Fear,Body And Redemption:The Feminist Geography Of Ferrante's The Neapolitan Novels

Since the publication of the Italian contemporary female writer Elena Ferrante's the Neapolitan Novels(the Neapolitan Tetralogy)in 2012,it has attracted readers worldwide because its digging into the themes of women's growth,women's friendship and female genealogy,as well as its artistic reproduction of the political,economic and social changes in Italy and Europe after World War II.As the “tetralogy of fear”,the external space-the home space and the public space,as well as the body space described in the novels are both covered by fear.Women in these male-dominated space are threatened by violence,with their bodies disciplined,thoughts restricted,and psychology traumatized.Focusing on the emotion of fear,this paper analyzes the external space in which the heroines' fear generated,explores the embodiment of fear in the female body space,and digs into the connotation of their failure when they deal with fear and the spatial displacement that occurs when redemption is achieved from the perspective of feminist geography.Specifically,this paper consists of the following three parts.The first chapter focuses on the external space in which women's fear generates.It mainly discusses the threat of violence and the polarization between the rich and the poor on women's safety in male-dominant space.For the women in the Neapolitan Tetralogy,the family is no longer a warm harbor or a safe haven.On the contrary,the authoritarian and violent fathers,husbands,brothers and other males put women at risk;the image of the mothers also challenges the conceptualized standards of motherhood or femininity.In the wider public space outside the family space,there are also countless scenes of fear.The barbaric community is economically backward,the social ideas are conservative,and the level of education is low,which are the reasons for the Neapolitans' identity of being the “plebes” that women find hard to get rid of.At the same time,murder,riots,deaths and other bloody incidents that may occur anywhere in the city also make people tremble with fear.The second chapter analyzes the embodiment of fear in the female body,that is,the physiological phenomenon of fear in the body.The fear from the external space has deeply invaded the female body space.On the one hand,fear disciplines her body posture,facial expressions,clothing,and forces her to use special language to name,express,and imagine.She has to keep her head down on the chest,or learn to use aggressive,rude dialect to show her fitting into or defense against the environment;or she should speak elegant standard Italian to show alienation and self-protection.Onthe other hand,fear destroys women's bodymind,leading to the emergence of diseases,causing psychological disorders,mental disorders,and further affecting her behavior patterns,making her unsteady,and broken.The third chapter explores the different ways women cope with fear,so as to explore the underlying reasons for women's fear and find ways for women to obtain redemption.Lila,who stays in Naples,turns to money,knowledge and tries to establish her own authority to replace male authority,but fails.Elena leaves Naples and works hard to make her voice heard,to find a room belonging to her own-a study,but falls into the trap of women's liberation.As a result,the study becomes a kitchen.So the two heroines choose to return to Naples in different ways.Lila looks for the traces of Naples in the library and in every corner of the city,binding the history and the reality,which allows her to let go of the fear of “the disappearance of the boundary”.Then she can calmly and completely erase herself.And Elena recalls everything that happened in the past,and returns to Lila and Naples through female writing(écriture féminine).With her pen,all sin and fear are cleared,and the soul rests in peace.