Annali di Ca’ Foscari. Serie orientale

Journal | Annali di Ca’ Foscari. Serie orientale
Journal issue | 55 | 2019
Research Article | Lost Dolls, Lost Souls in Elena Ferrante’s La figlia oscura

Lost Dolls, Lost Souls in Elena Ferrante’s La figlia oscura

Abstract

This paper aims to analyse Elena Ferrante’s use of the metaphor of playing with dolls in her novel, La figlia oscura (The Lost Daughter). With a view of shedding a light on this issue, the first part of the paper will review the prominent essays of Sigmund Freud, Ernst Jentsch, Walter Benjamin, Rainer Maria Rilke and Charles Baudelaire that question the nature of playing with dolls in terms of psychology with various focuses. These essays generally agree on the fact that playing with dolls is a strong threshold to come to terms with the self, as well as on the fact that this coming to terms with the self is by nature not guaranteed. The second part will examine Elena Ferrante’s dealing with the problem of playing with dolls and her character’s journey to death and a possible psychological resurrection.


Open access | Peer reviewed

Submitted: Jan. 24, 2019 | Accepted: May 29, 2019 | Published June 27, 2019 | Language: en

Keywords Dolls as metaphors • Elena Ferrante • Inanimate objects in literature • Self-rotation • La figlia oscura

Copyright © 2019 Nilay Kaya. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/AnnOr/2385-3042/2019/01/022


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