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(2016) The works of Elena Ferrante, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.
Maternal failure and its bequest
toxic attachment in the neapolitan novels
Christine Maksimowicz
pp. 207-236
Addressing the perplexity that readers have expressed in trying to make sense of the highly charged love/hate relationship lived between Elena and Lila, this chapter suggests that the otherwise inscrutable dimensions of the friendship become intelligible when understood as the inheritance of a "furious' love earlier experienced with the mother. Maksimowicz explores Elena and Lila's relationship as an embodiment of the earlier primal one, a reiteration of the claiming and shaming love known with the mother. Drawing upon object relations psychoanalysis and psychosocial theory to illuminate these dynamics, she examines how Ferrante's exploration of a furious primal love within the context of Elena and Lila's friendship provides new understandings of maternal recognition failure and the debilitating form of shame it produces.
Publication details
DOI: 10.1057/978-1-137-57580-7_9
Full citation:
Maksimowicz, C. (2016)., Maternal failure and its bequest: toxic attachment in the neapolitan novels, in G. Russo Bullaro & S. V. Love (eds.), The works of Elena Ferrante, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 207-236.
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