Borders not only define the physical confines of neighborhoods, but they also play a dynamic role in defining the lives of their inhabitants. Jane Jacobs, in The Death and Life of Great American Cities, defines borders rigidly, framing them as limitations –– a “curse” (261) –– that “[exert] an active influence” (257) and channel physical and spiritual life into destructive patterns. In My Brilliant Friend, Elena Ferrante’s characters Lila and Lenu complicate Jacobs’ view of borders. Although borders define both girls, their responses to imposed conformity lead them down different paths. Despite feeling trapped by borders as a child, Lila defines herself within the confines of the neighborhood and becomes dependent on borders — creating her own for safety and control. In contrast, Lenu never feels empowered within neighborhood boundaries, so a desire to escape motivates her. The arcs of both women complicate Jacobs’ narrative that borders are destructive and limiting. Through borders and their interactions with them, Lila and Lenu’s childhood friendship and diverging adult lives are delineated. Though confining, the girls’ relationships with borders allow them to define themselves.
Having only seen the world from inside their neighborhood, Lila and Lenu’s early friendship builds on their curiosity about borders and their limits. To Jacobs, “the root trouble with borders … is that they are apt to form dead ends … They represent, for most people … barriers” (259). Capitalizing Jacobs’ principle of borders as barriers, the parents of Naples tell stories to create social borders that restrict movement and curiosity and promote safety. While this enculturated fear leads Lenu to believe that “up or down … we were always going toward something terrible” (29), Lila is not restricted. For her, the presence of borders inspires the very curiosity they are supposed to eliminate. She challenges boundaries by misbehaving in class, throwing rocks at bullies, and exploring dark cellars. To Lenu, “although [Lila] was fragile in appearance, every prohibition lost substance in her presence … she knew how to go beyond the limit” (64). Lila’s rebellions push the boundaries of Lenu’s comfort. Captivated by Lila, Lenu follows her up the stairs to the apartment of Don Achille, the “ogre of fairy tales,” whom they were “absolutely forbidden to go near” (27). These relatively safe transgressions of both physical and social neighborhood boundaries solidify the girls’ friendship.
As she grows up and sees beyond the borders, Lila’s relationship with borders changes from rebellion to conformity. After panicking during her first excursion beyond the neighborhood, Lila experiences “episode[s] of dissolving margins” where “outlines of people and things suddenly dissolved” (89). This leads Lila to represent Jacobs’ assertion that “people who live behind project borders and feel estranged and deeply unsafe about the city across those borders are not going to be much help in eliminating district border vacuums” (402). For Lila, this manifests as fear of the physical city beyond the neighborhood as well as its norms and people. Lila’s fear not only causes her to be unhelpful “in eliminating … border vacuums,” but she actively works to create more borders. On New Year’s, Lila’s episode of dissolving margins occurs when “Rino had lost his usual outline, she now had a brother without boundaries, from whom something irreparable might emerge” (180). Lila feels out of control, and in response, creates her own borders to replace the vanishing ones around her. This is embodied physically as she “narrowed her eyes, squeezed them almost until they were closed” — Ferrante notes Lila “narrowing of her eyes” a total of ten times (213). Because her parents forbid her from continuing her education, Lila focuses energy inwards on the neighborhood by joining the family business and marrying Stefano, a prominent bachelor. To prevent depression, Lila’s life must be contained within a narrow focus, like a draft horse wearing blinders. Borders, their creation, and their breaking empower Lila — at least at first — explaining why she works to create her own even when they are not provided physically. For Lila, borders do not only represent “barriers” (Jacobs 259) but also freedom.
In contrast, Lenu has a more straightforward relationship with borders, which emerges from new opportunities that lead her outside the neighborhood. Attending school in the city causes Lenu to feel “as if our neighborhood had expanded” (197). Through education, Lenu safely escapes the neighborhood’s confinement, and an increased understanding of both language and literature inspires her curiosity and desire for a bigger life than the neighborhood can provide. She even wonders if “only our neighborhood was filled with conflicts and violence, while the rest of the city was radiant, benevolent?” and feels safer outside the neighborhood than within (137). While Lenu grows beyond the boundaries, Lila restricts herself within them.
Lila and Lenu’s diverging relationships with borders metabolize in the physical changes puberty causes; while Lila narrows, Lenu expands. After spending a summer apart as teenagers, Lenu describes how Lila’s “old clothes were short and tight, … they hugged her body more than they should” (208). Lila’s clothes symbolize the neighborhood, and although they no longer fit, Lila continues to wear them, confining her body and mind. Instead of growing out, Lila grows up, becoming slim and tall. Lenu describes Lila’s poignant beauty, explaining how observers “gaze on the childish shoulders, … on the narrow hips and the tense buttocks, on the black sex, on the long legs” (284). By forcing herself to fit physically and emotionally within the neighborhood, Lila becomes the most desirable girl. Alternatively, as Lenu’s body changes, she describes herself as “tarnished. I looked in the mirror and didn’t see what I would have liked… My whole body continued to expand but without increasing in height” (120). These changes occur while Lenu is in middle school when she is living her life beyond the neighborhood and also expanding her mind through education. Her negative self-image reflects her psychic displacement, which increases when her mother makes her feel “ashamed” and “indecent” about her “big breasts” (102) and changing body. Similarly, Lenu feels isolated by her education, which the neighborhood does not value. When Lenu leaves home to spend her summer in faraway Ischia, she feels her beauty: “I looked at myself in the mirror and … marveled: the sun had made me a shining blond, but my face, my arms, my legs were as if painted with dark gold” (233). However, this feeling is short-lived following her return to the neighborhood where changes in physique leave her feeling “excessive, anomalous” (233). Because she has expanded beyond the neighborhood both mentally and physically, Lenu finds her power and beauty when she leaves.
My Brilliant Friend culminates with Lila and Lenu living separate lives, which is seen by examining their relationships with borders. To Jacobs, “railroad tracks are the classical examples of borders, so much that they came to stand…for social borders” (257). Lila and Stefano buy an apartment where “two hundred yards away ran the gleaming tracks of the railroad” (Ferrante 288). Although Lila is starting a new life, she feels safe defining herself as living within the visible neighborhood boundaries. But Lenu finds border zones dangerous. Her experience of the railroad is ruined by Donato Sarratore, the poet-railroad worker, who sexually assaults her. He tells Lenu that “he would wait for [her] forever, that every day at noon he would be at the entrance to the tunnel” at the neighborhood border. In response, Lenu “shook [her] head forcefully: I would never go there” (285). Although the “border vacuum” is a safe place for Lila who feels secure among concrete boundaries, Sarratore’s presence solidifies Lenu’s feeling that she will never be comfortable in the neighborhood (Jacobs 402). Lenu believes the neighborhood is “a whirlpool from which any attempt at escape was an illusion,” but Nino shows her escape is possible (220). Lenu’s love for Nino, who can “enter and leave the neighborhood as he wished, without being contaminated,” reflects her own desire to leave (330). Although leaving the neighborhood as a kid during “the stormy move had almost cost [Nino] his life,” borders no longer apply to him (330). Recognizing this cost of freedom, Lenu questions whether she can truly escape the neighborhood’s confines. Because of their diverging paths, leaving the borders of the neighborhood also means leaving her most sacred possession — her relationship with Lila — who remains trapped inside.
Borders develop their own character in Ferrante’s neighborhood and become an active influence on Lila and Lenu’s lives. Although Jacobs advocates that “understanding the drawbacks of borders should help rescue us from producing unnecessary borders,” Lila defines her life and power in the neighborhood by creating new borders (265). Through conforming, Lila epitomizes female beauty and can “leave the neighborhood by staying in the neighborhood” (273). But Lenu remains an outcast. When she leaves, Lenu experiences “joy of the new,” and an urge to escape the neighborhood defines her (211). Although Jacobs paints borders as an evil that should be destroyed, Lila and Lenu prove that borders play a complex role in self-definition. The girls’ struggles with borders give their lives meaning.
Works Cited
Ferrante, Elena. My Brilliant Friend. Translated by Ann Goldstein, Europa Editions, 2020. Jacobs, Jane. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Vintage Books, 1993.