55 pages • 1-hour read
The Sweetest Oblivion
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Themes
Passion and Desire in Forbidden Romances
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes depictions of imbalanced power dynamics in intimate relationships, gender discrimination, and emotional abuse.
The Sweetest Oblivion uses the forbidden romance trope to explore the passionate intensity of taboo relationships. According to the forbidden romance trope, two characters who aren’t allowed to be together due to circumstantial barriers struggle to fight their attraction for each other. For Elena Abelli and Nicolas (Nico) Russo, staying apart is especially challenging because Nico is engaged to Elena’s sister Adriana Abelli. As their wedding draws near, Nico spends more and more time in Elena’s home and immediate sphere. Their proximity incites intense feelings between them despite their alleged aversion to each other. In these recurring encounters, Elena feels “tongue-tied around [Nico], tilted off [her] point of gravity, and truthfully just hot, as though a blush permanently warmed [her] skin” (16). Throughout Elena’s chapters, Elena repeatedly describes her physiological response to Nico. Her senses are often overwhelmed, confusing her logical brain. The same is true for Nico, who can’t tamp down his desire to be with Elena although he knows being together is wrong. The social and familial barriers that keep the love interests apart augment the tension between them.
Elena and Nico’s passionate dynamic illustrates how the individual will pursue her desires more intently when these desires are circumstantially precluded. Indeed, because Elena and Nico know they can’t be together, they find more opportunities to be alone together and to push the boundaries of their relationship. Their heated romance enacts the adage “you want what you can’t have.” The longer Elena and Nico are involved, the more poignant this truth becomes to them. The way that Elena reflects on her feelings for and interactions with Nico authenticates this notion: “There comes a point in life when you know that what you want to do is wrong, and you have to decide whether to avoid the temptation or do it anyway. I was doing it anyway” (137). For Elena, acting on her taboo feelings grants her the illusion of agency; it also offers her excitement and stimulation.
Even after Elena and Nico are engaged, their passion remains because it originated from their forbidden romance. Elena does fear that after they start having sex, Nico won’t be interested in her anymore (an idea that suggests Nico only wants Elena because they can’t be together but will grow tired of her once his desires are satisfied). Elena’s fears prove unfounded in that Nico remains absorbed in Elena even as their relationship develops. The unexpected sustainability of their relationship aligns with the dark romance tradition, in that these romances take their inspiration from relational conflicts. Elena and Nico ultimately establish a dynamic that works for them and marry by the end of the novel. This resolution suggests that their forbidden romance thrust them together and gave them a passionate relationship they otherwise wouldn’t have found.
Impact of Family on Personal Choices
Elena’s complex relationship with her family captures the struggles that might arise from growing up, leaving home, and making choices for oneself. In the narrative present, Elena is 21 years old. Although she’s an adult young woman, Elena feels incapable of behaving according to her desires, whims, and needs. Her father Salvatore Abelli is a mafia boss and thus has jurisdiction over Elena’s life and future. The parameters of this world (and the mafia romance subgenre) cast Elena as Salvatore’s “property”—an antiquated, misogynistic familial arrangement used to heighten Elena’s entrapment and the stakes of her storyline. Elena feels particularly trapped when it comes to her relationship future. Because Salvatore is still angry with her for sleeping with her late lover, he keeps her largely locked up at home, forbidding her to go out without a chaperone, and mediating every one of her intimate relationships. He also plans to arrange her marriage to Oscar Perez (despite Oscar’s lewd behaviors, sinister past, and violent reputation) or alternatively to Christian. When Elena learns of these plans, her narrative lapses into an internal monologue that captures how deeply her family influences her personal choices:
Disappointment sank like lead in my stomach. I wanted control of some things in my life—this conversation one of them—but as my papà gave me a ‘behave’ expression, I knew it had all been contrived. Although, if Papà was considering Christian, that meant he hadn’t settled on Oscar Perez. The possibility released some pressure closing in on me. I would take Christian over that creep any day (162).
In the subsequent scenes, Elena actively pursues Christian although she has no real interest in him. This choice originates from her desire to stand up to her father and claim some control over her life. Her choices to spend time with Nico despite her frustration with him also originate from her entrapment at home and desire to liberate herself from her father’s dominance.
Elena’s life with Nico ushers her out of her home and into the adult world—a transition that helps her to establish herself outside the context of her familial sphere for the first time. Elena isn’t sure she will be able to survive Nico when they first get engaged. Over time, however, she realizes that living and creating a life with Nico is an escape from Salvatore, Tony, and her cousins. Being with Nico also reiterates her desire to remain in the Cosa Nostra. She has grown up in this world and her family culture has thus shaped her outlook and understanding. Being with Nico has its challenges, but she ultimately believes she is choosing Nico over her father. This is Elena’s way of embracing the parts of her family legacy that she loves and developing her own identity in this world.
Quest for Autonomy and Self-Possession
Elena’s storyline traces her ongoing search for autonomy over her life and identity. At 21 years old, the only time Elena has felt nominally free was when she fled her family home and spent an abbreviated amount of time in her ex-lover’s apartment. However this retreat from her family and the Cosa Nostra did not offer Elena lasting liberation; neither did it imbue her with self-confidence. This interlude of Elena’s life rather ended in tragedy and violence: her family killed her lover in her presence and her father has been punishing her by withholding his love and controlling her ever since. In the wake of this incident, Elena feels weighed by guilt and shame. She wants to atone for her mistakes, but she is also desperate to claim her voice and be herself. Her internal conflicts throughout the early half of the novel show how the individual might fight for autonomy when her power is limited and her rights are restricted.
Elena’s Sweet Abelli persona is a metaphor for her identity struggle. Ever since she can remember, she has been known as the Sweet Abelli. She earned this diminutive nickname because of her outwardly gentle, polite, and deferential personality. However Elena has been trying to discard this nickname because it doesn’t represent her true self. “I was stuck in the world’s expectations for me. It took years of feeling like a pretty bird in a cage until it all became too much” (2), she remarks at the start of the novel. The image of the caged bird evokes notions of entrapment and restriction. Elena can’t fully inhabit her true identity as long as everyone sees her as the “pretty bird” they perceive her to be. At the same time, Elena is afraid to let go of the Sweet Abelli because she’s accustomed to hiding behind this facade:
Like the hard shell of a coconut, the Sweet Abelli shielded the real me from the world. It couldn’t be cracked without strong tools. Lowering that barrier bared a part of me not many had seen—a me that felt. A vulnerable me. I wasn’t sure why I let Nicolas Russo see that side. Maybe it was because his indifference made me believe he didn’t want to crack me (63).
The images of the coconut shell, the shield, and the strong tools in this passage convey the strength of the Sweet Abelli persona. It is a form of protection for Elena that she doesn’t know how to live without.
In the context of Nico, Elena learns to discard her persona in order to embrace her true self—a dynamic that intensifies their passion. Elena doesn’t have to play a part around Nico. She is free to speak and behave in a more fluid, organic manner. Although his character is controlling and aggressive, Elena feels comfortable around him. She even likens him to “home” more than once throughout the novel—a metaphor that implies that she is safe to be herself when they’re together. This dynamic suggests that romantic relationships can offer the individual the comfortability to inhabit and express herself authentically.
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