Are you ready to test The Betrothed? Review the eighth chapter with our guide, complete with summary, analysis and commentary.
Chapter 8 The Betrothed: Summary
The eighth chapter of The Betrothed is one of the most important and significant of the entire novel. For this reason, your Italian teacher will almost certainly ask you to read it carefully and to make a detailed analysis and summary of it. Scared?
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The story of the eighth chapter of The Betrothed takes place on the night between Friday 10 and Saturday 11 November 1628. In such a short time, numerous actions are condensed which happen simultaneously with each other, but which – for narrative necessity – are told in an alternating manner with continuous analepsis and prolepsis .
Thus, in the same period of time, the plans that had been taking shape in chapter 7 fail : the secret marriage organized by Agnese and the kidnapping of Lucia perpetrated by Griso and Don Rodrigo’s henchmen. The events are synchronized by the sound of the bell , which in a certain sense marks the failure of all the plans of the various characters.
Manzoni is once again clear in the message he wants to convey to his readers: human beings’ plans cannot change their fate; only Providence can decide the course of events. For this reason, the whole night of deception ends with a substantial failure : that of the secret marriage, the kidnapping, and the attempt by Friar Cristoforo to warn the newlyweds of the danger they are running.
Chapter 8 The Betrothed: Analysis
The entire eighth chapter of The Betrothed is dominated by a constant presence of irony and comedy , which in a certain sense act as a screen for the tragedy of the events recounted. Only in the conclusion does Manzoni leave room for a moment of reflection, which takes on lyrical hues and elevated tones . After the excitement and incessant movement linked to the events of the night of deception , at this point in the eighth chapter of The Betrothed we arrive at a moment of relaxation. Renzo and Lucia, after the vain attempt to contract a secret marriage, flee together with Agnese to Fra Cristoforo. It is here that, after a moment of touching community prayer that bears witness to the profound spirituality of Manzoni’s novel, the two lovers are forced to say goodbye to each other in an attempt to save themselves: the first will go to Milan, to Fra Bartolomeo, while the second, accompanied by her mother, to a convent in Monza.
Farewell to the Mountains, Chapter 8 The Betrothed
At this point in the eighth chapter of The Betrothed, we reach one of the most elevated lyrical moments of Manzoni’s entire novel : the farewell to the mountains , the moving farewell that Lucia, upon leaving, addresses to the places dearest and most familiar to her, in a tone decidedly higher than that which could belong to a peasant woman.=
We read an excerpt here:
“Farewell, mountains rising from the waters, and raised to the sky; unequal peaks, known to those who grew up among you, and impressed on his mind, no less than the appearance of his closest relatives; torrents, whose roar he distinguishes, like the sound of domestic voices; scattered and white villas on the slope, like flocks of grazing sheep, farewell! How sad is the step of those who, grown up among you, move away from you!”.