Network Analysis
There was something unbearable in the things, in the people, in the buildings, in the streets that, only if you reinvented it all, as in a game, became acceptable. The essential, however, was to know how to play, and she and I, only she and I, knew how to do it
As it might be obvious by now, relationships are what reigns over the world of My Brilliant Friend, whether they are familial, scholastic or friendships.
Hence, to give the reader a new tool to understand the core elements of the book, three graphs have been created to allow them to understand the development of the friendship between Lila and Lenù and the people that influenced such a friendship.
The colors in the graph indicate various degrees of importance, with blue being used for the most popular characters and red for the least popular, with various shades representing the middle stages; similarly the different dimensions also mean a difference between the importance of the characters.
The First Graph (Chapter 1-7)
The first graph is based on the first seven chapters of the book.
In this case, we are mostly dealing with familial relationships.
In fact, these first chapters are mostly introductory, explaining how Lila and Lenù came to know each other and their own social background.
The sole exception to this is teacher Oliviero, who is present in the last chapters of this section, when she calls over Lila’s mother to explain to her the extraordinary capabilities of her daughter.
The graphs shows that she immediately gains a strong bond with Lila and will be the first character that escapes the familial bonds in these chapters.
The Second Graph (Chapter 8-14)
The second graph, covers instead the chapters going from 8 to 14, introducing us to the world of school and more integrally to the one of the district.
We are first brought to know and discover Lila’s and Lenù’s schoolmates, which will later become their friends and enemies, while the relationship between the two main characters is shaped in the friendship/rivalry that will later characterizes them.
Another interesting thing to point out, it is the fact that in this graph, Lila and Lenù aren’t only paired together through their own names, but also through nicknames, pronouns and even epithets such as "la figlia dello scarparo" and "la figlia grande di Greco".
Instead, when it comes to the other characters it is important to point out three:
- Enzo Scanno, who will be later on in the books Lila’s love interest, is particularly interesting because he immediately appears as one of the most popular characters connected with Lila. He is in particularly interesting because it is thank to him that the cycle of vengeance, introduced in this chapter after the rock throwing, finishes.
- Nino sarratore, who will similarly be both Lila’s and Lenù’s love interest in the following books. He is an important character both for his engagement proposal to Lenù, when they are just children and both because he is one of the few people that, alongside his family manages to move away from the district.
- Don Achille, who has a very interesting role, since he is depicted by Lenù as the villain of fairytales, after he has supposedly stolen her and Lila's dools to put them in his black bag (a reference to the fact that he got rich throught the black market, during the war). In this chapter, the two girls manage to actually face him and fight him, winning even the possibility to actually gain a little money for themselves, which will be used to buy a book - Little Women - which will have a huge impact on Lila, prompting her to writer her own
Graph (Chapter 15-18)
The third graph, instead, contains the last chapters of this first part of the book.
In here, the familial relationships regain importance, even more the one between Lila and her own brother, Rino, who she believes will be able to save her and allows her to continue school.
In fact, the focus of this next subpart focuses on whether the main characters will be allowed to continue their scholastic career and how this will impact their lives.
On one side we have Lenù who is allowed to continue her study, alongside with Gigliola, while on the other we have Lila who is stopped – even physically – by her own family.
As previously said, she tries to have her brother support her, but is stopped and even teacher Oliviero’s support dwindles, since her relationships with the teacher is represented in the graph as more distant and strained.
New relationships and groups are formed, with Lila slowly, as the realization that she won’t be attending school with Lenù the following year downs on her, becoming friend with Carmela and hanging with her, while her friend grows closer with Gigliola, who is also going to be attending middle grade the following year.
Another small and last interesting detail is the minor presence of Don Achille, who effectively dies by the end of this part and his suspected murderer – Alfredo Peluso – is arrested in front of his family, Lila and Lenù, who had come to play with Carmela.