Intimacy and Spatiality in Three Novels by Regina di Luanto

Abstract

This chapter focuses on three novels by the Italian writer Regina di Luanto and explores how she used spatiality as a narrative strategy to reinforce her critique against hypocrisy and falsehood in post-Risorgimento Italian society. In these novels, the writer investigates the relationship between men and women, in the first two with disastrous results and death. In Ombra e luce [Shadow and light; 1893], the ties of matrimony ruin the life of a young wife, as she moves between the two main spaces that eventually tear her apart. In Un martirio [A martyrdom; 1894], a diary novel, a young wife strives to share intellectual thoughts and intimacy with an uncomprehending husband, while she suffers within the walls of a suffocating home. Finally, in Libera! [Free!; 1895], although the relationships between men and women fail, the novel presents the ideal image of an inviting home, depicted as a space where literature, ideas and intellectual thoughts are discussed among friends who share a positivistic view of the world, mixed with a profound belief in science and art as a means to create a better world.

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