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Adolescence: Chapter 20
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
Back at Lila’s, she and Lenù tell Rino about Stefano’s proposal. He doesn’t like the sound of it and refuses to go. One afternoon, Lila reports to Lenù that Stefano also wants to insult the Solaras by making peace with the Pelusos and gathering a huge number of people together to put on a big fireworks display. Lila is amazed by the gesture, one that “no one would make here in the neighborhood.” The girls, moved by Stefano’s desire for peace, go back to Rino and explain what’s happening. They beg him to unite with the Carraccis and the Pelusos against the Solaras. Soon, everyone is convinced that going to the “hated home of Don Achille” to ring in the New Year as a united front is the only thing to do.
In this brief chapter, Lila and Lenù urge others to see that unlikely as it may seem, there are people in the neighborhood who truly want to end the cycles of violence, retribution, and cruelty that have defined relationships between families over the years. Soon, a tenuous hope has gripped several families—they believe that perhaps if they really do come together in good faith, change could be possible.
Themes
