Delia, in her painful process of mourning and reconstruction of the facts, spends a lot of time with her uncle Filippo who, in a confused and unreliable way, helps her to remember some of the cruel impositions and domestic violence that Amalia had been forced to suffer.
This and many others are the little secrets that emerge from the fierce introspective analysis that Delia undergoes during the story and, thanks to this, it becomes possible for her to accept her faults and elaborate once and for all the love-hate that he kept her tied to her mother like barbed wire.
The author, in fact, in her novels, presents women of similar origins and characteristics, intertwining their lives with the history of the city of Naples, with episodes of violence embedded in their memories, with a harsh language of which many try to break free.
[3] Each female protagonist conceived by Elena Ferrante is forced to confront her own past and present, following a long path of change and rebirth, made possible by strong self-discipline.
It is precisely this self-control that leads to the conclusion of the events, in which the main characters arrive at full awareness of themselves and the realization of the ability to face the turmoil of their lives.
[3] A theme that Elena Ferrante studies carefully is that of psychological collapse In particular, what most captures the author's attention is the inner struggle that characterizes the human mind in its attempt to defend itself from the loss of all certainty and to remain firmly attached to reality.
[1] David Lipsky, writing for The New York Times, said "Halfway through my second reading of Elena Ferrante's "Troubling Love" — 70 more pages to go in seamy Naples — I tore the book down the middle.
With this heartbreaking climax, Ferrante modifies the scope of the family novel, placing at its epicenter a story about mothers that turns mysterious and disquieting.