Elena and Lila grow up in a poor neighborhood in Naples, where squalor and disease are rife and money and resources are scarce. For both girls, the “idea of money as a cement to solidify our existence and prevent it from dissolving” endures throughout their lives (248). Lila quickly realizes that those with the most money in the neighborhood wield the most power. For instance, there is Don Achille, the hated extortionist, who casually hands over money for the girls to replace their dolls, imploring them to remember his “gift;” and then there are the Solaras who take advantage of Ada Cappuccio because she has low social status (67).

Lila uses the money from Don Achille to buy Little Women, a 19th-century American novel that she knows because Maestra Oliviero lent it to her. Being in possession of the book, Elena and Lila feel the advantage of being able to read it “continuously,” either silently or aloud to each other until it falls apart (68). As Lila and Elena become obsessed with wealth, they believe that, like Jo March in Little Women, “all you had to do was go to school and write a book” to become rich (70).