Giovanna’s grade repetition and interruption of her studies

Giovanna’s grade repetition and interruption of her studies turn an academic setback into a measure of the divisions within her family and of her own troubled self-image. When she is not promoted, the school’s record of poor grades and excessive absences gives her mother grounds to challenge the decision, but the failure is confirmed. Her mother asks that it be kept secret; Giovanna, by contrast, wants the failure known, as if it were the one distinction she can claim. The next school year brings renewed study and better grades, though not a simple return to confidence or belonging.

The Failure and Its Context

In June, Giovanna’s mother goes to the school to find out how the year has gone and learns that her daughter has not been promoted. She already knows Giovanna is doing very poorly, but regards failure as extreme and brings her along while she speaks with the teachers and the principal, as though Giovanna’s presence might help demonstrate that an injustice has been done. The teachers have difficulty remembering her, then point to the school records: bad grades and an excessive number of absences. Her mother is especially troubled by the absences and asks where Giovanna has been. Giovanna says she was at the Floridiana.

The encounter leaves the school’s judgment in direct conflict with her mother’s defense of her. A literature teacher says Giovanna has no talent for classical studies. Her mother answers for her, insisting that she is talented but has been lost that year. The contrast matters: the teacher’s assessment names a limit in academic ability, while her mother tries to preserve an image of potential that the school record has not borne out. Giovanna herself privately turns the verdict into something broader, feeling that she is not intelligent, cannot act with good intentions, is unattractive, and is not even pleasant.

Secrecy, Shame, and Self-Definition

Outside the school, Giovanna’s mother blames her absent husband, saying he should have been watching over, helping, and encouraging their daughter. She continues to blame him at home and seeks him out at school the following day. The narrative does not disclose what passes between the parents. That night, however, her mother tells Giovanna that they will not tell anyone she has failed.

The request does not comfort Giovanna. She feels more humiliated because she wants other people to know: failure seems to her the only mark of distinction she possesses. She imagines her mother telling her colleagues and the people for whom she corrects proofs and writes, and her father telling those who respect him that Giovanna does not learn or work hard. In the same harsh fantasy, she imagines him describing her as ugly inside and out like her aunt and predicting that she might go live with her in the Macello neighborhood, in the Industrial Zone. These imagined declarations connect school performance to family resemblance, appearance, and belonging; Giovanna turns a failed year into a verdict on her whole character.

Her mother instead calls the result a small setback and proposes a practical future: Giovanna will repeat the year, study, and become the best in the class. Giovanna agrees unwillingly. Her mother also tells her not to mention the failure, even to Angela and Ida. When Giovanna asks whether her father requested the secrecy, her mother does not answer. Giovanna notices that she looks thinner and understands the silence as evidence that both parents are ashamed of the failure, perhaps the only feeling they still share. The school setback thus enters a household already marked by separation and accusation, without the story claiming that the family rupture alone caused her absences or grades.

Confession and Family Response

Giovanna eventually rejects the concealment at a family gathering. When Costanza is described as a good, studious girl, Giovanna sees that Angela and Ida are unhappy and that her own impulse toward revenge has ebbed. Their distress makes her distressed as well. She fears that they may use a secret against her—that they may say she was held back, does not learn, and does not deserve the bracelet—and blurts out that she is neither good nor studious, that she failed the previous year and is repeating now.

Costanza looks uncertainly toward Giovanna’s father. He coughs and confirms that the failure is true, but immediately qualifies it by saying that Giovanna is doing well this year and may complete two years in one. He then redirects the moment, asking her to give the bracelet to Angela and Ida. The exchange shows both the fact of her repeated year and the continuing management of its meaning: Giovanna names the failure without qualification, while her father frames it as already being overcome. Her disclosure also interrupts the secret her mother had asked her to keep, making the academic setback visible within the family rather than leaving it as a private source of shame.

Return to Study and Continuing Alienation

At a later point, Giovanna resumes studying without having consciously decided to do so, as though she were returning to an old routine. She begins receiving good grades. At the same time, she makes herself friendlier toward her classmates and starts going out with them on Saturday nights, while still avoiding the formation of close friendships. The improvement is concrete, but her social adjustment remains guarded.

Her return to work does not erase the way she experiences school. It seems to her more than before like a place of crude banter, and she continues to have sharp tones, aggressive outbursts, and hostile silences. She sometimes believes she could become better, yet that hope is repeatedly checked by annoyance, scathing judgments, and an urge to quarrel. The contrast between her improving grades and her continuing estrangement prevents academic recovery from standing in for emotional recovery. She takes refuge in thoughts of Roberto, even as the difficulty of expressing herself without harshness remains.

Significance

The episode makes school failure a social and familial fact as well as an academic one. The teachers’ records establish the absences and poor grades; her mother’s proposed secrecy shows the family’s shame; Giovanna’s desire to announce the result turns that shame into a defiant, if self-punishing, claim of identity. At the gathering, her confession exposes the difference between her own sweeping condemnation and her father’s attempt to present the failure as temporary.

The later return to studying complicates the idea that repeating a year simply repairs what went wrong. Giovanna achieves better results and makes some effort to be more sociable, but she remains suspicious of school, guarded with classmates, and prone to the very hostility she wishes she could change. The arc is therefore a movement from failure and concealment toward renewed effort and disclosure, without a complete resolution of the alienation that accompanied the interruption of her studies.