In her book The Coherence of Gothic Conventions, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick writes, "Of all the Gothic conventions dealing with the sudden, mysterious, seemingly arbitrary, but massive inaccessibility of those things that should normally be most accessible, the difficulty the story has in getting itself told is of the most obvious structural significance" (13). In The Italian, however, this problem appears to be less of an issue than in other Gothic novels. In Edgar Huntly, Caleb Williams, and other novels with a first person perspective, it is exactly the fortuitous nature of the narratives that provides this instability. If Edgar, for example, had been struck by one of Sarsefield's bullets while plunging into the Delaware, the story, as framed, could not have been recounted. The Italian takes advantage of an omniscient narrator who eschews those narrative conventions which destabilize Edgar Huntly.

The destabilization of The Italian takes another form: that of the diverging story-lines. From the beginning, one can see that the end of the story will occur exactly when Vivaldi and Ellena are reunited--the conflict established by the story is thus resolved. To reunite characters in The Italian is to reunite their stories. Two characters are "together" when one narrator can discuss both characters at the same time. "Good" characters bring stories together (Paulo is the best example) while evil (Schedoni) separates those narratives which wish to be together.

The best example of diverging narratives in The Italian occurs in Celano as Vivaldi and Ellena are about to marry - a teaser scene which mimics the conditions necessary for concluding the novel. Schedoni arrives with his phony officers of the Inquisition:

Ellena's fears for Vivaldi entirely overcoming those for herself, she entreated, that he would suffer himself to be conveyed to the Benedictines; but he could not be prevailed with to leave her. The officials, howeer, prepared to separate them; Vivaldi in vain urged the useless cruelty of dividing him from Ellena, if, as they had hinted, she also was to be carried to the Inquisition; and as ineffectually demanded whither they really designed to take her.

'We shall take good care of her, Signor,' said an officer, 'that is sufficient for you. It signifies nothing whether you are going the same way, you must not go together.'

'Why, did you ever hear, Signor, of arrested persons being suffered to remain in company?' said another ruffian, 'Fine plots they would lay! I warrant they would not contradict each other's evidence a tittle.' (222)