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 asks Antonio to go with her to Lila’s wedding and keep her company for the entire day—she is dreading the occasion, which is starting to feel like “a definitive break.” She has another reason, too, for making this request of Antonio—she knows that the wedding will be an occasion for the girls without fiancés who are in attendance to find matches, and she doesn’t want to have to worry about dressing up and impressing anyone (even though she still plans on breaking up with Antonio). Antonio, who considers Lenù the best thing that has ever happened to him, accepts her request with glee—he believes she is finally ready to make their relationship official and tell their parents about their love for each other.
Lenù continues to use Antonio for her own devices, even though she knows she doesn’t love him. Partnership with a young man has practical uses, and Lenù is desperate to exploit those uses so that she doesn’t have to confront the matchmakers at the wedding—or her own loneliness in the face of Lila’s impending marriage.
Themes
The days pass in a haze as Lenù struggles to keep up in school while she helps Lila with preparations. All she is looking forward to is seeing her name in print in Nino’s journal.
Lenù has a lot going on—she believes that she is on the cusp of greatness. Amid the significant change that’s gearing up to happen in Lila’s life, it seems that Lenù is seeking comfort in the notion that she can find her own path to success.
Themes
In November, the Cerullos finish their first batch of shoes. Upon seeing them, Lila tells Lenù that she feels a “very violent emotion,” as if a fairy has granted one of her childhood wishes. Rino, Lila, and Fernando summon Stefano, Pinuccia, and Maria to see the shoes, and the Carraccis are amazed by them as well—though Stefano believes that Fernando has not been perfectly faithful to Lila’s original designs, and he insists that he has invested too much money to obtain shoes that are not precisely Lila’s own invention. Lila defends Fernando, but Rino supports Stefano—ultimately, Stefano gives in, and by Christmas, the shoes are for sale as they are. No one in the neighborhood buys a pair, though, due to the astronomical price.
Lila’s dream has at last come to fruition—but there are wrinkles in her moment of glory as tensions within her own family and Stefano’s family make themselves apparent. The shoes, too expensive to sell well in the neighborhood, are not the life-saving objects Lila envisioned them to be, and her disappointment is palpable. This portends a similar outcome for Lenù’s excitement about her journal article—the one big thing she is looking forward to.
Themes
