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.