Pleasure of Writing: Critical Essays on Dacia Maraini

Ériture Feminine as Consciousness of the Condition of Women in Dacia Maraini's Early Narrative

Elisabetta Properzi Nelsen Eeriture Feminine as Consciousness of the Condition of Women in Dacia Maraini's Early Narrative La vie fait texte a partir de mon corps. Je suis deja du texte. L'Histoire, l'amour, la violence, Ie temps, Ie travail, Ie desir I'inscrivent dans mon corps. . . ' , Helene Cixous Entre I'ecriture Life is a text beginning with my own body. I am already part of the text. History, love, violence, time, work and desire write it in my body . ~ . There is a general consensus that Dacia Maraini's early literary production, including both her poetry and her novels from 1962 to 1974, represents one ofthe most original expressions ofItalian feminist literature.! In a profile introducing the author to the general public in the 1976 anthology Donne in poesia (Women poets), editor Biancamaria Frabotta noted that Maraini had,been extremely active in the public debate about women's liberation issues during those years and that her latest novel at that time, Donna in guerra (1975; Woman at War), was avowedly feminist (120). Dacia Maraini began her career as a writer in 1962 with the novel La vacanza (The Holiday), followed by L'eta del malessere (1963; The Age of Malaise), and Memorie di una ladra (1974; Memoirs of a Female Thief). During the same period she p~blished two volumes of poetry, CrudeIta all'aria aperta (1966; Cruelty in the open air) and Donne mie (1974; Women of tiline). Her literary activity also extended into the area of theater: she was founder and president of the Roman feminist theater association La Maddalena during the 1970s. 77 Elisabetta Properzi Nelsen Given this body of work, one can see that these years were a period of active exploration of various types of writing for the author. The range ofMaraini's output is indicative of her effort to master the tools of her craft and, at the same time, to introduce new forms of literary expression with respect to both content and style. The search for, and achievement of, these new ways of writing derived from an in-depth analysis of women's role in society, and consequently, of women's role as writers. In this context, we need to ask which novels by female authors could have served as models for writers seeking to create new modes of representing women in literature. We also need to keep in mind that the issue was not so much a question of themes as one of style and language. Without a doubt, one of the earliest feminist works to appear in Italy was Sibilla Aleramo's Una donna (1906). Her autobiographical narration became a prototype of an exemplary and extremely topical literary genre: the firsthand account of . -women's conditions in Italy presented from the perspective of a rigorously Marxist ideological framework. Four decades later, the years after World War II were a period in which women writers flourished, and perhaps the three most significant works produced by them were Natalia Ginzburg's Estato COSl (1947), Anna Banti'sArtemisia (1947), and Elsa Morante's Menzogna e ·sortilegio (1948). At the time of their publication, the prevailing literary climate in Italy was largely dominated by the interests of male literary traditions of the 1940s, which centered on the historical novel, prosa d'arte, and the increasingly influential neorealist movement in literature. These interests tended to inhibit, if not obscure, the widespread appreciation of the author's gender difference and of its literary representation . In addition, all three writers mentioned always rejected being labeled feminist authors, insisting instead upon the neutrality of the writer's role and psyche and on the "objectivity of every human experience" represented in a novel (Morante, "Nove" 23). The human drama of the novelist, however, can also include the drama of acknowledging one's own sex, and consequently, that of the woman writer's different frame of reference in her journey ofexploration through the real world. In Ginzburg's Estato COSl, the main character is perhaps the closest precursor of Enrica in L'eta del malessere and -Vanna 78 Ecriture Feminine and Maraini's Early Narrative in Donna in guerra. Through the device of an inner-and later written-confession, the narrator-protagonist in E stato COSl recounts the motives that drove her to kill her husband. In spare and somber prose, Ginzburg's petite bourgeoise, betrayed and rejected by her husband, affirms her identity by murdering him...