Olive Kitteridge

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2008

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-3

Chapters 4-6

Chapters 7-9

Chapters 10-13

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Food

Food, as well as hunger, is an important motif throughout the novel. It emerges in particular in Olive’s relationship with food. Olive is a “big” woman, in many senses, and she associates at least part of her size with her age and how she eats. She has always been tall. However, “the business of being big showed up with age; her ankles puffed out, her shoulders rolled up behind her neck, and her wrists and hands seemed to become the size of a man’s” (62). Though Olive admits to minding her appearance, “at this stage of the game, she is not about to abandon the comfort of food” (62).

The motif of food is interwoven with The Necessity of Human Connection. Olive’s comments about hunger help build the complexity of this motif in this context. In “Starving,” Olive asserts to a young woman with anorexia, “I’m starving, too. […] We all are” (95). In “Ship in a Bottle,” Julie Harwood recalls a lesson from Olive, her former math teacher: “I always remember she said one day, ‘Don’t be scared of your hunger. If you’re scared of your hunger, you’ll just be one more ninny like everyone else’” (195). Often, food represents characters’ connections with each other, hinting at their changing relationships.

The Sea

Crosby is a coastal town, which makes the sea an important backdrop to everything that happens there. As a motif, imagery related to the sea, as well as water imagery in general, often helps communicate The Trials of Grief and Mental Illness.

The sea represents, at once, both escape and danger, a duality that suggests the broader paradoxes of the novel: being lonely is unendurable, but so are people; one’s own reality can be brutal, but self-reflection seems impossible. In “Ship in a Bottle,” for example, the boat that Winnie’s father is building seems like a mode of escape, albeit one that will never get through the door. Yet at the same time, Winnie’s older sister tells an alarming story about their unnamed grandfather: “Their grandfather had been a fisherman whose boat had gotten stuck on a ledge out at sea. […] He had to just sit on that boat […] watching the tide come in. He’d have known he was going to drown” (184-85). This paradox seems turned on its head in “Incoming Tide,” in which Kevin Coulson contemplates suicide while watching the bay, only to dive into the raging water to save someone else in the end—thereby observing, firsthand, the drowning woman’s will to live.

The unknowable nature of the sea complements Olive’s brutally realistic approach toward life: “Nobody knows everything—they shouldn’t think they do” (74). The sea is beautiful and terrible. It is vast and, at times, unmerciful. As much as it is a bountiful source of positivity, it remains a threat that must always be treated with caution.

Sunglasses

Olive’s sunglasses are a recurring symbol throughout the novel. When things become difficult, Olive places the sunglasses over her eyes and puts a barrier between herself and the world. In the conversation with Kevin Coulson, for instance, Olive enters the car wearing her sunglasses. This is how Kevin remembers her: harsh and emotionally distant. When she takes them off, however, she is able to bond with him on a more human level. They talk about suicide without explicitly mentioning Kevin’s plans, but when Olive’s recollections become a bit too raw, she slips the sunglasses back on. She hides the emotion and feeling in her eyes once again.

Another moment when Olive depends on her sunglasses occurs when she is arguing with Henry. He accuses her of never being able to apologize, even when she is wrong, for as long as he has known her. The criticism is valid, and it pains Olive because she knows it is true. As if to escape the criticism, she takes the sunglasses from her head and places them over her eyes. She retreats from the argument, resurrecting her barrier between herself and the outside world.

Olive’s visit to New York is one of the most testing times in her life. She has a huge argument with her son and travels to the airport early, intending to fly back ahead of schedule. While waiting in the security line, Christopher’s criticisms and accusations pass through her mind. She becomes flustered and does not know what to do. Once again, she reaches for her sunglasses, even though she is indoors, inside the airport. When the security guards eventually take her away, all she can do is blink behind her sunglasses—an ineffectual attempt to process a situation in which she has lost control.

The final appearance of the sunglasses comes when Olive meets Jack. After Henry’s death, she is all alone. Feeling vulnerable and struggling to know what to do with herself, she takes frequent walks beside a river where she meets Jack. Later, when she and Jack are talking, the subject of his daughter comes up; despite their burgeoning relationship, the subject (and Jack’s actions toward his daughter) disgusts Olive. She places her sunglasses over her eyes as the argument begins to simmer. Jack, however, is happy to spar with her, arguing in a way Henry never did. He breaks through the barrier of the sunglasses and, even though they have their disagreements, Olive never feels compelled to reach for them again.