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 attempts to “suffocate[e]” her jealousy of Lila and begins training herself to “accept readily Lila’s superiority in everything.” After a while, Maestra Oliviero returns some of her attentions to Lenù and her classmates Marisa and Carmela—but Lila, sensing she is about to be outshone, continues working harder academically and behaviorally. Soon, Maestra Oliviero is back to praising Lila above all others. Lenù is no longer focused on being the best in class—all she wants now is to be seen as being on the same level as Lila.
As the months go by, Lenù realizes that her desire to keep pace with Lila doesn’t necessarily stem from a desire to be the best or to individuate herself from Lila or her other classmates. Lenù simply admires Lila so much that she wants to be like her in all things—she doesn’t want Lila to leave her behind.
Themes
In spite of her brilliance, Lila remains disliked by all her classmates. Maestra Oliviero often sends Lila and Lenù together to other classrooms to compete with other classes—the teacher and her colleagues are always competitive with one another, and the Maestra is determined to show off her brightest pupils. Lila does spectacularly in these contests—she is able to solve complex sums in her head and spell difficult words in perfect Italian. Lila’s smarts appear “like a hiss, a dart, [or] a lethal bite” to her fellow students and her teachers alike.
Lila’s other classmates, both male and female, dislike her for her smarts. They envy her and take her superiority as a direct slight. This reaction on the part of Lila’s classmates isn’t so strange, given the culture of honor, vengeance, and retribution within which they are all being raised.
Themes
One morning, Maestra Oliviero brings Lila and Lenù to Maestro Ferraro’s class of fourth-grade boys so that the girls can compete against Nino Sarratore and Alfonso Carracci (the third son of Don Achille) in a little competition. Nino and Lenù struggle to keep up with the difficult questions, and Lila is noticeably reticent to best the son of Don Achille. Enzo Scanno, however, begins shouting the answers from the back of the classroom whenever both students hesitate—Lila out of deference and Alfonso out of uncertainty. Enzo, the class dunce, surprises everyone with his participation—and his shouts bolster Lila, who soon begins holding her own against Alfonso.
This passage makes clear that even the children of the neighborhood feel responsible for perpetuating the behavior of their parents’ generation. They feel the need to show deference to the children of the adults to whom their parents show deference—essentially, they’re bound by an unwritten and unspoken culture of violence and retribution to behave a certain way. As Lila begins to push against this unspoken dictum, she surprises those around her.
Themes
Enzo soon steps in to replace Alfonso, and Enzo and Lila begin an exciting duel of the minds—but Lila quickly bests Enzo, who starts shouting “ugly obscenities” at her. This incident, Elena recalls now, was the impetus behind Enzo and his gang of boys beginning to throw rocks at Lila and Lenù.
Just like their fathers, the young boys in Lenù and Lila’s school feel compelled to assert their dominance through violence—even over simple matters, such as school competitions and classroom embarrassments.
Themes
Get the entire My Brilliant Friend LitChart as a printable PDF.
