Sirene mute. Rapporti di potere e conflitti di genere nelle distopie contemporanee scritte da donne

Abstract

The paper deals with an analysis of the novel Sirene by Laura Pugno in 2007, along with other more recent dystopias written by women. These texts share recurring thematic elements, including the portrayal of an androcentric society that subjugates women, ecological catastrophe, childlessness, and the symbolic violence of language. Central to these narratives is the exploration of language as a tool of gender-based oppression. In Pugno’s novel, the sirens’ feral and unsettling silence embodies an irreparable rupture between humanity and nature. At the same time, the prospect of a final, residual form of salvation is entrusted to the feminine capacity to reinvent alternative, posthuman, and estranged modes of expression capable of resisting hegemonic ideology.