Modelli Narrativi del Post-Femminismo: Il Mito di Persefone nel Female-Centered Drama = Narrative Models of Post-Feminism: The Myth of Persephone in the Female-Centered Drama

Abstract

In the context of what Lotz has defined as the female-centered drama, contemporary seriality is strongly characterized by the recurrence of female protagonists (2006). It is a vast set of series, but it is possible to identify common elements, which can be traced back to the same mythical matrix, as some scholars point out. The myth of Persephone is a very present narrative model in post-feminism (Horbury 2015) and series like Alias, Veronica Mars, Orphan Black, Revenge, and Jessica Jones are examples. The myth's oldest literary source, the Hymn to Demeter, has been interpreted as an allegory of the seasonal cycle, initiation rites, and sexual maturity, and as such, the structure is best suited for putting on stage the plot related to the discovery of female identity. Furthermore, it appears that the formation of this identity is inextricably linked to the work on time, which is another key component of contemporary seriality. These characteristics can be detected to the greatest extent in series from the experimental and authorial traits, such as The OA (2016-2019) and The Queen's Gambit (2020), which we intend to investigate in the aforementioned theoretical framework.