Book Analysis: Neapolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante
Titles: My Brilliant Friend, The Story of a New Name, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay and The Story of a Lost Child. Date of Publication: 2012–2015. Genre: Fiction. Publisher: Europa Editions. Pages (Respectively): 331, 471, 418, and 473.
Womanhood is a very nuanced topic that is rarely spoken about with authenticity. Elena Ferrante’s novels drive authenticity as they speak to the less digestible parts of both womanhood and friendship.
Codependency and Jealousy
A theme that underscores all four novels is codependency and the jealousy that follows. Lila and Lenu are both intelligent girls who grow up in an impoverished and violent Naples. Much of the series shows Lenu’s fixation with Lila’s natural intelligence and magnetism. Although it is Lenu who is given educational opportunities and eventually joins the upper class, her focus always remains on Lila’s life progressions. She battles her reverence of Lila at many points in her life, yet remains loyal to Lila’s perceptions of her. Female jealousy is a well documented concept. However, Ferrante delves deeper beyond the tropes of romance and physical superficiality. She explores how Lila’s very existence becomes corrosive to Lenu’s self esteem. This is reflective of friendship wherein we often display jealousy over tangible things to mask an innate feeling of lack.
“Would she always do the things I was supposed to do, before and better than me? She eluded me when I followed her and meanwhile stayed close on my heels in order to pass me by.” — My Brilliant Friend
Classism
Ferrante explores classism from a woman’s lens. The context of the story is an impoverished and formerly fascist Italy. Financial constraint and societal expectations limit Lila to only a primary education and an abusive marriage at the age of 16. Lenu’s arc is the opposite as she continues her education, obtaining a university degree and eventually joining the upper class. Though both girls have varied degrees of formal education, they both battle with socio-economical insecurity. This is exemplified when meeting Lenu’s Professor Galiani, both girls feel displaced in a world of privileged higher academia. Although, Lenu’s response is overcompensation and Lila’s is withdrawal. This offers insight into how Lila and Lenu are forced to reckon with the violence of class struggle while the upper-echelon passes judgement on those struggles. Ferrante shadows the girls’ journey of financial freedom with working-class dimensions. An important note to be made is Ferrante showing women’s contribution to the Italian factory strikes of the 1970’s and the political party divisions.
“People died of carelessness, of corruption, of abuse, and yet, in every round of voting, gave their enthusiastic approval to the politicians who made their life unbearable.” — Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay
Motherhood
Parenthood is treated with a realistic duality in Ferrante’s work. She explores the unconditional love that comes with having a child of your own while acknowledging how abruptly it can transform free will. Lila’s obsession for learning grows deeper after having children. She yearns to provide them with the education she was deprived of in childhood. Through Lila’s daughter’s disappearance in the last novel, we viscerally experience a mother’s debilitating grief. Lenu’s story of motherhood is an often unrepresented portrait of tiresome limitations. She finds it difficult to keep her career afloat and to find joy in the minutiae of being a housewife. Though she has risen in the ranks of economical prosperity, her dissolution of free will gives her a sense of resentment. This leads her to even leave her children to run away with Nino, her lover, and focus on her career prospects. Ferrante doesn’t absolve Lila and Lenu of their parenting mistakes, instead she offers understanding towards the displacement that parenting can often cause.
“The waste of intelligence. A community that finds it natural to suffocate with the care of home and children so many women’s intellectual energies is its own enemy and doesn’t realize it.” — Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay
Conclusion
Ferrante’s framing draws parallels between Naples and the characters. The poverty and corruption of Naples aligns with the everyday horrors of girlhood. The stradone and piazza symbolize archived memories that the girls resurface throughout the story. The rapid commercialization and technological updates mirror the girls’ evolving circumstances from marriage to career success. Just like our environments, we harbor our histories and tangentially sustain ourselves in the present. Ferrante’s work feels like reading one’s own diary. It feels like spectating yourself grow up from girlhood to old age.
“Unlike stories, real life, when it has passed, inclines toward obscurity, not clarity.” — The Story of a Lost Child
