English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

Italian author Elena Ferrante has been described as the “master of the unsayable”. By examining two of her novels, namely  My Brilliant Friend  (New York: Europa Editions, 2016) and  The Lying Life of Adults  (London: Europa Editions, 2020), I attempt to explore her realist methodology and depiction of female friendship as a means of creating a sense of truth-telling. Both novels focus on friendships set in Naples, although  My Brilliant Friend  is set in the post-World War II era and  The Lying Life of Adults  in the 1990s. I examine Ferrante’s use of content, characterisation, the theme of friendship, and writerly style. By comparing the novels and her techniques in this way I identify what are classically realist methods as well as the means by which Ferrante sets herself apart by using language and subject matter in unique ways to achieve a sense of truthfulness. The article concludes with the proposition that both novels address unsayable or taboo issues in a stark denotative style. However, in  My Brilliant Friend  Ferrante achieves a deeper sense of this through a particular metaphorical technique that she terms  frantumaglia , or fragmentation.

“Master of the Unsayable”: Elena Ferrante’s Representation of the Complexities of Female Friendship as a Form of “Truth-Telling”