My Brilliant Friend

My Brilliant Friend

by

Elena Ferrante

Stefano Carracci Character Analysis

Stefano is the eldest son of Don Achille and Donna Maria. Several years older than Lila and Lenù, when readers first meet Stefano, he is a fearsome bully who threatens Lila after she bests his younger brother, Alfonso, in an academic competition. Though just a young teen, Stefano is already learning that his fearsome father’s influence as the neighborhood loan shark extends to him too. Later in the novel, after Don Achille is murdered and the shadow of fear surrounding the Carracci family’s influence over the neighborhood dissipates, Stefano works alongside his mother Donna Maria, his brother, and their sister Pinuccia in their family’s grocery. When Lenù returns from a summer on the island of Ischia, she realizes that Stefano and Lila have gotten close in spite of the fact that the intimidating, powerful Marcello Solara has been courting Lila for months. Together, Stefano and Lila hatch a plan to help her escape Marcello’s influence—Stefano, with money to spare from his late father’s wealth, buys the prototype shoes that Lila and Rino have made for an enormous sum. He also offers not just to marry Lila, but to pump money into her father’s business so that Cerullo shoes can become its own brand. Powerful, controlling, and yet beholden to the Solaras’ influence over the neighborhood, Stefano affects ease and abundance—yet he is tied to the same rules as the rest of the neighborhood, and he ultimately disappoints Lila when he makes concession upon concession to the Solara family.

Stefano Carracci Quotes in My Brilliant Friend

The My Brilliant Friend quotes below are all either spoken by Stefano Carracci or refer to Stefano Carracci. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Female Friendship Theme Icon
).
Adolescence: Chapter 21 Quotes

Stefano, according to Lila, wanted to clear away everything.

He wanted to try to get out of the before. He didn't want to pretend it was nothing, as our parents did, but rather to set in motion a phrase like: I know, my father was what he was, but now I'm here, we are us, and so, enough. In other words, he wanted to make the whole neighborhood understand that he was not Don Achille and that the Pelusos were not the former carpenter who had killed him.

Related Characters: Elena “Lenù” Greco (speaker), Rafaella “Lila” Cerullo, Stefano Carracci, Don Achille Carracci, Alfredo Peluso
Related Symbols: Fireworks
Page Number: 171
Explanation and Analysis:
Adolescence: Chapter 22 Quotes

[Lila] was staring at the shadow of her brother—the most active, the most arrogant, shouting the loudest, bloodiest insults in the direction of the Solaras' terrace—with repulsion. It seemed that she, she who in general feared nothing, was afraid. […] We were holding on to each other to get warm, while they rushed to grab cylinders with fat fuses, astonished by Stefano's infinite reserves, admiring of his generosity, disturbed by how much money could be transformed into fiery trails, sparks, explosions, smoke for the pure satisfaction of winning.

Related Characters: Elena “Lenù” Greco (speaker), Rafaella “Lila” Cerullo, Stefano Carracci, Marcello Solara, Rino Cerullo, Michele Solara
Related Symbols: Fireworks
Page Number: 177
Explanation and Analysis:
Adolescence: Chapter 36 Quotes

What did she have in mind? She had to know that she was setting in motion an earthquake worse than when she threw the ink-soaked bits of paper. And yet it might be that she wasn't aiming at anything precise. She was like that, she threw things off balance just to see if she could put them back in some other way.

Related Characters: Elena “Lenù” Greco (speaker), Rafaella “Lila” Cerullo, Stefano Carracci, Marcello Solara
Page Number: 238
Explanation and Analysis:
Adolescence: Chapter 38 Quotes

Punctually, three days later, he went to the store and bought the shoes, even though they were tight. The two Cerullos with much hesitation asked for twenty-five thousand lire, but were ready to go down to ten thousand. He didn't bat an eye and put down another twenty thousand in exchange for Lila's drawings, which—he said—he liked, he wanted to frame them.

Related Characters: Elena “Lenù” Greco (speaker), Rafaella “Lila” Cerullo, Stefano Carracci, Marcello Solara, Rino Cerullo, Fernando Cerullo
Related Symbols: Shoes
Page Number: 244
Explanation and Analysis:
Adolescence: Chapter 43 Quotes

Money gave even more force to the impression that what I lacked she had, and vice versa, in a continuous game of exchanges and reversals that, now happily, now painfully, made us indispensable to each other.

She has Stefano, I said to myself after the episode of the glasses. She snaps her fingers and immediately has my glasses repaired. What do I have?

I answered that I had school, a privilege she had lost forever. That is my wealth, I tried to convince myself.

Related Characters: Elena “Lenù” Greco (speaker), Rafaella “Lila” Cerullo, Stefano Carracci, Don Achille Carracci
Related Symbols: Language, Literature, and Writing
Page Number: 259
Explanation and Analysis:
Adolescence: Chapter 46 Quotes

I didn't understand. The Solaras’ behavior seemed […] consistent with the world that we had known since we were children. What, instead, did [Lila] and Stefano have in mind, where did they think they were living? […] They weren't reacting to the insults, even to that truly intolerable insult that the Solaras were making. […] Was this her latest invention? Did she want to leave the neighborhood by staying in the neighborhood? Did she want to drag us out of ourselves, tear off the old skin and put on a new one, suitable for what she was inventing?

Related Characters: Elena “Lenù” Greco (speaker), Rafaella “Lila” Cerullo, Stefano Carracci, Marcello Solara, Don Achille Carracci, Michele Solara
Page Number: 273
Explanation and Analysis:
Adolescence: Chapter 57 Quotes

In the end there was only the hostile thought that I was washing her from her hair to the soles of her feet, early in the morning, just so that Stefano could sully her in the course of the night. I imagined her naked as she was at that moment […] His violent flesh entered her with a sharp blow, like the cork pushed by the palm into the neck of a wine bottle. And it suddenly seemed to me that the only remedy against the pain I was feeling […] was to find a corner secluded enough so that Antonio could do to me, at the same time, the exact same thing.

Related Characters: Elena “Lenù” Greco (speaker), Rafaella “Lila” Cerullo, Stefano Carracci, Antonio Cappuccio
Page Number: 313
Explanation and Analysis:
Adolescence: Chapter 62 Quotes

Marcello sat down, loosened his tie, crossed his legs.

The unpredictable revealed itself only at that point. I saw Lila lose her color, become as pale as when she was a child, whiter than her wedding dress, and her eyes had that sudden contraction that turned them into cracks. […] She was looking at the shoes of Marcello Solara.

[…] Marcello had on his feet the shoes bought earlier by Stefano, her husband. It was the pair she had made with Rino, making and unmaking them for months, ruining her hands.

Related Characters: Elena “Lenù” Greco (speaker), Rafaella “Lila” Cerullo, Stefano Carracci, Marcello Solara, Rino Cerullo
Related Symbols: Shoes
Page Number: 331
Explanation and Analysis:
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Stefano Carracci Quotes in My Brilliant Friend

The My Brilliant Friend quotes below are all either spoken by Stefano Carracci or refer to Stefano Carracci. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Female Friendship Theme Icon
).
Adolescence: Chapter 21 Quotes

Stefano, according to Lila, wanted to clear away everything.

He wanted to try to get out of the before. He didn't want to pretend it was nothing, as our parents did, but rather to set in motion a phrase like: I know, my father was what he was, but now I'm here, we are us, and so, enough. In other words, he wanted to make the whole neighborhood understand that he was not Don Achille and that the Pelusos were not the former carpenter who had killed him.

Related Characters: Elena “Lenù” Greco (speaker), Rafaella “Lila” Cerullo, Stefano Carracci, Don Achille Carracci, Alfredo Peluso
Related Symbols: Fireworks
Page Number: 171
Explanation and Analysis:
Adolescence: Chapter 22 Quotes

[Lila] was staring at the shadow of her brother—the most active, the most arrogant, shouting the loudest, bloodiest insults in the direction of the Solaras' terrace—with repulsion. It seemed that she, she who in general feared nothing, was afraid. […] We were holding on to each other to get warm, while they rushed to grab cylinders with fat fuses, astonished by Stefano's infinite reserves, admiring of his generosity, disturbed by how much money could be transformed into fiery trails, sparks, explosions, smoke for the pure satisfaction of winning.

Related Characters: Elena “Lenù” Greco (speaker), Rafaella “Lila” Cerullo, Stefano Carracci, Marcello Solara, Rino Cerullo, Michele Solara
Related Symbols: Fireworks
Page Number: 177
Explanation and Analysis:
Adolescence: Chapter 36 Quotes

What did she have in mind? She had to know that she was setting in motion an earthquake worse than when she threw the ink-soaked bits of paper. And yet it might be that she wasn't aiming at anything precise. She was like that, she threw things off balance just to see if she could put them back in some other way.

Related Characters: Elena “Lenù” Greco (speaker), Rafaella “Lila” Cerullo, Stefano Carracci, Marcello Solara
Page Number: 238
Explanation and Analysis:
Adolescence: Chapter 38 Quotes

Punctually, three days later, he went to the store and bought the shoes, even though they were tight. The two Cerullos with much hesitation asked for twenty-five thousand lire, but were ready to go down to ten thousand. He didn't bat an eye and put down another twenty thousand in exchange for Lila's drawings, which—he said—he liked, he wanted to frame them.

Related Characters: Elena “Lenù” Greco (speaker), Rafaella “Lila” Cerullo, Stefano Carracci, Marcello Solara, Rino Cerullo, Fernando Cerullo
Related Symbols: Shoes
Page Number: 244
Explanation and Analysis:
Adolescence: Chapter 43 Quotes

Money gave even more force to the impression that what I lacked she had, and vice versa, in a continuous game of exchanges and reversals that, now happily, now painfully, made us indispensable to each other.

She has Stefano, I said to myself after the episode of the glasses. She snaps her fingers and immediately has my glasses repaired. What do I have?

I answered that I had school, a privilege she had lost forever. That is my wealth, I tried to convince myself.

Related Characters: Elena “Lenù” Greco (speaker), Rafaella “Lila” Cerullo, Stefano Carracci, Don Achille Carracci
Related Symbols: Language, Literature, and Writing
Page Number: 259
Explanation and Analysis:
Adolescence: Chapter 46 Quotes

I didn't understand. The Solaras’ behavior seemed […] consistent with the world that we had known since we were children. What, instead, did [Lila] and Stefano have in mind, where did they think they were living? […] They weren't reacting to the insults, even to that truly intolerable insult that the Solaras were making. […] Was this her latest invention? Did she want to leave the neighborhood by staying in the neighborhood? Did she want to drag us out of ourselves, tear off the old skin and put on a new one, suitable for what she was inventing?

Related Characters: Elena “Lenù” Greco (speaker), Rafaella “Lila” Cerullo, Stefano Carracci, Marcello Solara, Don Achille Carracci, Michele Solara
Page Number: 273
Explanation and Analysis:
Adolescence: Chapter 57 Quotes

In the end there was only the hostile thought that I was washing her from her hair to the soles of her feet, early in the morning, just so that Stefano could sully her in the course of the night. I imagined her naked as she was at that moment […] His violent flesh entered her with a sharp blow, like the cork pushed by the palm into the neck of a wine bottle. And it suddenly seemed to me that the only remedy against the pain I was feeling […] was to find a corner secluded enough so that Antonio could do to me, at the same time, the exact same thing.

Related Characters: Elena “Lenù” Greco (speaker), Rafaella “Lila” Cerullo, Stefano Carracci, Antonio Cappuccio
Page Number: 313
Explanation and Analysis:
Adolescence: Chapter 62 Quotes

Marcello sat down, loosened his tie, crossed his legs.

The unpredictable revealed itself only at that point. I saw Lila lose her color, become as pale as when she was a child, whiter than her wedding dress, and her eyes had that sudden contraction that turned them into cracks. […] She was looking at the shoes of Marcello Solara.

[…] Marcello had on his feet the shoes bought earlier by Stefano, her husband. It was the pair she had made with Rino, making and unmaking them for months, ruining her hands.

Related Characters: Elena “Lenù” Greco (speaker), Rafaella “Lila” Cerullo, Stefano Carracci, Marcello Solara, Rino Cerullo
Related Symbols: Shoes
Page Number: 331
Explanation and Analysis: