Caring as a Representation of Maternal Agency and Feminine Strength in Contemporary Italian Motherhood Novels

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Abstract

In my study I will show through illustrative excerpts from two contemporary Italian novels, Michela Murgia’s Accabadora (2009) and Donatella Di Pietrantonio’s L’Arminuta (2017), how the “maternal” activity of caring for others appears as the cornerstone of the protagonists’ female identity, and how this caring activity can be understood as a source of female strength. My interpretative framework is based on the genre tradition of Italian mother-daughter novels, on the one hand, and on the ideas of Adriana Cavarero and Luisa Muraro on inclination and the symbolic mother, on the other. I also refer to some basic texts on the subject of mothering and the ethics of care, such as the relevant works by Adrienne Rich, Sara Ruddick
and Carol Gilligan.