Giuliana

Giuliana is Margherita and Enzo’s daughter, a beautiful young woman whose love for Roberto gives her hope of leaving Pascone but also leaves her vulnerable to pressure from her mother and Vittoria. Through Giovanna’s observations, she emerges as both a cherished friend and an uneasy mirror: admired by others for her appearance, yet increasingly anxious about whether the life she wants can survive the demands made in the name of love.

Identity and family

Giuliana is introduced during Giovanna’s visit to Margherita’s home in Pascone. She is the daughter of Margherita and the deceased Enzo, and the sister of Tonino and Corrado. Giovanna describes her as slender, very beautiful, and dark-haired, with striking makeup; she imagines that Margherita must have looked like Giuliana when young. In the family kitchen, Giuliana welcomes her with lavish compliments, while her brothers respond in contrasting ways: the shy Tonino with quiet courtesy, and the more expansive Corrado with teasing attention.

The household is shaped by the complicated bond between Margherita and Vittoria, who had both loved Enzo. His framed photograph remains present in the kitchen, and the two women still refer to him in fragments of shared memory. Giuliana and her brothers are raised across this intimate but unsettled arrangement. Giovanna notices that Corrado is Vittoria’s favorite, that Margherita often looks to Vittoria for approval, and that the children both protect their mother and treat Vittoria with wary devotion. These details place Giuliana within a family where affection and authority do not fall neatly along one line of kinship.

Roberto and the engagement

Giuliana has loved Roberto since childhood, though the two did not admit their feelings for years. When they finally become engaged, her admiration for him is absolute: she regards him as exceptionally handsome, intelligent, courageous, and just, and sees his faith as remarkable. Corrado reports this devotion with amusement, setting her reverence against his own and his friends’ skepticism. Their engagement connects Giuliana to a future beyond Pascone: Roberto grew up there, then moved with his family to Milan, where he studied, and his work takes him away from Naples.

Her confidence in the relationship does not make its practical demands easy. When Roberto is due to come to Naples for a conference, Giuliana calls Giovanna with unusual seriousness and says that both she and Roberto want to see her. The invitation marks a change in Giovanna’s place in Giuliana’s life: she is no longer merely the visiting girl from Vittoria’s family but someone Giuliana actively seeks out and wants to include in her relationship with Roberto.

Friendship with Giovanna

Giuliana becomes a source of comfort for Giovanna, who turns to her as well as to Angela when she needs to steady herself. The two walk around the Vomero during Roberto’s long absences and talk about him. Their closeness is not free of self-interest: Giovanna acknowledges that she draws nearer to Giuliana partly to cultivate her connection with Roberto. But she also sees Giuliana as someone who genuinely needs her, especially after Tonino leaves without explanation and Giuliana is left to contend with Vittoria’s bullying.

The friendship carries an imbalance that Giovanna notices but does not resolve. Giuliana is radiant and attracts the attention of men; she wears Vittoria’s bracelet, and beside her Giovanna feels almost invisible. Yet Giovanna can unsettle her with a knowing remark or an obscure word, making Giuliana seem suddenly drained of energy. The contrast makes their intimacy a place of both comfort and comparison. Giuliana looks up to Giovanna, even telling Angela that she considers her extraordinary, while Giovanna’s own attention remains divided between care for her friend and fascination with Roberto.

Pressure and uncertainty

Giuliana’s family begins to press her to turn the engagement into an immediate marriage. She tells Giovanna that Margherita, encouraged by Vittoria, wants her to tell Roberto that he must marry her at once and move with her to Naples or end the engagement. Giuliana resists this ultimatum. Roberto is occupied with work important to his career, and she does not want to demand that he abandon it; she also says that she wants to leave Naples permanently.

Giovanna advises her to explain Roberto’s situation to Margherita and Vittoria. Giuliana hesitates, then does so, but the women remain unconvinced and continue to suggest that his prioritizing work means he does not love her enough and is wasting her time. The pressure turns an external disagreement about timing and place into a threat to Giuliana’s trust in the relationship. She calls the women ignorant and distressed, caught between her knowledge of Roberto’s commitments and their insistence that love should take the form of immediate marriage and relocation to Naples.

The station and narrative significance

At the station, Roberto and Giuliana part with visible tenderness, kissing and holding on to each other. Giovanna sees them as a couple whose affection is real, even as Roberto’s compliment about her beauty has unsettled her. After the train leaves, Giuliana and Giovanna remain together in the corridor. Giuliana begins a long, anguished account of how much Roberto means to her: she says he changed her life, took her away from the place where she was destined to remain, and gave her a place beside him that she now cannot imagine losing. She fears that if he sends her away, she will no longer know who she is.

The scene makes the difference between the women’s inward positions plain. Giovanna listens closely and encourages Giuliana to continue, but privately remains absorbed in Roberto’s words to her. Giuliana is speaking from distress about the possible loss of the person who has transformed her life; Giovanna, at the same moment, savors a compliment that feels to her like a private restoration. Their friendship is genuine, yet the station scene reveals its limits: they share physical closeness and confidences, while their attention is divided by different needs. Giuliana’s arc gives the novel a precise account of love as both an opening into another life and a dependence that can make separation seem like the loss of the self.