In Need of A LOT of Rest and Relaxation

Elizabeth Strout’s 2008 novel, Olive Kitteridge, focuses on a stressed, depressed woman in need of relaxation, so I would give her a day at the spa and a cat for her birthday. Olive needs a day at the spa more than anyone I know. Her father’s suicide, husband’s stroke and death, son’s divorce and separation from, and her own issues with adultery, depression, and loneliness create an extremely tense life and a trip to the spa could begin to help her relax. As a very self-conscious woman, she also constantly worries about her appearance. Olive struggles to stay involved in activities and interact with others so a spa day would keep her busy and combat her loneliness. Towards the end of the novel, she begins dating for the first time since her husband’s death, but she struggles to embrace her new relationship. While out on a date, she fears she looks “like a whale” (261). Through Strout’s use of a simile comparing Olive to a massive animal, she indirectly characterizes Olive as insecure in order to juxtapose Olive’s sensitive feelings with her indifferent attitude and highlight how important Olive really views her appearance. Throughout the entire book, Olive’s doubts about her body plague her and lead her to feel even more isolated from others, so a day at the spa would help her self-esteem and overall well being. However, I recognize the need for a long-term solution to her problems so I would give Olive a pet cat because she often feels lonely and unneeded in life. After her husband dies she finds herself  “drowning in the emptiness” (257). Olive owns a dog but I think she views her dog as more of a burden than a comfort. Additionally, unlike a dog or many people in Olive’s life, a cat would require very little from her and accept Olive’s constantly changing emotions. When Olive feels anti-social, which she often does, she would not need to worry about entertaining the cat, as cats often act aloof. However, Olive’s loneliness consumes her at times, such as once when for a “few days she stayed in bed” (267) due to her depression. I appreciate my cats most when I lie in bed, sick, and my cats quietly curl up next to me and sleep. A cat would provide Olive with love and comfort but need little in return, the perfect gift for a lonely woman who struggles to connect with others. 

Escape from Reality

In Olive Kitteridge, Elizabeth Strout’s 2008 book, I disagree with Olive Kitteridge’s coping mechanism of ignoring her problems and focusing on others, but I understand her denial after her life suddenly changes for the worse. Before her husband suffers a stroke, Olive admits how it feels “‘nice to hear other people’s problems’” (108) and gossip for fun because her life seems better in comparison. However, after her husband becomes ill, Olive begins to rely on others’ pain to help her survive. With her husband living in an assisted living home and unable to recognize her, Olive struggles daily with her grief and seeks out other people suffering. Unfortunately, each time she does, she ends up disappointed and with the realization that others’ lives seem better than hers despite their problems. When talking with a grieving widow, she becomes jealous of the women because her family and friends love and support her while Olive admits to herself, “no one will miss her” (172). Instead of trying to move on, she continues to ignore her grief and spontaneously visits Louise Larkin, a woman whose son murdered a girl, causing his parents to become pariahs in their small town. Olive hopes to “feel better…knowing the woman suffered” but even in such a horrible situation, Louise maintains her self-assured attitude and chips away at Olive’s façade of normalcy (162). Instead of focusing on improving her own life, Olive concentrates on other people’s problems, as if her life will improve if everyone else suffers. At first, Olive seems selfish and I resent her self-pitying nature, but Strout divides her novel into thirteen different stories with multiple points of view in order to demonstrate how many characters incorrectly view Olive as abrasive and aloof even though she simply hides her emotions. Strout creates sympathy for Olive as the novel continues and she reveals Olive’s loneliness and depression. After Henry becomes ill, Olive finds herself alone with her fears and self-consciousness for the first time in her life. While I pity Olive, I also recognize that she allows herself to continue suffering as a result of her resistance to change; she still waits for her son and husband to return home. She spends her life controlling her son and husband and all of a sudden, she finds herself unable to control even her own life. I can understand why she wants to escape from reality when her life suddenly falls apart, but I also think she needs to seek positive help with her life, whether in the form of a therapist or support group meetings. Olive refuses to take the initiative herself and move on with her life and becomes even more depressed when she realizes that others accept their situations. 

Knowing Everything

In her 2008 novel, Olive Kitteridge, Elizabeth Strout portrays the world as full of suffering people who make little effort to understand those around them, a view I find extreme but accurate in representing basic human nature. Almost every character in the novel deals with a horrendous situation such as suicide, death, drugs, or depression. While I do not believe Strout’s novel accurately depicts the world, I find her focus on such distressed people effective in highlighting the need for more awareness of the pain in the world. Specifically, I consider Strout’s pathos and her theme of depression very effective, as they demonstrate the characters’ internal conflict. Despite her characters’ misery, Strout prevents them from taking action and committing suicide, Strout reveals the hope within them. Nina, a teenage girl, becomes anorexic so she can fulfill the sexist views on how women should look but she admits to Olive, “‘I don’t want to be like this’” (96). The author uses internal conflict to demonstrate how Nina desperately wants to fit in but realizes the dangers of her eating disorder. Strout’s use of internal conflict creates pathos to target people who allow others to suffer to instill feelings of guilt. Nina struggles with anorexia and drugs, yet when Olive, a woman she barely knows, tries to help her she attempts to turn her life around. Though Nina dies, her death highlights the need for more people to take an interest in helping others, regardless of personal feelings about them or their decisions. The townspeople’s need for gossip continually overcomes their human compassion, a tragedy that occurs every day in the real world. Every day, magazines and Internet articles highlight celebrities’ arrests, drug addictions, and eating disorders to become skinny, because people read those articles for amusement. Few people try to help Nina and give her support because most of them see her as another source of entertainment rather than a girl struggling to survive. When one man, Kevin, returns home after several years and finds that people know specific details about his life, he questions, “does everybody know everything?” (35). Everyone in the town whispers about scandals, embarrassments, and trivial details and think they know the subjects of their gossip but few people actually make an effort to look beyond the surface and understand people’s troubles. As Olive explains, “nobody knows everything- they shouldn’t think they do” (74). In today’s society, people often judge others quickly and move on with their lives, rarely stopping to try to understand someone else’s life and how they can help.