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The Adventures of Pinocchio
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Pinocchio
Content Warning: The source material uses outdated and offensive language about individuals with physical and intellectual disabilities. This guide includes this language in quoted material when necessary.
Pinocchio is the titular protagonist of The Adventures of Pinocchio. He is an animated and conscious puppet carved from an enchanted piece of wood. Through Pinocchio’s repetitious ill-advised adventures, he is characterized as inherently rebellious and impulsive, despite the efforts of the caregivers in his life to steer him toward obedience and temperance. Pinocchio conforms to the trope of the willful and disobedient child who believes that he knows better than his elders and therefore comes to grief.
Dramatic irony often occurs through Pinocchio’s decision-making, as the reader understands what Pinocchio should do (either innately or because this option is clearly spelled out for him and insisted upon), but the puppet always chooses tempting but ultimately unwise courses. For example, he trusts the cat and the fox to lead him to the Field of Wonders to bury his gold coins (they claim that this will cause his money to multiply); Pinocchio is robbed and loses his money. This pattern of poor choices, which inevitably leads to Pinocchio’s suffering and distress, is repeated many times throughout the fable and serves to illustrate Collodi’s central theme: The Importance of Obedience and Temperance in Children. This structure suggests that the moralistic tales Pinocchio leads represent lessons for young readers.
Until the very end of the fable, Pinocchio serves as an example of what not to do; he is an antihero who exhibits traits of selfishness, naivete, and disrespect. For example, Pinocchio sells the A-B-C book that Geppetto sold his only winter coat to purchase for him because he wants to see the puppet play; meanwhile, “poor old Geppetto [sits] at home in his shirt sleeves, shivering with cold” (18). This anecdote emphasizes Pinocchio’s selfishness by reminding the readers of Geppetto’s sacrifice for his son. In the story, there is often a clear, positive alternative that Pinocchio ignores.
However, Pinocchio is a dynamic character who evolves throughout the course of the fable; these individual adventures are part of a larger story and not self-contained. Pinocchio shows increasing responsibility when he initially refuses to go to the Land of Toys, suggesting that he has learned from his past missteps. Although Pinocchio eventually does give in to temptation, his hesitation illustrates his growing maturity: “I want to return home, as I prefer to study and to succeed in life” (74). Pinocchio finally develops into the hero of the story when he saves Geppetto from the stomach of the shark and works and studies hard to support Geppetto and nurse him back to health. Furthermore, Pinocchio uses the money he had saved to replace the rags he wears to instead help his mother, the fairy. As a reward for his hard work and selflessness, Pinocchio is turned into a little boy at the end of the fable. Thus, it is suggested that the moral for readers is that kind actions are rewarded.
Geppetto
Geppetto is a poor wood carver who decides to carve a puppet. Initially, he wants to travel with the puppet, performing to earn money, but he becomes Pinocchio’s father when the puppet—carved from enchanted wood—comes to life. Geppetto’s poverty is characterized through his threadbare home: “[T]he furniture could not have been much simpler: a very old chair, a rickety old bed, and a tumble-down table” (5).
Geppetto is a dynamic character who evolves significantly through the course of the fable. Initially, Geppetto, who fights with anyone who dares to call him Polendina (a mockery of his yellow wig), is characterized as angry and short-tempered. He initially seems to be an inappropriate father figure for Pinocchio due to his punitive discipline and anger, such as when Pinocchio runs away from home: “All he could do was to seize Pinocchio by the back of the neck and take him home. As he was doing so, he shook him two or three times and said to him angrily: ‘We’re going home now. When we get home, then we’ll settle this matter!’” (6). Townspeople understand that Geppetto would be a dangerous father figure and worry about the puppet’s fate.
Through Geppetto, who rapidly becomes compassionate and kind toward Pinocchio, Collodi highlights the concept of Ideal Parenthood; this is a pivotal theme in the fable that is exemplified in Geppetto during the middle and later chapters. Geppetto’s selflessness is illustrated when he gives Pinocchio his own breakfast of pears, when he chooses to sell his winter coat to buy Pinocchio his schoolbook, and when Geppetto searches for the lost Pinocchio for months through the whole of Europe. The epitome of Geppetto’s unconditional love for Pinocchio is illustrated when he sets off in a boat on rough seas looking for Pinocchio, which causes him to capsize and be eaten by the Terrible Shark. Despite all of the stress that Pinocchio inadvertently puts his father through, Geppetto lovingly receives Pinocchio when they find each other again inside the stomach of the Terrible Shark. Geppetto’s loving example inspires Pinocchio to save his father in return when Geppetto becomes weak and unwell. Collodi suggests that selfless and loving parents will raise children who will care for them in their old age.
The Fairy
The fairy is a mysterious character who takes on several forms throughout the course of the fable. Initially, she appears to Pinocchio as a beautiful, dead girl in the window of a cottage. Later, she is a young fairy and is Pinocchio’s sister. She then becomes an older fairy and is Pinocchio’s mother. Later still, she appears as a blue-haired goat when Pinocchio is struggling at sea, urging him to swim for safety from the Terrible Shark. The fairy epitomizes the central theme of Magic in Children’s Literature, both in her shape-shifting form and in her magical interventions in Pinocchio’s life.
Like Geppetto, the talking cricket, the blackbird, the crab, and the snail, the fairy is one of the adult figures who advises Pinocchio about appropriate behavior and sensible courses of action. This falls on deaf ears for the majority of the fable, yet the fairy is ceaselessly loving to Pinocchio and continues to advocate for him and hope for his good behavior. Her unconditional love is illustrated when she follows Pinocchio to the Land of Toys even after he disobeys her order to come straight home. He abandons her for five months of indolence with his friends, but the fairy helps Pinocchio to survive the drowning and become a puppet again. Pinocchio explains to the man who was trying to drown him, “[L]ike all other mothers who love their children, she never loses sight of me, even though I do not deserve it. And today this good Fairy of mine, as soon as she saw me in danger of drowning, sent a thousand fishes” (86). Through the ceaseless love of the fairy, Collodi describes Ideal Parenthood.
The fairy rewards Pinocchio in the final chapter of the fable. Pinocchio finally becomes a heroic character who epitomizes the values that his parental figures espoused, such as hard work and selflessness. To reward him for his goodness in caring for Geppetto and for herself when she was sick in hospital (Pinocchio sends his savings to help her), the fairy magically transforms Pinocchio into a little boy, which was his greatest wish.
The Fox and the Cat
The fox and the cat are the main antagonists of the story. They pretend to be strangers who are merely invested in selflessly helping Pinocchio increase his riches, but they are actually thieves and assassins. In a case of dramatic irony, the reader is made aware of the true nature of these villains when they inadvertently reveal that their disabilities are feigned: “At the cheerful tinkle of the gold, the Fox unconsciously held out his paw that was supposed to be lame, and the Cat opened wide his two eyes till they looked like live coals, but he closed them again so quickly that Pinocchio did not notice” (24).
The name of the magical city that the fox and the cat refer to, the City of Simple Simons, further alludes to the fact that the pair of thieves are exploiting Pinocchio’s naivete, which makes him gullible and “simple,” rather than being discerning and skeptical of the obviously duplicitous and covetous pair. Like the cricket, the black bird who tries to warn Pinocchio to be suspicious of the pair is a voice of reason and wisdom. Tellingly, the cat kills it, further alluding to his duplicitous nature. Furthermore, the fable-like nature of the story is established in the animal characters; animals are often used in fables to impart important moral lessons. Both cats and foxes are traditionally characterized as wily and immoral characters.
The fox and the cat are destitute at the close of the fable. Collodi suggests that money should be earned honestly through celebrating Pinocchio’s honestly earned wealth at the end of the fable, compared to the poverty of the cat and the fox. The more mature Pinocchio at the end of the fable, who has come to understand the duplicitous and dishonest ways of the pair, counsels them that “stolen money never bears fruit” (93).
Furthermore, the pair are punished for pretending to have a physical disability to manipulate others. They are afflicted by real maladies in their older age; the cat (who used to pretend to be blind) becomes genuinely blind, and the fox (who pretended to have a physical disability) must sell his beautiful tail for money. These outcomes are typical of the didacticism of fables. Collodi further stresses that dishonest means will lead to disastrous outcomes in order to urge his readers to live in a compassionate and honest manner.
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