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
Pasquale and Rino return to the shop. Pasquale says he has to get back to work at the construction site, but he invites Rino and Lila to Gigliola’s on Sunday before he goes. Rino says they’ll think about it. Pasquale looks longingly at Lila, who is not paying any attention to him. Lenù begins to feel irritated. She tries to distract herself by talking some more with Lila about the Melina and Donato situation, but Rino reminds Lila that they must get back to work.
Lenù is disheartened once again as she realizes that Pasquale is truly only interested in Lila—and that Lila is perhaps truly only interested in the work she and Rino are doing together. Lenù feels alone, isolated, and unwanted.
Themes
Rino pulls from beneath the counter a wooden form, several pieces of leather, and some tools. Lila tells Lenù that they are at work making a man’s traveling shoe, only able to make progress for a few minutes each day while their father is upstairs napping. Rino makes Lenù swear she won’t tell anyone what the two of them are up to. Any attempts to bring up the idea of making new fancy shoes rather than just fixing up old ones sends Fernando into a rage. Lenù feels happy that Rino and Lila have a project, but she is disheartened by the fact that Lila is so enchanted by such a simple pursuit.
As Lila and Rino tell Lenù about their shoemaking project, Lenù finds herself flattened and saddened by how low Lila has aimed her sights. Lenù, like Maestra Oliviero, believes that Lila should be putting her mind to use—not sacrificing her future in pursuit of some vague sense of security.
Themes
At the door of the shop, Lenù tells Lila that Maestra Oliviero has convinced her parents to let her continue on to high school. Lila, in response, asks: “What is high school?” Lenù explains that she is going to study Greek. Lila looks as if she is “at a loss.” She hesitates a moment before declaring that last week, she got her period.
In this passage, Ferrante shows how, when Lila and Lenù feel threatened, they seek to one-up each other. When Lenù tells Lila about her plans for high school, Lila pretends not to know what high school even is—and then she offers Lenù a new piece of information about her own personal advancement.
Themes
