On Lila's Traces: Bildung, Narration, and Ethics in Elena Ferrante's L'amica geniale

Abstract

At the center of her tetralogy, Elena Ferrante stages the manifold issues of female friendship and identity formation, of self-actualization and self-annihilation. The story of Lila and Lena, girls turned women in postwar Naples, unfolds against the claustrophobic and violent sociocultural context of a peripheral rione. Reading through the lenses of psychoanalysis, deconstruction, and feminist philosophy, our essay provides some theoretical and interpretive coordinates, focusing in particular on the first, eponymous volume (2011). Starting with the Derridean notion of "trace" which radically problematizes the very act of writing an (auto)biography, our reflection is then triggered by Lacan's account of the mirror stage and its role in the construction of the self through specular relations. Finally, relying on Cavarero's and Butler's insights, we read the symbolic sisterhood between the two girls and their envisioning of an utopian "city with love" as a possible political model of reciprocal exchange and ethical bonding.

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