Luigi Pirandello abandons pure, unadulterated Absurdism in Right You Are (If You Think So) in favor of a more tightly controlled sense of realism which serves the purpose of successfully undermining a deontological approach to the concept of the existence of absolute truths that, while perhaps falling fall short of Kantian imperative to treat all situations alike, seem to be constructed upon a rather firmly established foundation.
Reflecting Sirelli’s observation that just because neither of the two conflicting stories have yet proved verifiable, “that doesn’t prove that prove either one or the other may not be telling the truth,” Pirandello’s fable seeks to discover how morality is applied to truth. The play forcefully examines that idea that every facet of an application of morality to a philosophical questions is ultimately dependent not upon the similarities of association among people, but upon the differences arising from elements like age, culture, gender, region and so forth. Ultimately, of course, what Pirandello is bringing into question for the purpose of rejecting is the unsupportable contention that any sort of objective truth exists in every single situation.
The deeper significance of how a utilitarian approach to the relativism of moral truths is revealed to be inextricably linked to a deontological duty to first do no harm. The thematic narrative of Right You Are (If You Think So) gets replayed a thousand—maybe a million—times every day. In a way, we are all at some point in time or another what Signora Sirelli claims to be: “a pilgrim for athirst for the truth.” Eventually, this desire for the truth will work its way up the channel of command until someone in authority imbued with the confidence arising from being endowed with nearly unquestioned objective moral rectitude engages in an act deemed a dutiful and responsibility carrying out of that moral authority. The moral agent is firm in his conviction that he has done right not just legally, but ethically as well and why should this conviction exist? Because in doing his duty, he is after what everyone seeks. Or, as Laudisi perfectly puts it:
“We’ll have the Truth, the whole Truth with a capital T.”
On the other side of the action is the person who is equally convinced that the moral agent has overstepped by boundaries and engage in an act that—while still dutiful in its search for the truth—is devoid of any moral value in its discovery. In this case of Pirandello’s strange family dynamic, what has been gained by a pilgrimage for the truth that transformed into a legal quest for the Truth with a capital T?
The very opposite of what was intended. Signora Ponza is both her husband’s second wife and Signora Frola’s daughter and while both cannot co-exist as truth according to her husband and mother, neither is false according to her. A pilgrimage for the truth has revealed that even where an absolute truth exists—Signora Ponzi is absolutely both her husband’s second wife and Signora Frola’s daughter—this truth is relative. The morality of those relative truths cannot be questioned, yet since by definition both stories cannot be true—according to the townspeople prior to the revelations of Signora Ponza—the lack of any objective truth regarding the mysterious circumstances of this family dynamic suggests a lack of moral order exists somewhere. The pilgrims have reached their Holy Land only to find that truth almost never is discovered with a capital “T.”
The line which draws the curtain down on Act II is a metaphor for the entire play and, perhaps, for all deontological investigations into the existence of absolute truth: “And there, ladies and gentlemen, you have the truth. Hah! Hah! Hah; hah; hah; hah! Hah!
