Josie frames the events of Looking for Alibrandi as the story of her “emancipation.” She tells readers that when she turns 18, she desperately wants to escape her tight-knit Italian family and community and become a barrister (lawyer). This, in her mind, would allow her to be able to leave behind her family’s outdated expectations and a gossip mill that can ruin people’s lives. However, over the course of the novel, Josie’s idea of what it means to be free and to be an adult shifts. Looking for Alibrandi suggests that a young person’s “emancipation” is tied to their ability to think for themselves, make their own choices, and discover who they want to be—while also balancing their individuality against familial and cultural expectations.
Josie begins the novel believing she knows exactly who and what she is: an Italian scholarship student who’s illegitimate and unpopular. Early on in the novel, many of Josie’s thoughts and actions reflect her belief that she’s just not quite as good as her classmates. Though she’s the vice captain of St. Martha’s, she resents the captain, Ivy—whom she bitterly calls “Poison Ivy”—because in her perception, Ivy is just a little bit better than she is. Josie also feels like she has to work hard to outperform Ivy academically whenever possible, because she’s not quite as academically talented. Josie views herself as an underdog, and she attributes this to the fact that she’s Italian, working-class, and illegitimate. Along with this, Josie believes she’ll have a harder time achieving her dream of becoming a barrister than her wealthier classmates. And while there may be some truth to this—Josie’s wealthy classmates likely will have more networking opportunities and familial support for higher education than a working-class person like Josie—Josie believes the expectation amongst her peers and their families that they will go into professional careers makes achieving a professional career easier.
But the novel suggests that, in many ways, Josie is holding herself back. By thinking of herself as a put-upon, unpopular underdog, Josie is essentially creating that reality for herself. In this way, the novel suggests that a young person’s “emancipation” has to do with how they choose to define themselves. As Josie learns that she’s actually popular at school (she discovers that her classmates voted her school captain, but the principal gave Ivy the job instead) and starts to care less about what gossips say about her, Josie finds that the anxiety that plagues her every day lessens. Suddenly, she can look forward to the future and let go of her fear that nobody will ever like her—people clearly do like her, and Josie was only hurting herself by believing that nobody did. As Josie starts to simultaneously care less about what people think of her and also trust that she’s likeable, Josie becomes increasingly independent and confident. And by the end of the novel, Josie feels prepared to tackle her upcoming law degree knowing who she is—and that her various identifiers don’t make her lesser. Through this, the novel links “emancipation” and coming of age to coming to a more positive and truthful perception of self.
Through Josie’s friend John Barton, Looking for Alibrandi shows the negative consequences of a young person not achieving their “emancipation” and coming of age. John, the son of a wealthy politician, has had his life set out for him from a young age: like his grandfather and father before him, he’s expected to study law, go into politics, and possibly even become the Premier. Like Josie in the beginning of the novel, John feels stuck and burdened by his parents’ high expectations of him. He’s not sure what he wants to do with his life—but he’s also certain that he doesn’t want to study law and enter the world of politics. Tragically, because John feels so trapped by these expectations, he commits suicide. Josie conceptualizes this as John’s emancipation—but unlike her, John’s emancipation came through his death, not from realizing he had the power to make his own choices and control his life. Through John and Josie’s very different paths to emancipation, Looking for Alibrandi shows just how important it is for young people to be able to make choices for themselves and feel good about their place in the world—the alternative, as John demonstrates, can be fatal and tragic.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Identity, Freedom, and Coming of Age ThemeTracker
Identity, Freedom, and Coming of Age Quotes in Looking for Alibrandi
I think things got worse when I started at St. Martha’s because I began to understand what the absence of a father meant. Also there were no Europeans like me. No Europeans who didn’t have money to back them up. The ones like me didn’t belong in the eastern and northern suburbs.
Even though the girls at St. Martha’s don’t mention it, I bet you they’re talking about me behind my back. I can feel it in my bones. It makes me feel I will never be a part of their society and I hate that because I’m just as smart as they are.
We weren’t on the news that night. Poison Ivy was, because she was in the group that threw questions at the Premier. As usual she was there in Technicolor, sitting on top of the world. No matter how much I hate Poison Ivy, I want to belong to her world. The world of sleek haircuts and upper-class privileges. People who know famous people and lead educated lives. A world where I can be accepted.
I could picture [Ivy’s] parents at dinner with [John’s]. They’d talk about politics, the arts and world affairs. Then I tried to picture them at dinner with Nonna and Mama. Not that I have ever been ashamed of them, by any means. But what would they talk about? The best way of making lasagna? Our families had nothing in common.
“It’s different for you,” he sighed. “You haven’t got any pressures in life. I’ve always had to be the best because it’s been expected of me. […]”
I was surprised at his bitterness and tried to cut the mood.
“I haven’t got any pressures?” I asked, grabbing his sleeves dramatically. “I could write a book about them.”
“You always seem so in control.”
“And you don’t?”
The first time I saw a nun without a habit, I prayed for her, thinking that she’d go to hell. But I think Sister Louise made me change my mind. I’ve never met a more liberated woman in my life and I realize now that these women do not live in cloistered worlds far away from reality. They know reality better than we do. I just wonder whether she was ever boy-crazy.
“He’s attracted to me and for once someone found me interesting, not because I was Josie’s mother or Katia’s daughter but because I was me, and there is nothing, Josie, nothing you can do to take that away from me.”
She slammed my door and I wanted to cry. Because I didn’t want to take that feeling away from Mama. I just didn’t want him to give it to her.
I felt guilty in a way. Because I go on so much about my problems, but compared to John and all the other lonely people out there, I’m the luckiest person in the world.
I just ignored her. I’m getting good that way. Things that worried me a few months ago no longer worry me as much. I can’t say that I’m completely oblivious. The gossiping of the Italian community might not matter to some, but I belong to that community.
Sometimes I feel that no matter how smart or how beautiful I could be they would still remember me for the wrong things.
That’s why I want to be rich and influential. I want to flaunt my status in front of those people and say, “See, look who I can become.”
“But what’s the big deal? Everyone has babies without being married these days. Everyone lives together and gets remarried,” he said, turning on his side.
I shook my head. “I can’t explain it to you. I can’t even explain it to myself. We live in the same country, but we’re different. What’s taboo for Italians isn’t taboo for Australians. People just talk, and if it doesn’t hurt you, it hurts your mother or your grandmother or someone you care about.”
Like all tomato days we had spaghetti that night. Made by our own hands. A tradition that we’ll never let go. A tradition that I probably will never let go of either, simply because like religion, culture is nailed into you so deep you can’t escape it. No matter how far you run.
I think my family has come a long way. The sad thing is that so many haven’t. So many have stayed in their own little world. Some because they don’t want to leave it, others because the world around them won’t let them in.
All this information I’ve gathered from Nonna and Mama, who was a child of the sixties, I’m going to try to remember it.
So one day I can tell my children. And so that one day my granddaughter can try to understand me, like I’m trying to understand Nonna.
But I think I cried more out of relief than self-pity. Relief because I was beginning to feel free.
From whom?
Myself, I think.
Ivy was valedictorian, but then I never doubted that. Simply because I guess she deserved it more than me.
I met her at one stage in the ladies’ and I realized that she wasn’t Poison Ivy anymore. She was just Ivy. As scared as I was of what it meant to be out of our uniform. She smiled hesitantly and I smiled back, and I saw tears in her eyes.
I’ve figured out that it doesn’t matter whether I’m Josephine Andretti who was never an Alibrandi, who should have been a Sandford and who may never be a Coote. It matters who I feel like I am—and I feel like Michael and Christina’s daughter and Katia’s granddaughter; Sera, Anna, and Lee’s friend, and Robert’s cousin.
