Text

theses

In my dissertation, I intend to explore the domestic space in which women were segregated. The analysis of the representation of the domestic space will lead to a peculiar aspect of it: the definition of a fantastic space within the domestic space. The critical analysis will be restricted to Italian women writers between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, no later than the immediate aftermath of WWI. This project will be divided into three chapters. In the first Chapter I give a general introduction to women's situation right after the Unification of Italy (1961) addressing particularly the necessity to kill the image of the Angel of the House. After this general introduction, I discuss the theoretical approaches that I use during my analysis of the literary texts. Butler’s theory on performative gender and Cixous’s idea of stolen bodies will help me to demonstrate the necessity for women to participate in the process of doing and undoing their own selves to start the re-appropriation of their own bodies stolen by the patriarchal system. In addition to that I also address De Certau and Bachelard’s sociological approaches. In the second chapter I start the analysis of the fantastic space with what I define as fantasma, which is the space that women create within the domestic walls in order to survive the domestic tyranny. Through the literary works of Contessa Lara, Marchesa Colombi, Matilde Serao, and Neera, I argue that the fantastic space, and not the house, is the intimate space for women where they experience life and their real selves. The fantasma becomes the tactic to deal with the house that represents the strategy ruled by the patriarchy. In the third chapter, I continue my analysis of the fantastic space through the narratives of Maria Messina and Sibilla Aleramo, showing how the fantasma slowly becomes a more defined space in the first two decades of the 20th century, even though women were still subdued by male power.

ETD_6742

Ph.D.

Includes bibliographical references

by Silvia Tiboni-Craft

doi:10.7282/T3TH8PP0

ETD doctoral

The author owns the copyright to this work.