The mobilization of affections and icons related to housework in Lacci, by Domenico Starnone

Abstract

In this article, we analyze Domenico Starnone’s novel Lacci (2014), considering its translation into Portuguese titled Laços (2018). We approach the text from the perspective of Spinoza’s theory of affects (2029), in connection with the concept of icon elaborated by Chnaiderman (1989), and Federici's (2019) studies on the need to value domestic labor. First, the study identifies the affections and icons present in the discourses of the three narrative characters. Subsequently, it seeks to understand how domestic labor influences the triggering of affects in order to expand the reading, adapting it to the historically portrayed context of the developments of the second wave of feminism in Italy. In this combination of perspectives, it is understood how the three fundamental aspects of the novel relate, presenting itself as a meticulous and reflective examination of the dynamics of the distribution and (de)valuation of domestic labor among the members of a marriage-instituted relationship.