“RECONSTRUCTING TRICKERY”: SCANDAL AND THE MANIPULATION OF EMOTIONAL NARRATIVES IN DARIO FO’S ACCIDENTAL DEATH OF AN ANARCHIST
AUTHOR – ANSHUL MEHTA, STUDENT AT O.P. JINDAL GLOBAL UNIVERISTY
BEST CITATION – ANSHUL MEHTA, “RECONSTRUCTING TRICKERY”: SCANDAL AND THE MANIPULATION OF EMOTIONAL NARRATIVES IN DARIO FO’S ACCIDENTAL DEATH OF AN ANARCHIST, INDIAN JOURNAL OF LEGAL REVIEW (IJLR), 5 (7) OF 2025, PG. 666-669, APIS – 3920 – 0001 & ISSN – 2583-2344
Introduction
Scandals, by their very nature, disrupt the established order, peeling back layers of carefully constructed façades to reveal uncomfortable truths about power and its exercise. In the chaos that follows, those in charge will typically perform a fine dance of damage control, attempting to restore public trust and reestablish their hold.
A central ingredient in this game is the strategic manipulation of emotional narratives, drawing on shared fears and aspirations to influence public opinion and divert blame. Dario Fo’s groundbreaking play, Accidental Death of an Anarchist (1970), offers a satirical critique through which to view this process. Against the turbulent background of late 20th Century Italy, with its political instability and threat of neo-fascist terrorism, the play focuses on the actual scandal of the death of anarchist railway workers Giuseppe Pinelli during police custody. The official ruling of his death as suicide was greeted with general suspicion , a rich soil for Fo’s biting critique of state power and its manipulative machinery. Through the deconstruction of the absurd efforts made by the police to construct a plausible story, Fo reveals the intentional “reconstruction of trickery uses by authorities to silence outraged citizens and hold on to power.
In Dario Fo’s Accidental Death of an Anarchist, the scandal surrounding Giuseppe Pinelli’s death becomes the focal point through which Fo satirically exposes the systematic “reconstruction of trickery” by state authorities, who employ the manipulation of emotional narratives, including the instillation of fear and the promise of order, as a calculated strategy to obscure their own culpability, deflect public outrage, and ultimately consolidate their political power in a climate of social and political unrest