The ethics of care in a traditional rural society Adopting a soul-child in Michela Murgia’s Sardinian novel Accabadora (2009)

Michela Murgia’s Accabadora focuses on the relationship between Bonaria and Maria, the female protagonists. Bonaria takes on Maria as a soul-child when the girl is six years old. The novel focuses on the theme of ‘the mother’ in its two symbolic manifestations embodied by Bonaria, elective (adoptive) mother and angel of mercy to the dying. While reading Bonaria as a new Mentor/Athena (Odyssey), I unravel the dynamics of this relationship with the help of Adriana Cavarero’s ethics of care.