WOMEN AT A TIME OF HARDSHIP: TWO ANTI-HEROINES IN ROMANIAN CONTEMPORARY FICTION
WOMEN AT A TIME OF HARDSHIP: TWO ANTI-HEROINES IN ROMANIAN CONTEMPORARY FICTION

Summary/Abstract: The present study is intended to feature two representative characters in Ioana Nicolaie’s recent novels Cartea Reghinei (2019) and Tot înainte (2021). Firstly the article describes in short the communist politics regarding Romanian women including some references to the traditional understanding of the gender roles, the patriarchalist mentality of the time in the rural areas, the feminine ideal proclaimed by communists, the pronatalist policy and the abusive measures. Second part refers to Reghina, the mother of twelve children and analyses how the writer manages to transmit through her character the stoicism as a way to deal with communist society. The third part analyses Arsenia, a character whose destiny is crushed by the communist system. Through these two characters, Ioana Nicolaie brought into the spotlight the destinies of the blind, of the mute and of the deaf women – the anti-heroines of the communist epoch. Finally, they have got a voice in the literary discourse.

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