Masculine vs. Feminine Violence Theme in My Brilliant Friend

The world of My Brilliant Friend—set in a poor suburb of Naples, Italy in the 1950s and 1960s—is one suffused with violence. As the men of the neighborhood engage in acts of violence as a means of securing revenge, of defending the honor of their wives or sisters, and of settling debts and slights, Elena Ferrante demonstrates how this atmosphere of unending, pervasive male violence trickles down to the women of the community. Ultimately, Ferrante suggests that even in a culture in which physical violence is perpetrated primarily by men, women eventually mirror that same violence, replicating in their own relationships with one another the physical and emotional cruelty to which they bear witness each day.

As Lila and Lenù come of age in a small, insular, violent neighborhood in Naples, they witness violence and even murder—and they are themselves subjected to physical attacks from men and women alike. Loan sharks intimidate their debtors; jilted lovers create scenes in the street; revenge killings and assaults are commonplace. Often, Lila and Lenù’s own parents or siblings are the perpetrators of the violence against them. As the novel progresses, Ferrante charts how the pervasive violence committed often unthinkingly or obligatorily among the men of the neighborhood dulls and normalizes the relationship that the women of the neighborhood have to physical violence.

Even as a child, Lenù is able to intuit the malicious presence in the neighborhood which ultimately manifests as feminine rage and indeed violence. “I feel no nostalgia for our childhood,” the grown-up Lenù—who now goes by Elena—recalls early on in the novel. “The women fought amongst themselves more than the men [….] I imagined tiny invisible animals that arrived in the neighborhood […] and entered the water and the food and the air, making our grandmothers as angry as starving dogs.” Though the young Lenù imagines “tiny invisible animals,” as a grown woman, she is able to examine the connection between the omnipresent violence perpetrated by the men in the neighborhood and the “rage that had no end” which seized the women of her neighborhood. Where, for example, the loan shark Don Achille, a frightening, powerful, and wealthy man, is murdered in his pajamas by an unseen assailant, the kinds of violence women perpetrate against each other are more personal. The disgraced Melina Cappuccio, abandoned by her married lover Donato Sarratore, flings household items out of her window as the Sarratore family flees the neighborhood to move somewhere else, nearly killing the young Nino Sarratore. Lila and Lenù are both sensitive to the violence all around them, and they are particularly affected by the fear that they themselves are doomed to be infected by “tiny invisible animals.”

The violence women perpetrate against one another in the book is often but not always physical—sometimes, it is emotional in nature. Through examples of the cruelties the women in the novel level against one another, Ferrante shows how this emotional violence is a direct reflection of the rampant (yet casual) physical violence committed by the women’s fathers, lovers, brothers, and schoolmates. As Lila and Lenù grow older, the violence in their neighborhood morphs and begins to affect them more directly. No longer are Lila and Lenù silent, petrified witnesses to the ravings of Melina Cappuccio or the revenge killings involving loan sharks and Camorrists (members of an organized crime syndicate). Now, as young women, they find themselves surrounded by young men who have learned that violence is the answer to every perceived slight. For instance, men will react violently at an untoward glance another man makes at a sister or girlfriend. Young men are also determined to show their dominance through any means necessary: fistfights, firework displays, fast cars, and even shootings. Lila and Lenù internalize these responses and become violent in their own ways. Lila carries a knife which she brandishes at any man who threatens her (a response learned from the violent men around her), but she also begins acting cruelly toward Lenù when the two are in competition with each other in school or in love (a response learned from the spurned, angry women around her). “Lila was malicious,” Lenù thinks to herself as she realizes that Lila has surpassed her not only in smarts but in beauty. “I said to myself: she will release something more vicious [soon].” Womanhood, to Lenù, is synonymous with the release of viciousness and ill will—as her friendship with Lila grows more intense and more competitive, Lenù begins to feel that the only end the two can arrive at is one marked by malice, evil, and indeed danger.

The violence around every corner in the world of My Brilliant Friend is the status quo—it defines how people in the neighborhood talk to one another, respond to one another in times of need, raise their children, run their businesses, and plan (or fail to plan) for the future. By contrasting the violence committed by men (often in the name of honor or revenge) with the violence committed by women (often physical but just as often emotional), Ferrante shows how violence is a learned response that’s replicated and disseminated throughout an entire community. The violence that forms so much of the novel’s tension has roots in toxic masculinity and sexism—yet as women adopt the violent tendencies they see perpetrated by the men around them each day, they confirm violence’s utility as an unhappy tool not just of men but of women struggling to be seen, heard, and respected.

Masculine vs. Feminine Violence ThemeTracker

The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Masculine vs. Feminine Violence appears in each chapter of My Brilliant Friend. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.

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