The present study provides a posthumanist reading of Pirandello's fiction, with the aim of highlighting the author's specifically modernist take on animality. The first half of the chapter illustrates Pirandello's awareness of a zoological continuum encompassing human and nonhuman beings; particular emphasis is placed on his innovative dialogue with the nineteenth-century tradition (Balzac), as well as on the typically modernist aspects of his posthumanist gazefor example the sense of a "cosmic" detachment from human events, and the strategic use of thresholds (openings and epilogues) to undermine the anthropocentrism inherent to traditional narrative forms.The second half focuses on a specific case study, that is, the role assigned to the tortoise in the short stories "Paura d'esser felice" and "La tartaruga". In both texts, the protagonist's "becomingtortoise" (Deleuze and Guattari) is instrumental to Pirandello's modernist critique of anthropocentrism.