Displacements and identity in The Lost Daughter, by Elena Ferrante

representations of female social experiences

Abstract

This article proposes an analysis of the novel The Lost Daughter, by Elena Ferrante, from the perspective of feminist literary criticism, raising themes such as motherhood, sexual division of labor and hierarchy of genres, based on the works of Zolin (2009), Fraser (2019), and Kergoat (2009). Ferrante’s work brings to the center of the narrative the condition of maternal abandonment, emphasizing the internal conflicts that the protagonist Leda goes through when trying to deal with motherhood and the limitations imposed on her in this new condition. Our research interest is to show how Ferrante builds a character that represents part of the female social experiences and who chooses to break with the social expectations imposed on women by prioritizing their position as woman over the position as mother.