ABSTRACT
Chapter 2 examines Neera’s privileging of a maternal order in her narrative and theoretical writings in contrast to the paternal order of turn-of-the-century Italian society. It analyzes the evolution of the theme that dominates throughout her work: the female condition in late nineteenth-century Italian society. Throughout her literary career, Neera’s narrative production becomes increasingly socially engaged as her novels evolve from making women responsible for their transgressions to denouncing society’s responsibility for female oppression and exhorting the possibility for female redemption and autonomy in women’s maternal mission. A progression can be traced in the development and evolution of Neera’s female protagonists from oppressed daughter figures, trapped in unsatisfactory situations in which fulfillment eludes them, to redeemed mother figures who find gratification in the maternal role. Neera elevates maternity and the maternal instinct to a source of empowerment for women, making her a point of reference for modern Italian feminist thought on a maternal order as proposed in the works of the Milan Feminist Bookstore Collective and Luisa Muraro.
