Traces of Trauma: Fragmented Memory and Female Identity in Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend

Abstract

Trauma theory has been a useful tool for reading contemporary women’s writing and in the past few years has been widely mobilised in order to a---ccount for novels by women writers who are often preoccupied with female embodiment, violation, and gendered subjugation. This article will put into practice the trauma theory of Cathy Caruth and Bessel van der Kolk in relation to Elena Ferrante’s novel My Brilliant Friend (2012). The novel will be read as a traumatic narrative through a consideration of the traces of the traumatic in its form, including narrative fragmentation, silence, and somatic recall. Through my analysis I will make three main arguments in relation to Ferrante’s novel. The first of these is that the form of the novel mimics the mechanics of trauma. The second argument is that Ferrante’s novel enacts and illustrates a distinctly female mode of witnessing, specifically because of the novel’s emphasis on bodily signs and symptoms, silences, and fragmentation. And thirdly, that the violence which befalls the protagonists has a lasting impact on their friendship, which vacillates between mutuality and distance. This analysis of Ferrante’s novel responds to recent work in Ferrante Studies which has been preoccupied with theorising the relationship between female friendship and the gendered experience of violence, most notably in the Neapolitan neighbourhood where the novels are set. The application of trauma theory to Ferrante’s novel is a novel one and responds to a gap in the field. The article will, therefore, make a contribution to Trauma Studies and Women’s Writing as well as to Ferrante Studies.