Selina’s English Blog

Symbolism of Name:

The name ‘Francesca’ comes from the Latin male name ‘Franciscus’ meaning ‘free’. It is also used in the Italian, French and Catalan languages. ‘Francesca’ means ‘free-spirited’. In the novel she is also nicknamed ‘Frankie’ and ‘Francis’. I think the name ‘Franchesca’ does sort of suit her as she can be a bit a dramatic and she wants to become an actress, but she is a bit complicated at the moment as to what she is going to do and how she is going to it.

Also her last name, ‘Spinelli’, is an Italian name.

Speech

Fransesca can’t always help what comes out of her mouth but she used to let her friends say things for her and let them tell her who she is instead herself trying to find her own identity, but with the boys at her new school she is a lot more on her own and tries to do the ’shy girl’ thing, which the boys can all see through and they figure her about a bit more than she even figured herself out, but it is up to her to her to discover who she is. They notice her muttering under her breath when really she’d like to say it out loud. She does swear a bit but mostly out of annoyance of how things are or what some one says, as things have changed alot around her, ith her mum’s prolems and not being around the same people anymore. But now i think she is still struggling to find identity, and she doesn’t have her Stella’s friends around her to tell her not who she was, but what she wanted to hear. And she hasnt always got her mum to talk to her like she used to.

Appearance 

In the book it doesn’t really say much about Francesca’s physical appearance but the boys don’t really see her as a slut or as a nobody, i think they see her as more of just a mate. The narrator sort of leaves you open to your own creativity to imagine what she looks like. And she is sixteen years old as she is in year eleven.

Actions

Francesca has diffuculty relating to and trying to fit in with the boys at her new school and the boys are not used to having the girls around and they get treated alot differnetly by students and teachers then how they were treated before.

It is difficult for her at first and it’s like she sort of doesn’t want to fit in because she wants it how it was like before. She doesn’t act the same all the time though, it depends on what  people she is with. Like for example when she’s alone with Thomas Mackee she was telling him alot of things like her troubles at home and at school with trying to fit in with everyone but realised she couldn’t please everyone and they couldn’t all please her, although in class Thomas was a bit of a dickhead and she told him so.

But Francesca made friends again with her old friends again and made a couple of new ones, like Justine, Siobhan and Tara because they realised they had a lot more in common and understood eachother more than they used and they were in the minority at the all-boys school. 

She obviously has a big crush on Wil Trombal but keeps trying to deny it, even when she is with him, and sometimes does try to push him away, especially when she finds out he has a girlfriend already, though he does dump her for Francesca later. But it depends on how she’s feeling and who she is with for her to act and relate to people differently. Near the end of the book she starts to realise that she doesn’t have to be anyone but herself, and she doesn’t have to be part of the ‘cool’ crowd to be liked and that people just like her who she really is, not when she’s trying too hard to be someone else. as before at Stella’s she sort of held back what she’s really like to say and let her so-called friends say it for her and tell her who she is or should be. And in the end they weren’t true friends at all.

Other

Francesca Spinelli is sort of displayed and stereotyped as a ‘normal’ girl trying to fit in, struggling to find identity, trying to cope with just being a teenager and trying to fight change.

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