Treasure to Trash, Trash to Treasure: Dolls and Waste in Italian Children’s Literature

Dolls are linked to trash and/or feces in Italian literature as early as Straparola’s fairy tale, “La poavola” (1550s). This bond recurs more regularly in Italian children’s stories produced by women writers between the late 19^th and the late 20^th centuries—a time of increased social and psychological preoccupation with waste. Texts such as Contessa Lara’s Il romanzo della bambola (1896), Morante’s Le straordinarie avventure di Caterina (1942/1959), Pitzorno’s La bambola dell’alchimista (1988) and La bambola viva (1994), and Ziliotto’s La bambola, la pazza (1993) represent dolls and trash as, among other things, the otherness fundamental to the formation of the protagonist’s identity.