In the name of the father, the son and the mother

maternal storm in Die, my love, by Ariana Harwicz

Abstract

In the book Die, my love, by Argentinian writer Ariana Harwicz, we come across a story marked by dark feelings about motherhood. The book runs counter to narratives that value and praise the family. We have chosen three significant moments to propose a reading of Harwicz’s book, highlighting its moments of shock and contrast with previous family narratives. A journey that begins with the birth of the family drama in Diderot’s play The Natural Son, placing the family as the core of virtue and good feelings, passes through the distrust of paternity in Strindberg’s The Father, with the home as a place of crisis, and finally arrives at Die, my love, which narrates the interdicts on motherhood. In this way, we highlight how the book presents itself as a radical contrast to the fable of family harmony, expressing what has been suffocated by a certain tradition.