DEVASTATION IN MOTHER-DAUGHTER RELATIONSHIPS IN ELENA FERRANTE'S "TROUBLING LOVE"

• Grant number: 25/00113-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: April 01, 2025
• End date: December 31, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Arts - Art Fundamentals and Criticism
• Principal Investigator: Christiane Carrijo Eckhardt Mouammar
• Grantee: Anna Caroline Garcia Resende
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências (FC). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Bauru. Bauru , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Based on Lacan's concept of devastation and the book "Troubling love", by Elena Ferrante, this study aims to analyze the complexity of mother-daughter relationships, often described by ambivalence, identification, and rupture. Questioning the normative representations of motherhood, Ferrante's work portrays maternal relationships that deviate from hegemonic standards, allowing debates on the diversity of women's experiences and inquiring the myth of maternal love as women's inescapable destiny, in pursuit of weaving autonomous female subjectivities. The methodology used is based on State of the Art and Content Analysis, in order to use the works of Lacanian psychoanalysis to, along with the literary excerpts, expand psychoanalytic theory on the feminine and offer a critical perspective on the idealization of motherhood in patriarchal culture.