The beach is a pervasive topos in Elena Ferrante’s writing. The beach is a structuring grip: the action progresses at the beach, important meetings and key events take place and thus open to new personal recognitions on behalf of the female protagonists. And the beach acts as a mediator of thematic and symbolic content: the beach is most often associated with disturbing experiences of discomfort, anxiety, abuse and loss, however it is not only associated with threats; it is a deeply ambivalent place and thus also a site where strong passions can unfold. In Ferrante, the beach is often a place where one can lose oneself for good and for worse and this is also the case in The Lost Daughter. This paper shows that the beach and its surrounding area serve as essential sites for the plot in The Lost Daughter and its overall theme regarding female identity, in particular regarding body and motherhood.