Mariateresa Di Lascia: the maternal figure and the female body in the novel Passaggio in ombra

The article deals with two important and ever-present themes of Mariateresa Di Lascia's novel Passaggio in ombra (Passage in the Shadow). The themes are those of the maternal figure and the female body. The maternal figure is mainly that of the protagonist's mother, but other mothers are also presented in the novel, those of within the village community, grandmothers, perfect mothers and those who behaved badly by abandoning their children. In the second part of the novel, however, there is the absence of motherhood in the protagonist and the decline of her life in solitude. This decline is also accompanied by the description of the body, from the florid one of the mother during pregnancy to the healthy one of the protagonist as a child and adolescent with the presence of menstruation, a demonstration of healthy growth, up to the decadent one of her solitude after the death of her step mother. The novel is therefore a story of passages that go from the light to the shadow in the events of this biography, from joy to desperation up to the resignation of the existence of the protagonist herself.

Keywords: Mariateresa Di Lascia; Passaggio in ombra; maternal figure; female body; menstruation; loneliness