ABSTRACT
Women's silence is particularly relevant when considering modern Italian literature, since women are hardly represented in the canon at all, but the culture of female silence affects all women writers and has been fundamental in feminist criticism. If reality is perceived according to patriarchal values, then women's silence, viewed from the outside, is a mark of absence and powerlessness, given women's modest expression in the public sphere until the twentieth century. Archetypal plot-lines, seen in fairy-tales, underpin many narratives in different genres and eras. Some of the most striking of these plots centre on motifs of silence, often women's silence. Theoretical analysis of 'the gaze' is extremely relevant to any study of women's self-representation in literature. The movement away from the 'real' and the everyday in some modern women's writing is part of a strategy aimed at deflecting the reader's attention from the writer as female.
