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From Fairy Tale to Hysteria: Women in Italian Theater in the Early 1950s

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Writing and Performing Female Identity in Italian Culture

Part of the book series: Italian and Italian American Studies ((IIAS))

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Abstract

In “From Fairy Tale to Hysteria: Women in Italian Theater in the Early 1950s,” Daniela Cavallaro examines the ways in which womanhood is portrayed in two plays of the 1950s, Anna Bonacci’s Sulle soglie della storia and Clotilde Masci’s Vigilia nuziale. The pieces foreground the conflict between the image of femininity constructed by sociocultural media and the reality of women’s lives, especially in relation to marriage and domesticity. Cavallaro investigates how they present a dysphoric ending to their heroines’ unsuccessful quest for a self-defined identity outside marriage. The plays reflect the unrealistic portrayal of domesticity and female identity reinforced in the post-war period by romantic films, and contribute to recent and groundbreaking interpretations of hysteria and transgressive acts of self-expression.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Italian, School of Cultures, Languages, and Linguistics, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

    Daniela Cavallaro

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  1. Daniela Cavallaro
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. The University of Scranton , Scranton, Pennsylvania, USA

    Virginia Picchietti

  2. University of Delaware , Newark, Delaware, USA

    Laura A. Salsini

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Cavallaro, D. (2017). From Fairy Tale to Hysteria: Women in Italian Theater in the Early 1950s. In: Picchietti, V., Salsini, L. (eds) Writing and Performing Female Identity in Italian Culture . Italian and Italian American Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40835-4_7

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