Evil Mothers, Bad Mothers

Otherness of Motherhood in Literature and Film

Abstract

Over the last few years, literary and film narratives have increasingly explored some issues that are connected with pregnancy and giving birth to a new life and are still largely perceived as social taboos, i.e. post-partum depression and the totality of sensations, experiences and contradictory stimuli that a woman may live through as she becomes a mother.

Characterised by a combination of moralistic intentions and outbursts of compassion, Italian literature has been dealing with these topics at least since the 19th century. One may here mention, for instance, the infanticide Grazia, protagonist of Verga’s novella Vagabondaggio or the autobiographical voice of Aleramo’s A Woman at Bay.

The enormous social pressure on the suffering of neo-mothers has widely inspired both Italian literature and cinema produced in the past twenty years. With more or less width and awareness these narratives have undoubtedly been affected by a greater public sensitivity towards these women’s psychological and emotional conditions. Moreover, these representations have undeniably benefited from the renowned debate on motherhood inherent to different strands of feminism, as they openly criticised those values and models aimed at disciplining female bodies and behaviours.

By analysing two novels (Cattiva by Rossella Milone, and Svegliami a mezzanotte by Fuani Marino), and two films (Tutto parla di te by Alina Marazzi, and Ninna Nanna, by Germani and Russo), our contribution wishes to investigate, at the same time, the modes in which neo-mothers confront the suffocating model of “the good mother”, ready for a the ultimate self-sacrifice, along with their feelings of ambivalence and otherness (towards the baby, their own bodies, or the pressure of new responsibilities), which may lead them to identify themselves as “bad mothers”, and to experience solitude, deep uneasiness and lack of understanding.