2020-Euro120-My Brilliant Friend Vs. My Struggle lecture notes week12 PDF

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2020-Euro120-My Brilliant Friend Vs. My Struggle lecture notes week12...

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Euro120-European Literatures [My Brilliant Friend Vs. My Struggle] ● Between two novelists ● Nicola Lagioia : Explained how one of the best aspects of My Brilliant Friend was the character development ● Both novels take place in Europe My Brilliant Friend Vs. My Struggle My Brilliant Friend

My Struggle

Setting Characters

Europe - Italy Female; Two girls Index of characters in the beginning

Europe - Norway Male; One guy Close family and friends

Class

Poor southern part of Italy The 2 girls struggle to get proper education

Steady living style

Storytelling

Chronological order timeline

All over the place

Genre

Mysterious

Straightforward

Prologue ● Introduces the characters ● Why Elena wants to write the book, talks about the best friend ● "Who will win" - Even after Lila disappears ○ Attitude of competition marks the friendship throughout the novel ● Friendship ○ Friendship is marked by tension ○ Elena wants to overcome the disappearance of Lila ○ Narrator is to take the story back and establish why or how she decided to leave ○ The tension and competition is what the novel is surrounded around Childhood ● Setting ○ Small neighborhood, condense. Many streets & many people/Lots of activity ○ Violent atmosphere ○ Scared of each other - fear and danger/unsafe ○ Gossipy ○ Suffocating. Prevents this place in terms of physical nature and situation of the girls. We will see how the girls try to escape this place

● Girls are poor, want to escape and need to make money. How do we get a better life, how do we get out of here?" ● Elena is able to get education, but Lila cannot. Even though Lila is extremely intelligent, her family cannot afford education. ● Language ○ Italian is the language of the neighborhood ○ Dialect vs. Formal Italian ■ Dialect - Italian dialect, speaks fast ■ Formal Italian - form of education ● Elena has never left her hometown, when Lila suggests they leave, she is hesitant to go. When they go to the sea, she exclaimed, "I felt joyfully open to the unknown. It was entirely different from going down into the cellar or up to Don Achille’s house. There was a hazy sun, a strong smell of burning. We walked for a long time between crumbling walls invaded by weeds, low structures from which came voices in dialect, sometimes a clamor". ○ Elena sees a sense of freedom ○ She compares the poverty beyond the boundaries of her neighborhood ○ Though Elena sees a different world, she is joyed to see a new part of town. ○ Lila is more rebellious, but the roles are reversed when they go out for the walk to sea. Elena is more willing to follow through with things, but Lila will start things and not finish. ○ Elena gets punished/beaten for leaving the neighborhood. Lila's parents aren't sending her to middle school - This is more long term punishment ● Violence follows the girls wherever they go ● Lila acts in a way that confuses El - Elena wonders if the reason they went was if Lila wanted Elena's parents to punish her to not go to middle school. What are her intentions? To hurt El or ask for attention? (compares to the dolls in the beginning, where Lila throws El's doll downstairs/) Response Paper #7 ● Society they live in - as women, what they do is what other people view them as __. (Mosogonistic) ● Other people play a huge role in the way they are grown accustomed to ● The way other people inhabit our sense of self ● Lila's parents punish her to not go to school - "If you don’t let me go here, then ill make life harder for you" ● If El didn’t have Lila, she wouldn’t have the opportunities that were presented to her. This forms/correlates to their personalities ● Lila motivates El and pushes her to do things that she wouldn’t do ● The way everyone inhabits other peoples business in town…...