Stefania Lucamante writes in Undoing Feminism: The Neapolitan Novels of Elena Ferrante that “A complex relationship between the emancipatory power of sisterly friendship and the desire for the individual assertion of a woman threads the sisterly relations” between Lenù and Lila. Lucamante argues however that the relationship works to improve and help Lenù but not Lila: “..the relationship is functional to her individual ascent, not a communal one”. Previously, I had seen Elena as being dependent on Lila, but after reading Lucamante’s paper, I’m beginning to think that it is less a situation of dependency, but of exploitation. As Lucamante writes, “Elena feigns submission to Lila, but she actually uses her”. It seems Lenù approaches many of her relationships this way. For example, her relationships with the other Airotas, in which she seems to benefit from all the connections and prestige that they have, but it doesn’t appear they receive anything from her in return. Most of the relationships she creates are because she can benefit them, whether it be her relationship with Donato Sarratore, once she discovers he is a writer, or with Franco, who helps her both socially, financially, and education-wise.
Author Archives: Katherine Jackson
Superficial Feminism
Lenù’s feminism appears very superficial. She is able write “feminist” literature, and discuss feminist topics with other academics around her, but when it comes to her own life and her own actions, she does not put much of it to use. For example, the ways she treats and perceives Lila. When Lila criticises Lenù’s actions, Lenù immediately proclaims it as Lila being ‘jealous’: “Only now – out of jealousy, surely, because I had taken Nino – did she remember the girls, and wanted to emphasize that I was a terrible mother, that although I was happy, I was causing them unhappiness” (page 23). Instead of seeing Lila as a rational person, she diminishes her. Instead of using her power or status to help other women, she looks down on them, such as with Lila in this example.
Lenu’s lack of concrete real world feminism could be explained in part by her mother-in-law, Adele. Being in a way, a role model for Lenù for many years now, Lenù must have at least in some way absorbed how Adele interacts with others. While Adele seems to be a supporter of women writers, such as by encouraging Lenù in her career, it seems this is just as superficial as with Lenù. Instead of continuing to support her Lenù as a writer, Adele attempts to derail her career when she is no longer with Pietro, being behind a number of bad reviews of her book. She also does not respect Lenù as her own autonomous being, and the work Lenù has done to achieve what she has: ”I’ll take away everything I’ve given you” (page 25). When this is one of her few ‘feminist’ idols, it would be hard for Lenù to know any other way of being a feminist.
Narration in My Brilliant Friend
I feel the TV version of My Brilliant Friend took away a lot of the personality from Lenù. I think this is due to the lack of the voiceover/narrator for the most part in the show. Instead of having a running narration as we do in the books, the voice over occurs in the show only to reinforce something’s importance. However, in the books, most of her personality came out in her narration, as we have little direct speech from her, only her narration.
It seems for the most part in the show, Lenù is observing the scenes from the background, rather than being active in the scenes. Many of the times she appears onscreen, she does not participate in the action. I believe this is because, in the novel she must be present in those scenes, so that she knows about them in order to write about it. The fact that she isn’t active in many of the scenes she is in highlights the fact that it is often Lila, or other characters, driving the action, with Lenù as more of an observer looking in.
Of Minor Importance
The minor character that interests me most is Gino. Not much is told about him besides him being the son of the pharmacist and a facist. It is strange how Lenù and Lila have very little relationship with him, especially in comparison to other minor characters. Even if the two do not have consistently good relationships with the other characters, such as with the Solaras, they are still mentioned, and details are known about them.
Gino is spoken of when Lenù is in high school, but afterwards, we don’t know much about his life. We know very little about how he came to become a facist. When Gino is mentioned it is in negative lights. There is a very negative scene when Lila sees Gino at the factory. They both verbally insult each other, before Gino tells her “… yesterday afternoon I asked that cuckold your husband for permission to beat you up and he said yes.” (page 148, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay).
When Lenù is given the news of Gino’s murder, Lenù first thinks “that she was giving me that news because the son of the pharmacist was part of our early adolescence and, fascist or not, certainly that event would upset me. But the reason was not to share with me the horror of that violent death.” (page 293, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay) This shows that even when he has been murdered, Gino is not the main topic. Elena has much more sympathy for Gino’s parents after his death that for him, recalling how kind they are.
Even after his death Elena writes how the murderer shot at his “thug’s body” (page 313, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay). The difference between how the personalities of other minor characters, such as Gigliola, Carmem, are shown much more deeply than Gino’s despite them all having grown up together.
Meta-Post Blog 6
A common theme in the posts this week was the characters of Lila and Lenù wanting to escape from their own childhood and background. As Irini writes “It is evident from youth that the girls want to be destined for a much more fulfilled life than what is traditionally expected for them.” When speaking of what is traditionally expected from the young women, many of us concentrated on what their mothers expected. Julie writes of how the girls break away from the general archetype of “mothers” and how in western literature, stories of women “grappling with the Mother figure, having a friendship with another girl that towers over every other subsequent relationship” is uncommon.
Kelsey wrote of a “generational ‘curse’” inherited from their mothers, which after the birth of her child, Lila is desperate to break away from, and raise her child differently than she herself was. This is in contrast to Paul’s post, where he writes that “every generation does the best they can with the knowledge that has been passed down”. Lila, instead of using this knowledge as a manual to raise her child, uses it as a checklist of what not to do. Irini writes that “Lila … personally dedicates her time to making sure he is brilliant… Lila does not want her son to turn out stuck like her..” Kelsey adds to this by saying Lila nurtures not only her son’s wellbeing, but also his intelligence. This is something her own family does not to do, and another way of breaking the “generation curse”.
The way Lenù breaks from what is the norm, specifically in terms of mothers and motherhood is also discussed this week. Ariana writes that “Through assimilating to her new environment ( in Pisa), Lenù searches to become less of a Neapolitan and less like her mother in order to have a better chance in life”, meaning that through speaking differently than her mother and assimilating somewhere other that Naples, she avoids becoming like her mother, which Irini writes was also a fear of Lenù’s and “a major factor in how hard she pushed herself to success.”
Annabella writes not of how Lenù breaks away from her mother, but from Lila. A relationship that has slowly been deteriorating, Annabella’s post explains that in the wake of their vacation to Ischia, the two young women are in completely different mental states; “Elena is beginning to find it in this newfound sense of what it means to live life passionately and bravely, while Lila is discovering it in the depths of Nino’s soul that has taken her own as refuge”.
Another topic this week was the importance of names. Jackie and Zevi wrote on this topic, writing about the power names can have. Jackie writes that when Lenù chooses the nameGreco to be the name on her book, and not the last name of her fiance, “Lenù changes the Greco name from that of a porter to that of a writer. In doing so she simultaneously increases the power behind the name Greco. Her name printed on the cover of a book ties the name to higher education and success which holds a lot of power. “
Zevi, conversely, writes of the power of Lenù’s fiance’s last name. She writes of how after being associated with Pietro Airota, she is given more respect by other students, and that as the Airotas are a prestigious family they therefore a good name, and Lenu benefits from being associated with it
Elena’s Thoughts
In his piece Ferrante’s Run-Ons, Christopher Warley writes of a scene in the first book where Elena becomes aware of her lower social status, that “the speed of the narrative prevents this observation from turning into unfurled Marxist theory”. This is true throughout the novels. Elena the narrator avoids any heavy analysis about political or social situations in the books. Throughout, Lenù is exposed to talk of communists, facists, student protests etc, and her friends and other characters speak of these topics, yet the narrator never discloses her opinion or analyses these topics.
The reason for this can be seen in how the novel is written. As Christopher Warley writes, Ferrante’s writing shows “inside the operation of Elena’s head.. She thinks coming out in the order it occurs to her”. Ferrante is writing the way Elena Greco thinks, unstructured and unplanned. Ferrante’s run on sentences are “the narrator recreating the rush of the moment” (Warley). When these things are happening to Lenù, she is not thinking of the broad social or political meaning, she is thinking of what is happening to her. The writing is Elena’s life, rather than an explanation of it.
Back to the Future
In the very first chapter of The Story of a New Name, Elena skips ahead a few years before returning to the chronological order. In the leap forward in time, Elena is describing a time when she is distanced from the neighbourhood and her relationship with Lila she sees as being “terrible”, but polite (page 15, The Story of a New Name). Lila has given Lenù journals that she has written about her life the past few years, and the neighbourhood. Another major time the chronology has been disrupted is in the first novel when Elena writes of Lila telling her about the dissolving borders the first time it happened on new years eve 1958, which she does not tell Lenù about until 1980.
Both times, Elena is recounting finding out some inner secrets and confidence of Lila’s. Except for these breaks in chronology, the novels are told exclusively from from Lenù perspective at the time, never revealing future events, so these breaks are very significant. Yet they are never fast forwards to Lenù’s life, they are always about Lila. They reveal very little about the situation or life Lenù is living in that time, sticking with the method throughout the books of only describing her feelings at that certain time, and never disclosing what she knows will happen in the future until it actually does happen.
“There is a poverty that makes us all cruel”
Benjamin’s essay on Naples speaks of the entrenched poverty in Naples. Benjamin writes that in Naples “Poverty and misery seem as contagious as they are pictured to be to children”. Living surrounded in poverty, it is impossible to not also fall into poverty too.
The characters in Lenù’s neighbourhood are in poverty. Lenù and Lila’s reaction to this is a desire to escape their poverty, and by extension the neighbourhood too. When they are children, they dream of writing a successful novel, inspired by reading Little Women, and to be wealthy as a result. Benjamin’s essay reflects the friends’ view of poverty. They see it all around them, have been impacted by it. Lack of money is a constant obstacle in Lenù’s education, and was one of the factors that prevented Lila from continuing her education. A desire to pull themselves out of poverty underlines many things they do.
Lila and Lenù have many reasons why they want to escape poverty. It prevents them from doing many things ie school, but it is summed up aptly with a line from Lila to Lenù: “There is a poverty that makes us all cruel” (261). It is not just poverty they want to escape, it is the violence and depravity that it creates. Towards the end of the first novel, Lila is in a situation where she has money to spare when she becomes engaged to Stefano. However, Elena notes that during this time she realised that money itself was no longer the object for them, but the protection that money offers themselves and the ones around them. She writes that the dream of “The treasure chests full of gold pieces ..when we published a book like Little Women – riches and fame- had truly faded. Perhaps the idea of money as a cement to solidify our experience and prevent it from dissolving, together with the people who were dear to us, endured…” (248). Lenù is realizing here, that they do not want money, they want the safety and the privilege that having money creates.
Rivalry and Teamwork
At the beginning of their friendship, Lila and Lenú’s lives are following fairly similar tracks. Just as they were when standing on the threshold of Don Achille’s door, Lila and Lenú are again on the verge of something that will change their lives. However, this time they are not facing it together. Lenú is about to start high school, and Lila beginning her life of work in her father’s shoe store. Rather than finding solace and a sense of bravery with each other, Lenú is angered when Lila attempts to follow along her path.
Lenú finds that even with all this difference between their lives now, Lila still manages to keep close. Before Lenú has even started high school Lila reveals she has already learnt some Greek, before Lenú has. “She had done it on her own, while I hadn’t even thought about it… Would she always do the things I was supposed to do, before and better than me? She eluded me when I followed her and meanwhile stayed close to my heels in order to pass me?”
Lenú is angered by the idea that Lila is still beating her in her studies despite no longer attending school. She is not comforted by the fact she can share in her studies with her friend, but rather dislikes Lila for not only keeping pace with her, but going ahead of her.
At the same time, Lenú is equally affected when Lila stops studying. Lenú finds that she has no interest in her studies if they do not involve Lila. “…since Lila had stopped pushing me, anticipating me in my studies, and my reading, school… had stopped being a kind of adventure and had become only a thing that I knew how to do well and was much praised for” (P 187)
Lenú no longer feels consoled by Lila being with her. She seems to feel no relief whether Lila is with her or not. She is intimidating when Lila studies with her. When Lila show no interests in studies, Lenú does not either. Lila acts as both Lenú’s inspiration, pushing her to do well in school, and her antagonist, making her feel inadequate. Whether in competition with Lila or not, Lenú can not find a balance in her relationship with Lila. Their friendship has turned into one of codependency, Lenú needs competition with Lila to give herself an aim of what to do, ie Lila is the best students so Lenú needs to be second best. But at the same time, Lenú is always devastated when she cannot reach Lila. She wants Lila to be the best, but is upset that she herself will always be second best. It is a paradox, she both wants herself to be the best, but also wants Lila to be the best.
Safety in Numbers
Blog Post 1
In the first chapter of the “Childhood” section of My Brilliant Friend, the narrator recounts the encounter which solidified a friendship between her and Lila. “At the fourth flight, Lila did something unexpected. She stopped to wait for me, and when I reached her she gave me her hand. This gesture changed everything between us forever.” (page 29)
Lila and Elena are both on the verge of something terrifying; the feared Don Achille. In their world which only extends to the edges of their neigbourhood, this is the most dangerous figure in their life. Having been warned to stay away constantly, they see him as a monster.
Lila is the one who suggested seeing Don Achille and encourages Lenu to join, yet it should be asked why she has not gone to Don Achille on her own before. Her desire to knock on the door does not seem likely solely to retrieve the dolls back, but to confront this fear. Likely, with Lenu, it is the first time she has felt brave enough. Both are too afraid to confront him alone. While Lila acts as though she is fearless and is the one to suggest knocking on the door: “She thought what we were doing was just and necessary; I.. was there only because she was” (page 29), her offering her hand shows a flaw in her bravado. She offers her hand because she cannot do it alone.
The intenseness of this scene comes not only from what is happening in this passage, but also from what occurs afterwards. This scene changes not only “everything between us forever” (page 29) as the narrator writes, but both of their lives. If their friendship had not been created in this moment of fear, their dynamic may have been different.
The chapter ends without revealing what happens with Don Achilles immediately, perhaps because whether or not the interaction had gone well or horribly, it does not matter or change the friendship that had just been forged on the stairwell.
