My Brilliant Friend is a tempestuous excavation of life in a sub-proletarian neighbourhood of Naples. Shrouded in violence and danger, the town becomes a microcosm of post-World War II Catholic societies. The story follows the mimetic relationship between the two protagonists, Lila and Elena. Lila is depicted as a complicated disobedient child, who is exceptional in every way. Elena models her life, behaviour and aspirations on those of Lila’s. Their stories begin to diverge as their circumstances change. This story flips the Bildungsroman trope on its head by asking the question that plagues fatalistic Catholic societies: can we ever outrun our destinies?
Throughout the tetralogy, Ferrante does something quite subversive: she centres female friendship. She dignifies this complex, symbiotic, deeply loyal relationship with thoughtful analysis and description. Entirely free from moralism, Ferrante depicts the friendship between Lila and Elena, without defending the poor choices they make, simply letting them be. By freeing them of judgement in their most private moments, the readers can focus on the complexities of female friendship. This, arguably, feminist choice disrupts the novel as we know it. But why is centring female friendship in a novel a feminist choice, and what is so subversive about the way Ferrante depicts it?
The history of their friendship
In the first novel of the quartet, My Brilliant Friend, Lila drops her doll into the cellar of Don Achille Carracci, the terrifying neighbourhood loan shark. Despite being petrified of Don Achille, Elena follows suit, dropping her doll into the cellar. Elena exclaims, somewhat indignantly, “what you do, I do”. This retort perfectly encapsulates their friendship: they model their behaviour on the other’s.
As Lila begins to excel in elementary school, Elena fears falling behind and commits herself to her studies. Whilst learning appears to come to Lila naturally, Elena must study voraciously just to come second to Lila in class. School improves their Italian and they discuss their ideas animatedly, with Elena noting they “tore the words from each other’s mouth, creating an excitement that seemed like a storm of electrical charges”.
However, education becomes an object of jealousy between the girls as the novel progresses. Elena’s parents permit her to continue her studies beyond elementary school, whereas Lila is made to stay home and help out at the family shoe shop. Elena is forced to continue her studies without her intellectual sparring partner. Elena’s ambition for academic success is partly founded upon her need to be equal to or better than how Lila might’ve been if she were to continue her studies.
The girls fall out, sometimes explicitly, sometimes silently, but they always come back to each other.
The importance of female friendship in the novel
The series is set in a patriarchal neighbourhood of Naples, where domestic violence is prevalent and normalised. Lila and Elena see their fathers beat their mothers capriciously. The violence also extends to the girls, at the hands of their fathers, brothers, boyfriends and later husbands. The only place they can find respite is in their friendships with each other.
Within this context, female friendships provide “an environment where women are free to share their personal life with each other, without boundaries and social limitations”. Who else can bear witness to their suffering aside from their female friends? They make sense of their neighbourhood, their relationships and their academics through their conversations with each other.
What is so subversive about how Ferrante depicts friendship?
In a novel by a woman, written primarily about women, for the female reader, we would expect that romantic love would be the main focus. However, Ferrante subverts this expectation.
Romantic relationships take a backseat in the books, with Ferrante instead exploring how they can often be oppressive forces for the girls. By centring female friendship, Ferrante emphasises how formative these relationships are, particularly for young children.
Whilst depicting the girls’ friendship, Ferrante avoids moralising. She does not position herself as the judge, jury nor executioner of the girls. Simply, she explores their behaviour. In the second novel, The Story of a New Name, Elena is overcome with jealousy of Lila’s writing ability and is overwhelmed by how much Lila has shaped her life, she decides to dispose of the notebooks Lila had entrusted her with, by dropping them into the river. Despite Elena breaking Lila’s trust, Ferrante does not linger on this moment, simply describing the moment, the motivations and then moving on.
This partly reflects the forgiving nature of their friendship, with both girls wronging each other across the novel, but they always come back together. Furthermore, the girls’ actions are moralised by the men in their lives. They are constantly scrutinised. Much like their friendship, the lines of the novel is a place where the protagonists can exist outside of the patriarchal moralising they are subjected to.
It’s unsurprising that Ferrante chose to make the feminist choice to spotlight the importance of female friendships. In her column for The Guardian, she emphasises that “a woman friend is as rare as a true love”. Ferrante underlines that Lila would follow Elena anywhere, “even to prison, and to death”. Where else in post-war Naples could a girl find that fierce commitment, loyalty and love?
As the girls come to fear boys and men, they learn to lean on each other. Female friendships provide comfort, structure and a space to understand the complicated social dynamics that plague their neighbourhood.
