![]() ![]() ![]() Over the years, Ferrante charts how their closeness, a fact of their lives that they cling to for protection and sustenance, morphs from a blessing into a curse (and back again) at various points in the girls’ lives. ![]() ![]() In charting the waxing and waning of the girls’ bond over the years and demonstrating the ways in which Lena and Lenù’s journeys reflect and refract each other’s opinions, ideas, and decisions, Ferrante argues that female friendship has the power to control the course of one’s life and choices-even if the friends themselves rarely discuss this dynamic-because women throughout history have had to rely on female friendship due to their vulnerable status in their respective communities.Įven as first-graders, Lila and Lenù are both aware of a peculiar magnetism between the two of them. As the two girls grow up together, they find themselves helpless to resist each other’s influence-and as they move from childhood into adolescence, they make sometimes bizarre but always impactful choices based on their desire to impress each other, to draw each other in, or to push each other away. Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend is a novel about many things-community, poverty, violence, toxic masculinity, and education-but at its heart is the profound, complicated relationship between Elena “Lenù” Greco and Rafaella “Lila” Cerullo. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
May 2023
Categories |