“They’ve trained us to despair”. The archetype of Medea in Wolf, Slimani, and Lattanzi

  • Maria Giovanna Stati University of L’Aquila
DOI: https://doi.org/10.6093/sigma.v0i6.9504
Keywords: Medea, characterisation, victim, character, evil

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate how the figure of Medea is deployed as an archetype in Medea. Voci (1996), Ninna nanna (2016), and Questo giorno che incombe (2021), building the characterisation of their protagonists. In light of the traditional myth of Medea and of Euripides’ most famous rewriting of it, and through a formal and a thematic analysis, this paper will argue that Wolf, Slimani, and Lattanzi recover the mythological character by reducing her violence and, at the same time, by intensifying her role as a victim.

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Author Biography

Maria Giovanna Stati, University of L’Aquila

Maria Giovanna Stati is a PhD candidate in Letterature, arti, media: la transcodificazione at the University of L’Aquila with a thesis on the characters in the contemporary novel. She published “Distruggere e distruggersi. Su una costante tematica nella narrativa di Houellebecq e Siti” (Contemporanea, 16, 2018) and “Il romanzo sovversivo. Provocazione e scandalo nella narrativa di Walter Siti e Michel Houellebecq” (in Esclandre. Figures et dynamiques du scandale du Moyen Âge à nos jours, ed. by D. Bisconti, D. Fabiani, L. Pierdominici, C. Schiavone, EUM, Macerata 2021).

Published
2022-11-28
How to Cite
StatiM. G. (2022). “They’ve trained us to despair”. The archetype of Medea in Wolf, Slimani, and Lattanzi. SigMa - Rivista Di Letterature Comparate, Teatro E Arti Dello Spettacolo, (6), 288-304. https://doi.org/10.6093/sigma.v0i6.9504
Issue
No 6 (2022): Like a Prayer. Forms of the Religiousness and the Sacred in Contemporary Writings and Arts (1990-2020)
Section
Varia

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