Neapolitan Mothers: Three Generations of Women, from Representations to Reality

Literary representations, stereotypes rooted in time, have cut across an extremely complex and irregular reality to create monolithic and enduring images of southern Italian women and mothers. Some of the most widely known literary and theatrical representations of the Neapolitan mothers are discussed in the first section of the chapter. This is followed by stories taken from the real world: in the second and third sections, we examine the lives of two women which to some extent resonate with the images created by writers. The story of Rosa, as well as offering the picture of a mother that in some respects is traditional, introduces the theme of the lifecycle and social transformation across the generations. The final section deals with a broader picture, of women in the city and the country from three different generations, which allows us to describe trajectories of cultural and social change. The sources include life stories and family histories collected at the University of Naples, from 1994 onwards.