit as an inventor not yet patented. Zi’ Dima Licasi wanted the facts to speak. He had to watch his back, so no one would steal his secret.
“Let me see this glue,” Don Lollò said to him first, after scrutinizing him for a long time, with suspicion.
Zi’ Dima shook his head, full of dignity.
“You’ll see it at work.”
“But will it work well?”
Zi’ Dima set the basket on the ground; pulled out a large red cotton handkerchief, worn and all rolled up; began to unwrap it slowly, under the attention and curiosity of all, and when finally a pair of glasses with a broken bridge and arms tied with string came out, he sighed and the others laughed. Zi’ Dima didn’t care; he wiped his fingers before taking the glasses; put them on; then began to examine the jar placed on the threshing floor with great gravity. He said:
“It will work well.”
“But with the glue alone,” Zirafa stipulated, “I don’t trust it. I want stitches too.”
“I’m leaving,” Zi’ Dima replied without hesitation, standing up and putting the basket back on his shoulders.
Don Lollò grabbed him by the arm.
“Where? Sir and pig, is this how you treat me? Look at the airs of Charlemagne! Miserable wretch and piece of a donkey, I have to put oil in there, and oil seeps! A mile-long crack, with just glue? I want stitches. Glue and stitches. I’m in charge.”
Zi’ Dima closed his eyes, pursed his lips, and shook his head. Everyone was like that! He was denied the pleasure of doing a clean job, conscientiously done according to the rules of art, and of proving the virtue of his glue.
“If the jar,” he said, “doesn’t ring like a bell again…”
“I don’t hear anything,” Don Lollò interrupted him. “Stitches! I’ll pay for glue and stitches. How much do I owe you?”
“If with the glue alone…”
“Damn it, what a head!” exclaimed Zirafa. “How do I speak? I told you I want stitches. We’ll settle when the job is done: I don’t have time to waste with you.”
And he went off to attend to his men.
Zi’ Dima set to work, swollen with anger and spite. And his anger and spite grew with every hole he drilled in the jar and the detached flap to pass the iron wire for the stitching. He accompanied the whirring of the drill with increasingly frequent and louder grunts; and his face turned greener with bile and his eyes sharper and brighter with irritation. Finished with that first operation, he angrily threw the drill into the basket; applied the detached flap to the jar to check if the holes were equally spaced and aligned, then with the pliers he cut as many pieces of iron wire as there were stitches to be made, and called for help from one of the olive-beating peasants.
“Courage, Zi’ Dima!” the peasant said, seeing his altered face.
Zi’ Dima raised his hand in a furious gesture. He opened the tin box containing the glue, and held it up to the sky, shaking it, as if offering it to God, since men didn’t want to recognize its virtue: then with his finger he began to spread it all around the detached flap and along the crack; took the pliers and the prepared pieces of iron wire, and climbed inside the open belly of the jar, ordering the peasant to apply the flap to the jar, just as he had done a moment ago. Before starting to make the stitches:
“Pull!” he said from inside the jar to the peasant. “Pull with all your strength! See if it comes off now? Damn those who don’t believe! Hit it, hit it! Does it ring, yes or no, like a bell, even with me inside here? Go, go tell your master!”
“Who’s on top commands, Zi’ Dima,” sighed the peasant, “and who’s below suffers! Make the stitches, make the stitches.”
And Zi’ Dima began to pass each piece of iron wire through the two adjacent holes, one on this side and the other on that side of the seam; and with the pliers he twisted the two ends. It took an hour to pass them all. The sweat poured down like a fountain inside the jar. As he worked, he complained about his bad luck. And the peasant, outside, comforted him.
“Now help me get out,” Zi’ Dima said at last.
But as wide as the belly was, the neck of that jar was narrow. Zi’ Dima, in his anger, hadn’t noticed. Now, try as he might, he couldn’t find a way to get out. And the peasant, instead of helping him, was there, doubled over with laughter. Imprisoned, imprisoned there, in the jar he himself had repaired, and which now—there was no way around it—to get him out, had to be broken again and for good.
At the laughter, at the shouts, Don Lollò arrived. Zi’ Dima, inside the jar, was like a furious cat.
“Get me out!” he shouted. “By God’s body, I want out! Now! Help me!”
Don Lollò was at first stunned. He couldn’t believe it.
“What? In there? He sewed himself in there?” He approached the jar and shouted at the old man:
“Help? What help can I give you? Stupid old man, how? Didn’t you take measurements first? Come on, try to get an arm out… like this! and your head… up… no, slow!… What! down… wait! not like that! down, down… How did you do it? And the jar, now? Calm! Calm! Calm!” he began to recommend all around, as if the calm were about to be lost by the others and not him. “My head is smoking! Calm! This is a new case… The mule!”
He knocked with his knuckles on the jar. It really rang like a bell.
“Beautiful! Good as new… Wait!” he said to the prisoner. “Go saddle the mule!” he ordered the peasant; and, scratching his forehead with all his fingers, he continued to say to himself: “But look what’s happening to me! This isn’t a jar! This is a devil’s device! Stop! stop there!”
And he ran to hold the jar, in which Zi’ Dima, furious, thrashed like a beast in a trap.
“A new case, my dear, that the lawyer must resolve! I don’t trust myself. The mule! the mule! I’ll go and come back, be patient! In your interest… Meanwhile, slow! calm! I’ll look after my own. And first of all, to save my right, I’ll do my duty. Here: I’ll pay you for the work, I’ll pay you for the day. Five lire. Is that enough?”
“I don’t want anything!” shouted Zi’ Dima. “I want out!”
“You’ll get out. But I, meanwhile, will pay you. Here, five lire.”
He took them out of his vest pocket and threw them into the jar. Then he asked, solicitously:
“Have you had breakfast? Bread and something to go with it, right away! Don’t you want it? Throw it to the dogs! It’s enough for me that I’ve given it to you.”
He ordered that it be given to him; mounted his saddle, and galloped off to town. Those who saw him thought he was going to lock himself up in the madhouse, so much and in such a strange way did he gesticulate.
Fortunately, he didn’t have to wait in the lawyer’s office; but he had to wait a good while before the lawyer stopped laughing when he had explained the case. He got angry at the laughter.
“What’s so funny, excuse me? Your honor doesn’t care! The jar is mine!”
But the lawyer kept laughing and wanted him to retell the case, as it had happened, to have more laughs. Inside, eh? He had sewn himself inside? And he, Don Lollò, what did he expect? To… to… keep him there… ah ah ah… ohi ohi ohi… keep him there so as not to lose the jar?
“Should I lose it?” asked Zirafa with clenched fists. “The damage and the shame?”
“But do you know what this is called?” the lawyer finally said to him. “It’s called false imprisonment!”
“False imprisonment? And who imprisoned him?” exclaimed Zirafa. “He imprisoned himself! What fault is it of mine?”
The lawyer then explained to him that there were two issues. On one hand, he, Don Lollò, had to immediately free the prisoner to avoid being charged with false imprisonment; on the other, the repairman had to answer for the damage caused by his incompetence or his stupidity.
“Ah!” Zirafa breathed. “Pay me for the jar!”
“Easy!” observed the lawyer. “Not as if it were new, mind you!”
“And why not?”
“But because it was broken, oh come on!”
“Broken? No sir. Now it’s fixed. Better than fixed, he says so himself! And if I break it again now, I won’t be able to fix it again. Lost jar, Mr. Lawyer!”
The lawyer assured him that it would be taken into account, making him pay for what it was worth in its current state.
“In fact,” he advised, “have it appraised beforehand by him.”
“I kiss your hands,” said Don Lollò, rushing off.
On his return, towards evening, he found all the peasants celebrating around the inhabited jar. Even the guard dog joined in the celebration, jumping and barking. Zi’ Dima had calmed down, not only that, but he had also taken a liking to his bizarre adventure and laughed about it with the wicked glee of the sad.
Zirafa pushed everyone aside and leaned over to look inside the jar.
“Ah! Are you comfortable?”
“Very. Nice and cool,” replied the man. “Better than at home.”
“Pleasure. Meanwhile, I warn you that this jar cost me four ounces, new. How much do you think it’s worth now?”
“With me inside?” asked Zi’ Dima. The peasants laughed.
“Silence!” shouted Zirafa. “One of two things: either your glue is good for something, or it’s good for nothing: if it’s good for nothing, you’re a fraud; if it’s good for something, the jar, as it is, must have its price. What price? You appraise it.”
Zi’ Dima thought for a while, then said:
“I’ll answer. If you had let me fix it with just the glue, as I wanted, first of all, I wouldn’t be stuck here, and the jar would be worth about the same as before. Now, messed up with these big stitches, which I had to make from inside here, what price could it have? A third of what it was worth, at most.”
“A third?” asked Zirafa. “One ounce and thirty-three?”
“Less yes, more no.”
“Well then,” said Don Lollò. “I’ll take your word for it, and give me one ounce and thirty-three.”
“What?” said Zi’ Dima, as if he hadn’t heard.
“I’ll break the jar to get you out,” replied Don Lollò, “and you, the lawyer says, will pay me for what you’ve appraised it at: one ounce and thirty-three.”
“Me, pay?” sneered Zi’ Dima. “Your honor is joking! I’ll rot in here.”
And, with some difficulty, he pulled out a tarnished pipe from his pocket, lit it, and began to smoke, blowing the smoke out through the neck of the jar.
Don Lollò was taken aback. This other case, that Zi’ Dima now didn’t want to come out of the jar, neither he nor the lawyer had foreseen. And how was it resolved now? He was about to order again: “The mule!” but he thought it was already evening.
“Ah yes?” he said. “You want to make my jar your home? Witnesses all here! He doesn’t want to come out, to avoid paying for it; I’m ready to break it! Meanwhile, since he wants to stay there, tomorrow I’ll sue him for illegal lodging and for preventing me from using the jar.”
Zi’ Dima first blew out another puff of smoke, then replied, calmly:
“No sir. I don’t want to prevent you from anything, me. Am I here for fun? Get me out, and I’ll gladly leave. Pay… not even as a joke, your honor!”
Don Lollò, in a fit of rage, raised a foot to kick the jar; but he restrained himself; instead, he grabbed it with both hands and shook it all over, trembling.
“See that glue?” Zi’ Dima said to him.
“Piece of a convict!” roared Zirafa. “Who did the wrong, me or you? And I have to pay for it? Starve to death in there! We’ll see who wins!”
And he left, not thinking about the five lire he had thrown into the jar that morning. With them, to start, Zi’ Dima thought to celebrate that evening with the peasants who, having stayed late because of that strange accident, remained to spend the night in the countryside, in the open, on the threshing floor. One went to buy supplies at a nearby tavern. As if on purpose, there was a moon that seemed to have risen again.
At a certain hour, Don Lollò, gone to sleep, was awakened by a hellish noise. He leaned out of a balcony of the farmhouse and saw on the threshing floor, under the moon, so many devils: the drunken peasants who, holding hands, danced around the jar. Zi’ Dima, inside, sang at the top of his lungs.
This time, Don Lollò couldn’t take it anymore: he rushed like an enraged bull and, before they had time to stop him, with a push he sent the jar rolling down the slope. Rolling, accompanied by the laughter of the drunkards, the jar smashed against an olive tree.
And Zi’ Dima won.
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