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Childhood: Chapter 5
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
Maestra Olivero recovers from her fall and returns to school after a couple of days. She turns her attention to Lila, but she praises Lila rather than punishing her each day in class. One morning, Lila’s mother, Nunzia, is called to school. She brings gifts for Maestra Oliviero and joins the girls’ class for the morning. The girls, who are just learning the alphabet, enjoy showing off for Signora Cerullo. Maestra Oliviero announces to the class—and to Signora Cerullo—that Lila is the best among them. Lenù, thinking of Lila’s many infractions and behavioral incidents, is shocked.
The fact that Lila begins to succeed academically in spite of her badness makes her even more mysterious and attractive to Lenù. Lenù, who has long been her class’s star pupil, begins harboring curiosity—and perhaps a degree of jealousy and desire for retribution—about Lila.
Themes
Maestra Oliviero writes the word “sun” on the chalkboard in Italian. She asks Lila to read what is written there, and Lila says “sun” aloud. Nunzia gives Maestra Oliviero a “fearful” look. Maestra Oliviero calls Lila to the blackboard and asks her to write the word “chalk.” Lila spells the word mostly correctly, missing just one letter. Maestra Oliviero, proud, asks Signora Cerullo who taught Lila to read and write. Signora Cerullo says that she herself did not and adds that no one in the building has been giving her lessons. When Maestra Oliviero asks Lila who taught her to do such things, Lila answers, “Me.”
This passage further explores the idea of language, literature, and writing as central forces in Lila and Lenù’s relationship. The ability to express oneself—especially as a woman—in Lila and Lenù’s dangerous neighborhood is rare and exceptional, and the idea that Lila has taught herself to read and write at such a young age portends both her desire to prove herself and her need for an outlet through which she can make herself heard and known.
Themes
