Tag Archives: poverty

My Brilliant Friend — Elena Ferrante

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The story of My Brilliant Friend revolves around the friendship of Elena and Lila, while also touching on the themes of gender, poverty, and class. Elena, the narrator of this book, is a studious girl who excels in school. She is a typical “good” girl who follows expectations and does what she is told. On the other hand, Lila is a girl who refuses to conform with societal norms and is incredibly intelligent. Although Elena and Lila seem to be completely different, they become best friends. The story unfolds through them going to elementary school together, a time when they did almost everything together, to when their paths diverged with education being the catalyst. In the book, the decision of going to school is a turning point for Elena and Lila’s friendship. Despite both doing well in school, only Elena goes on to middle school. At the same time, this event also reveals the underlying issues of poverty and gender. Lila’s family cannot financially support her education, and her father does not see the purpose in a girl attending school. The narrator manages to very subtly portray the reality concerning such issues while focusing on the girls’ friendship. 

One aspect I really enjoyed is how the narrator manages to accurately portray Elena’s innermost thoughts and emotions. This provides insight to the complex nature of the character, which allows readers to effectively engage with the story as we follow alongside her, feeling a sense of involvement as the plot develops. Furthermore, this depiction also allows me to resonate with Elena. Out of the countless memories that Elena has with Lila, the account of Carmela joining the two girls is particularly poignant. Elena says used the quote: “If I noticed that she tended to be closer to Carmela I suffered and wanted to go home (80)” to describe the sense of jealousy and insecurity she felt from Lila getting closer with Carmela. This part stood out to me immediately because I also had similar experiences feeling left out but also having to be stuck between my friend and her other friend. The narrator precisely portrays the disappointed feelings that arise from being neglected and wanting to escape the situation by “going home”. Here, Elena’s internal conflict is portrayed, and it reflects the complex nature of friendship. 

It came as a surprise for me when Lila said to Elena that she was her “brilliant friend”. Throughout the novel, we know from the narrator that Elena views Lila to be “brilliant”. She is intelligent, courageous, and ambitious, and Elena admires these qualities of her. They serve to be the factors motivating her to push her beyond her comfort zone. However, in a way, these qualities also shape the competitive nature of the girls’ friendship. Perhaps because of the complex nature of their friendship, it was unexpected that Lila would openly acknowledge her admiration to her friend. Both Elena and Lila acknowledge each other to be “brilliant”, and this frames how special they are to each other. 

My question for this week is what are your thoughts regarding the friendship between Elena and Lila?

The Hour of the Star

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The Hour of the Star is a novel that tells the story of a “northeastern girl” Macabea, who is from the poorest part of Brazil. The story unfolds through tiny details of the main character’s. The novel, although quite short in length, narrates the life of Macabea. Macabea grew up living with her aunt. She becomes a typist, who eventually falls in love with a boy called Olimpico de Jesus Moreira Chaves. After being dumped by Olimpico, she visits a fortune teller who tells her that her life will change immediately as she steps out. Her life does change, but it also doesn’t. She gets hit by a car after seeing the fortune teller and ends up dying. 

The novel is written in a style very different from most novels I have read. In the very beginning, the narrator writes as if he were conversing with me, the reader, about how this story will talk about a “northeastern girl” and how his thoughts would be laid out. I found this part to be very interesting. His thought processes of writing a story, from grasping how the story will unfold to depicting the character of Macabea, was revealed to the readers. This provides insight not only for understanding Macabea, but also for interpreting how she was created in this story from the narrator’s written words. In this process of doing so, the narrator introduces rich ideas that he ponders upon while discussing the idea of writing. 

One thing I really liked about the author’s style was that she managed to imitate the characteristics of Macabea through manipulating the spelling of words. For example, when the author was explaining that Macabea lives in slow motion, she deliberately duplicated the vowels in the words: “living in sloooow motion, hare leeeeaping through the aaaair over hiiiill and daaaale”. This technique emphasized to readers how slowly Macabea lived. Additionally, the author also imitated how Macabea stuttered with her thoughts through the repetition of words: “How to marry-marry-marry a being who was only to-to-to be seen, she stammered in her thoughts”. This style really managed to very accurately illustrate the characteristics of Macabea. 

When I was in the process of reading this book, I wasn’t able to connect how the content related with the title “The Hour of the Star”. However, I began to interpret it after reading the book. The author writes that “a person becomes a shining movie star” during “the hour of death”. The death of Macabea could possibly be interpreted as her “glory moment” as her life wasn’t one that could be considered “glory”, especially since people barely paid attention to her. People often tell their children that once a person dies, they turn into a star in the sky. Perhaps the title can also be interpreted as “the hour of death” as this idea of turning into a star often euphemizes the cruel reality of death. 

My question for this week is how do you interpret the title of this book?