Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in My Brilliant Friend, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Female Friendship
Masculine vs. Feminine Violence
Women’s Work
Poverty, Social Climbing, and Sacrifice
The Uses of Community
Love, Sex, and Strategy
Summary
Analysis
That same afternoon, Maestra Oliviero shows up at the Greco house and forces Lenù’s parents to promise they will enroll her in the nearest classical high school—she even offers to buy Lenù’s books herself. She also tells them that Lenù has been seen with Pasquale Peluso, and they reprimand Lenù. Before leaving, Maestra Oliviero urges Lenù to tell Lila that she is going to high school to study Greek.
Maestra Oliviero continues to show that she is invested in the continuation of Lenù’s education. In urging Lenù to tell the hotheaded, jealous Lila about her plans, Maestra Oliviero hopes to make Lila jealous and contemptuous enough to pursue an education even in the face of her parents’ resistance.
Themes
That evening, shouts from the stairwell interrupt Lenù’s arguments with her parents over school and Pasquale. They open the door to find that Melina is having “a new crisis of madness.” Her daughter Ada is shouting for her to stop jumping on the bed. Lenù’s mother goes out to find out more details and comes home reporting that someone has delivered to Melina a book of poems written by Donato Sarratore—he has inscribed the book for her and pointed out the poems she inspired. Melina’s impassioned shrieks of joy continue all night. Lenù is amazed by the fact that someone from her neighborhood, someone she knows, has written and published a book. She feels a renewed sense of possibility about getting rich through writing.
Lenù has been having doubts about the value of education and about her own ability to surpass Lila as a reader and writer. However, upon realizing that someone she knows has written and published a book, she begins to believe that there is hope for her as a writer—and thus hope for the childhood dreams she and Lila used to share.
Themes
