Breaking bonds
refiguring maternity in Elena Ferrante's The lost daughter
pp. 237-269
Abstract
The Lost Daughter (2006) is a uniquely non-idealized maternal narrative that centers on the mothering of adult daughters. Elwell argues that The Lost Daughter both evokes and departs from its "mother-text," A Woman. The implicit allusion to Aleramo's novel links the texts' protagonists in a project to break the ideological chain of sacrifice in mothering. In Ferrante's novel, the "crime" of the theft of a doll symbolizes the cultural crime of being a "madre snaturata," capable of non-apologetically abandoning one's children. Drawing on Luisa Muraro's theorizations of "affidamento" (entrustment), the author posits that the narrator's relationship to Nina, a young mother she meets on vacation, allows for a doubled mediation in which Nina serves simultaneously as both a symbolic mother and daughter for Leda, the narrator.
Publication details
Published in:
Russo Bullaro Grace, Love Stephanie V. (2016) The works of Elena Ferrante: reconfiguring the margins. Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.
Pages: 237-269
DOI: 10.1057/978-1-137-57580-7_10
Full citation:
Elwell Leslie (2016) „Breaking bonds: refiguring maternity in Elena Ferrante's The lost daughter“, In: G. Russo Bullaro & S. V. Love (eds.), The works of Elena Ferrante, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 237–269.