Foil

Character Role Analysis

Prince Fabrizio/Don Calogero

Prince Fabrizio is an old world aristocrat who shows all the sense of style and good manners that comes from centuries of good breeding. Don Calogero is a local elected mayor who has used all his scheming and haggling to make a lot of money. Fabrizio holds a position of power and respect just because of the family he was born into, while Calogero has worked for everything he's ever earned. These guys are night and day, but they both exist (along with everyone else in this novel) in a pretty cloudy moral gray area.

For example Calogero is very single-minded when it comes to the pursuit of money and power, while Fabrizio is more philosophical and interested in knowledge. But this doesn't really mean that Fabrizio is all philosophical and Calogero is a boor: Fabrizio got to sit around all day and think deep thoughts, while Calogero had to hustle.

In the end, Fabrizio knows that Calogero is Italy's "new man" and that people like him will be the ones who succeed in future Italy. Fabrizio realizes that he's just pretty much the walking dead by midway through the novel.