The Leopard by Giuseppe di Lampedusa is set in 1860 during the unification of Italy. The decision to unify Italy ended the Sicilian aristocracy. Giuseppe di Lampedusa wrote The Leopard based on his life story; his family was stripped of their title when Italy became a unified country much like the main character’s family. Lampedusa uses characterization to shows how different the aristocracy is from other classes and how Sicilians are compared to Northerners. The Leopard is about an old aristocratic Sicilian family losing all of is class status in a modern, democratic Italy. What that being said, you would think the characters who are members of the Sicilian aristocracy would try and stop this from occurring. Prince Fabrizio doesn’t put up…show more content… Lampedusa describes each aristocrat character in The Leopard as being prideful in their own way. They also each have the similar reasoning behind why they are so arrogant: years of noble blood, and never having to worry about money. Tancredi justifies his opinion of Concetta having “too high an opinion of herself” by saying, “she’s never left here; she might never feel at home in a place where one has to arrange a week ahead for a plate of macaroni” (Lampedusa, 165). Concetta is the only child of Fabrizio who is mentioned often in the book. She considers herself better than others because of her noble blood. Most like the other members of the Sicilian aristocracy, Concetta is a product of her culture. She knows no other life than the life of an aristocrat. Prince Fabrizio is first described as having “a lint of pride flashed in his light blue eyes at this fleeting confirmation of his lordship over both human beings and their work” (Lampedusa, 7). Fabrizio is convinced that he rules the world because he was born into royal blood. Tancredi is described as charming and an opportunist. He “thought he could allow himself anything” (Lampedusa, 27). Tancredi, Fabrizio’s nephew, won Fabrizio’s heart with his charm and intelligence. The relationship between Tancredi, Fabrizio, and Paolo mirrors the changes happening in Sicilian society. People are no longer…show more content… First, let’s take a look at how Northerners see Sicilians. Lampedusa shows the reader in chapter four how these two cultures see other with Prince Fabrizio’s conversation with Count Chevalley. Prince Fabrizio explains to Count Chevalley why Sicilians are seen as lazy and entitled. “The Sicilians never want to improve for the simple reason that they think themselves perfect; their vanity is stronger than their misery; every invasion by outsiders…upsets their illusion of achieved perfection, risks disturbing their satisfied waiting for nothing…they consider they have an imperial past which gives them a right to a grand funeral” (Lampedusa, 183). The Sicilian think that they have earned the right the be lazy and entitled. According to Prince Fabrizio, they only want “sleep” (Lampedusa, 177). They want peace and quiet. They want to rest. When we look at how other Sicilians from different classes see the aristocracy, we find that the Church sees them as a different breed of people. Father Pirrone hypothesizes why they seem so different, “perhaps they appear so strange to us because they have reached a stage toward which all those who are not saints are moving, that of indifference to earthly goods through surfeit” (Lampedusa, 196). To Father Pirrone, aristocrats are of a completely different type of people. They seem to have no interest in money or property, but