War: Horror, Beauty, and Humanity Theme Analysis

Captain Corelli's Mandolin tells the story of the Greek Dr. Iannis, his daughter Pelagia, and the Italian Captain Corelli. It begins several years before the start of World War Two and closely follows the Italian occupation of the Greek island Cephalonia, though it also spans decades after the end of the war. In telling such a sweeping tale from a variety of both first- and third-person perspectives, de Bernières paints a rich picture of what war is and what it can mean for different people. Though de Bernières is careful to make it clear that war is shocking and dehumanizing for all involved, he also makes the case that awe-inspiring beauty can be borne even from the horror of war.

One of the novel's most tragic yet optimistic characters is Carlo Piero Guercio, a closeted gay man in the Italian army. Carlo initially finds life in the army a perfect venue for admiring the sculpted bodies of his brothers in arms and experiencing a sense of love and camaraderie that was unavailable to him as a civilian attempting to pass as straight. Carlo also falls in love with one of his fellow soldiers, a married man named Francisco. Carlo never gives voice to his love for Francisco, yet the time they spend together in Albania is one that Carlo characterizes as being wonderful in terms of his romantic life. However, this seeming idyll is tainted by the fact that the soldiers have no idea what they're supposed to be doing, and it turns into a nightmare when they're ordered to invade Greece on foot in the winter. Because the soldiers don't have proper winter clothing, many develop lethal cases of gangrene and frostbite; their maps don't match what they find on the ground, making it impossible to carry out their orders; their guns freeze, making them useless; and the Greek forces, despite being a significantly smaller group, are easily able to pick off Italian soldiers at their leisure. As the situation worsens, Francisco goes mad from the cold and hunger and finally commits suicide by jumping out of a trench and into the line of Greek fire. While dying in Carlo's arms, he professes his love for Carlo, turning his death and the lead-up to it into an intensely bittersweet time for Carlo. Though Carlo is well aware of the human cost of the invasion, it's also a time during which he is unashamedly able to be in love--something he characterizes as beautiful.

On Cephalonia, de Bernières takes a different tack in illustrating the ways in which people are able to find happiness and beauty, even in light of appalling and horrendous circumstances. The Italian occupation of Cephalonia is surprisingly peaceful; it only feels like war because of the food shortages and the curfew. Over the course of the occupation, Corelli and Pelagia fall madly in love, and Carlo falls in love with Corelli. Corelli is also able to dedicate a great deal of his time to artistic pursuits, such as playing his mandolin and leading his military choir La Scala in daily performances. All of this paints a portrait of the Italian occupation as something mundane and only tangentially connected to the war itself--which, in turn, allows it to be viewed in a positive light, as something that actually improves the relationship between the Italians and the Greeks. To that end, when Italy finally does admit defeat and surrender to the Allies in 1943, many of the Italian troops join the Greeks in mounting a defense against the few German troops also occupying Cephalonia--with disastrous results. Because of Italian indecision at the upper levels in the military, the Italians in Cephalonia are unable to properly prepare and are eventually brutally massacred by the German soldiers. Carlo dies to save Corelli, who barely survives the ordeal and isn't able to return to Pelagia and the love they shared for almost forty years after the end of the war. The juxtaposition of these stretches of friendship, love, and artistic production with instances of death and destruction suggests that, even in war, there is beauty be found. However, that that beauty is fundamentally precarious and will inevitably be destroyed, stolen, or overpowered by the tragic realities of war.