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
Lila is “moved and altered” by Pasquale’s explanations of the darker systems which move society. Lila becomes obsessed with naming people in the neighborhood who were rumored to be Fascists during the war, with calling out whose cars and homes have been purchased with dirty money, and with the shadowy presence of the Camorra.
Lila’s social and political awakening marks a new chapter in her life—she has long harbored a desire to stand up to injustice and imbalances of power, but now she has a greater understanding of how these systems might be singled out or even dismantled.
Themes
Though Lila credits Pasquale with teaching her all these things about the world, she soon becomes uninterested in him. She begins devouring library books about World War II, the Allies, and Italian history. She tries to figure out who in the neighborhood is a Communist, who is a Camorrist, and who is a fascist. Lenù feels that this newfound knowledge “enclose[s]” her in the terribleness of the world, with no escape. Soon, Lenù observes, it is Pasquale who hangs on Lila’s every word. Lenù believes that the two of them will get married and will “always be talking about these political things.” As school starts, Lenù is sad to have less time for Lila—but she’s relieved to not have to think about “the sum of the misdeeds and compliances and cowardly acts” for which her neighbors are responsible.
Lila has always taken her education into her own hands—and now, she does what she has always done and focuses on teaching herself the things she wants to know. Lenù feels removed from Lila during this period, showing that just as books, language, literature, and knowledge are often a point of connection for the two of them, such things are just as often a source of division and difference.
Themes
