Woman as the “Other”: Questions of identity in Elsa Morante\u27s “La Storia”

In the historical novel La Storia, Elsa Morante depicts the struggle of her Italian-Jewish female character, Ida, for self-discovery. Ida\u27s search for identity is depicted both as a search for her origins and as a search for her sexuality. Somehow, her repressed sexuality is connected to her repressed ethnic origins. Consequently, in La Storia the sexual and “racial” questions merge into one. In Morante\u27s novel the main character is both a woman and a Jew, thus she is representative of a double Otherness. Ida\u27s awareness of being the “Other” is not only projected into her consciousness by the outer world as a consequence of the historical circumstances, but it is passed on to her by her own mother. As she becomes aware of her origins, Ida develops a strong sense of guilt, which results in the Jewish self-hatred and, eventually, leads her to madness, Analogously, the result of being unable to come to terms with her body and sexuality is depicted as a division between Ida\u27s mind and her body. History and ideology, feminism and feminine historiography and psychoanalysis, along with the concept of woman as the “Other,” constitute major areas of interest related to this novel. The theme of Otherness is present not only in La Storia, but throughout Morante\u27s literary production. Not only have women been conceived as the Other throughout history, all kinds of minorities have become the Other as well, not only because of their lack of power but, above all, because of their “difference.” The concept of the Other enables Morante to create different kinds of subject positions, subjects that speak from an unusual point of view and who reveal new kinds of histories and realities. Morante herself is not fixed to any of these positions, but she herself assumes a fluctuating identity. She can speak as a woman, as a child, as a homosexual and as mentally ill person, thus blurring all the distinctions and freeing the Other entrapped in rigid categories