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
Lenù, mystified and vaguely threatened by the change in Lila—a change she didn’t sense, but should have—tries to start taking better care of herself and making herself prettier. She begins taking secret pleasure in seeing Lila around the neighborhood looking skinny, bedraggled, and disheveled as ever.
Lenù is continually realizing that there are new arenas in which she and Lila can compete—and as she tries to better herself, she always compares herself to Lila.
Themes
One afternoon, as Lila and Lenù walk through the neighborhood talking about high school, the Solaras pull up beside them. Marcello begins to joke with the girls, trying to cajole them into the car. Lila ignores them, but Lenù politely apologizes and says they can’t join the boys. Marcello compliments Lenù’s bracelet and reaches out, from the moving car window, to grab her arm. As she pulls away, the bracelet breaks. Lenù is upset. Marcello opens the door and gets out of the car, trying to comfort Lenù by touching her arm again. Lila pushes Marcello against the car and holds her knife against his throat.
In this scene, Lila makes good on her threat to hurt the Solaras if they should try to mess with Lenù. This moment represents the beginning of a toxic and difficult dynamic between Lila and Marcello—one which Lila doesn’t yet realize will come to steer her life in unforeseeable ways. Lila is trying to signal to the Solaras that they don’t control the neighborhood in the ways they think they do—a move that will likely only embolden them to try to expand that control.
Themes
Marcello tells his brother Michele that Lila doesn’t have the “guts” to hurt him. Lila offers the boys to push her further and find out if she does or not. Lenù begins to cry. Michele tells Marcello to apologize and get back into the car. Lila removes the knife from Marcello’s throat. He stoops to pick up Lenù’s bracelet. He hands it back to Lenù—but he only offers an apology to Lila.
Though Lila tries to scare Marcello off, it is clear from the end of this scene that he is drawn to her. She is the only one in the neighborhood who stands up to him and his brother—and her irreverence is new and exciting to him.
Themes
