In “The Story of The Lost Child”, Elena’s fame widens as a lecturer during the feminist movement but she faces a struggle between choosing her strongest loyalties. I really like how Ferrante genuinely highlights the conflict women must endure between professional life, romance, and family.

Elena spends time away from her children and feels guilty, while simultaneously feeling happiness thinking of her time with Nino. She states, “I soon discovered I was getting used to being happy and unhappy at the same time as if that were the new, inevitable law of my life” (76).

Elena also struggles with her romantic life. She displays an inconsistency between her feminist rhetoric and her actions towards Nino. She states, “Although I now wrote about women’s autonomy and discussed it everywhere, I didn’t know how to live without his body, his voice, his intelligence. It was terrible to confess it but I still wanted him, I loved him more than my own daughters….the free and educated woman lost her petals, separated from the woman-mother and the woman-mother was disconnected from the woman-lover from the furious whore, and we all seemed on the point of flying off in different directions” (100). I find this quote incredibly compelling. It perfectly showcases the conflict inside of Elena between her professional, romantic, and family life. She is angered with herself because of the natural desires she has for Nino, while she preaches about women’s independence. She categorizes herself into varying types of women – woman lover, woman mother, and furious whore – and she finds it hard to exist in harmony as all three of those women.