Elio’s Feelings Through The Form And Structure in Call Me by Your Name, by André Aciman CLAUDIA EXCARET SANTOS CAMPUSANO College

Call Me by Your Name, by André Aciman, is a novel narrated in the form of stream of consciousness by Elio, a seventeen year old. Elio is smart for his age, and he has a vast knowledge of language. Through language, he is able to create atmospheres that show his feelings as precisely as possible when his words do not, and connects form and structure to this feelings. The form, structure, atmosphere, language, and other artifices of writing mimic Elio’s feelings throughout the novel, offering the reader the possibility to infer what Elio cannot say, but only show (through his narration and actions).

Elio is an observer and a thinker; he pays special attention to little details and lets his mind work on them, for example, the theory about Oliver’s bathing suit: “He had, it took me a while to realize, four personalities depending on which bathing suit he was wearing”(Aciman 32). Elio constructs his ideas always noticing the world; André Aciman is offering the reader a text in which he/she can do the same, notice the details and create meaning. This meanings will be analyzed in this essay; however, because of extension, it will mainly focus on the first part of the novel: “If not Later, When?”.

The first part of Call Me by Your Name...