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
Rino comes down with a violent fever and, soon after, begins sleepwalking each night. Lila and Nunzia must drag him back to bed from the front door of the apartment. Fernando tells Lila that Marcello’s proposal is important and he urges her to accept it—he tells her she won’t have to get married right away. Lila quietly replies that she’d rather drown herself in a pond. Lenù is stunned by the news that Lila, not even 15, has received an offer of marriage. She encourages Lila to go to “war” against her father if she has to, promising to support her.
Rino’s agitated mental state reflects the heaviness of the bargain he has made—he has essentially sold his sister to the most powerful, violent man in the neighborhood in exchange for a chance at financial success.
Themes
In the middle of July, however, Lenù arrives home one afternoon to find Maestra Oliviero sitting in the living room, talking with her mother. Oliviero brings news that her cousin in Ischia invited Lenù to come spend the rest of the summer through the middle of August on the island for free, in exchange for help around the house. Lenù is shocked that her mother agrees Lenù should spend some time resting on the island. Two days later, Lenù’s mother takes her to the ferry, buys her a ticket, and sends her off. As a goodbye, she warns Lenù that if she drowns in the sea, it will be her own fault. As the ferry pulls away, Lenù feels the troubles of the neighborhood—including Lila’s—vanishing.
The decision to go to Ischia and the preparations for the trip are a blur in Lenù’s mind, and she relays the days leading up to her trip very rapidly. Her first extended trip out of the neighborhood fills her with such excitement and indeed relief that she barely even thinks of the troubles of those she’s leaving behind as she makes her way out to sea.
Themes
