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 and Lenù’s middle school years are a time of great but gradual change. The Bar Solara expands and becomes a pastry shop where Gigliola Spagnuolo’s father, a baker, makes the pastries. Marcello and Michele, the sons of Silvio Solara, buy a fancy new car—a Fiat 1100. Alfredo Peluso’s old shop is now a grocery run by the Carraccis. Don Achille’s death has removed the “shadow” of fear from the whole Carracci family, and their business is booming. Enzo runs his parents’ fruit and vegetable stand. New businesses open and old businesses join forces, and renovations and beautification projects are under way. Lenù observes that everything and everyone in the neighborhood is trying “to show a new face.”
As Lenù describes the changes that take place in her neighborhood as she and Lila themselves undergo the changes of adolescence, it seems as if there is hope for change in the neighborhood in terms of both its physical layout and its social atmosphere. Going forward, Ferrante will show how these changes influence the girls’ lives and decisions.
Themes
Lenù and Lila continue studying Latin together, and Lenù is surprised to realize that Lila already knows a great deal about the language. Lila reveals that she has been taking Latin grammar books out of the library for a long time; she has four library cards, one in the name of each member of her family, so that she can take out multiple books each week. Lila assigns Lenù translation homework and helps her come up with more intuitive ways to translate complicated sentences in Latin. Lenù finds that Lila’s tips help her greatly.
Though Lenù is the one who has stayed in school, this passage makes it clear that Lila has not given up on her education. She is as intrepid and determined as ever, and she has even surpassed Lenù in some of Lenù’s own coursework.
Themes
In September, Lenù passes the exam with barely a single mistake. After getting her grade, Lenù hurries to the gardens to meet Lila. When she tells Lila of her success and asks if they can study together the rest of the year, Lila is dismissive; “I’ve understood, that’s enough,” she says, and tells Lenù that she has something more pressing to work on with Rino.
This passage makes clear the fact that Lila no longer care about tangible measurements of success. She wants to learn and “understand” the things Lenù is learning not out of a desire to best her friend in academics, but simply to share in the world of academia with Lenù.
Themes
