Novel “Why I killed My Best Friend”

In Amanda’s book “Why I killed My Best Friend”, Maria who was a young girl has been described. She was lifted from Africa which was her beloved homeland and was later relocated to Greece. The young girl struggles with life as she tries to cope with the transition. She develops hatred for everything in Athens including language, her classmates, school, air and even the food that was offered to her. In the process of resigning from this misery, she meets Anna.

Although Anna had opposite view of Athens culture compared to Maria, they become friends owing it that they were foreigners. Each day, the bonds between the girls increased, and they became inseparable in how they related. They became best friends and also competitors in their school. They competed in political beliefs, future aspiration, talents and even boys.

From Anna’s and Maria grade school during the 70s, state of dictatorship was experienced in Greece. This continued to the point of their maturity.

Michalopoulou charts the fallings, downs, and ups that can be witnessed from bonds between two friends. The novel which has been written beautifully and makes a comparison of the friendship while exploring the political system present in democracy and totalities (Emmerich, 25-35). Flawlessly that has been translated by Amanda makes use of politics in Greek, the radical protest and the world of arts to explore the joys and dangers that come up with best friends. The writer puts this danger as “odiodsamato” which could be translated to mean “frenemies.

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The friendship described during childhood carries powerful psychic charge and emotion which casts the overwhelming shadow in our memories. It is demonstrated in the union between the two girls who were tinged with biting antagonism as illustrated by Micalopoulou’s novel. The title is provocative, and it suggests that Anna who was her best friend did not inspire the narrator and who is also the protagonist. Their relationship is viewed as being abusive because Maria constantly challenged her childhood classmate who was also her best friend. Through her dictation, Anna can direct and dictate Maria’s thoughts, place of residence, political ideology and romantic interest. This makes the novel be an accurate portrayal of friendship between the two females. The novel also portrays our desire of clinging to the people who elicit some parts of our lives instead on remaining in a cling of darkness.

Abuse is described but the novel’s recurrent and most stirring images of a cave. These include when Plato illuminates the cave which Maria had suppressed from the thoughts of childhood memories. Maria’s family was located in Greece. However, a cave in a beach in Nigeria gave her an enduring scar in her emotions and her physical (Emmerich, 25-35). To fight this feeling, she avoided sharing with any person and kept it to herself. When Anna comes into Maria’s life, she indirectly and directly rustles this part of Maria’s life. Maria is no longer hiding in her emotional cave anymore.

The novel also illustrates other forms of abuse in the political backdrop. The two friends Anna and Maria are known to have grown during turbulent times in the history of Greece. There are shadows described during this reign of brutal dictatorship which was following them. There is also a gaze of communism which was ahead. Greece is known to be at a state of both ideologically and politically. Although politics have been known to motivate the actions of this book, the movements that the two friends were involved in explains how they suffered from AIDS epidemic which threatened to stifle the liberties. The two friends fail to overwhelm the actions, and they bog down the readers with personages, facts, and details which were not very necessary.

In this novel, the experience of intimately and viscerally earthquake results into aftershock through the emotional and physical landscape. Protests take Antigone’s life, the shoot-outs experiences in Attic Highway leaves Maria without a friend. The bonds, the influence, and the bonds are the main purposes illustrating the events that take place leading to their disappearance (Emmerich, 25-35). The layers described of cultural, political and interpersonal suffocation are present to all people. However, Anna breaks a clear conclusion which was told through indirect means of obituaries and clips. They suggest that Maria will never be a victim of circumstance after all. Although she was alone and tried to be in line with what her close people wanted her to be like, she was made to feel inferior during this process.

Although we may not be privileged to experience the things Anna experienced directly, through her honesty is described before the conclusion of the novel. The author explains successfully how Anna and her friend experienced abuse from the political system. The relationship between the duals is also described to be abusive considering that the two friends had different views of most issues in their lives. Consequently, abuse is described in their marriage lives. Through these instances, the author has successfully described abuse in the novel.