"Olive" is an Anagram for "I love"

Since my adolescence, I have adopted a rather present sense of pride to my personality. This said, I naturally do not enjoy when people of any age speak to me with tones of condescension or judgment. So, I found myself in a constant state of aggravation whenever Olive voiced her snarky opinions throughout the beginning of Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge. Bouncing between Strout's thirteen short stories, the early words of the novel left me unimpressed with Olive's repetitive disrespect for her husband, Henry, and her resistance to showing any emotion, even to her loved ones. However, as the novel turns to focus solely on Olive's thoughts in the chapter, "A Different Road," I found myself feeling sympathetic for the woman stuck half-naked in a hospital bathroom. While I originally characterized Olive as old and bitter, she showed me a different side when she explains that she "pictured teaching [her son's]... children how to plant" (107). Through her hopeful diction of "pictured," Olive speaks with a disappointed tone as she shows the audience her deep sorrow upon her beloved son, Christopher's, departure to California. Olive humanizes herself as she shows her deep love for her son, despite the fact that she can hardly admit compassion for her own husband. Not only does Olive mask her loving emotions from the world, but also her emotions of fear or hurt. Like a brick wall, Olive shows no disturbance as a nurse at the hospital informs her that she needs to see a doctor for fear of her dying from a crabmeat allergic reaction: "'for God's sake,'... but her heart banged fast" (110). Hear, Strout highlights Olive's inability to show weakness to anyone but herself. While she indirectly characterizes herself as brave and unfazed, she gives the audience a hint that she has walls built up around her heart, implying that someone or something has hurt her deeply in the past. As the reader later finds out about her father's suicide, Olive's bitterness finally begins to make sense. Her internal conflict to show emotion creates pathos from people who have suffered a traumatic event, evoking pity as Olive forces herself to face the world alone. Similarly, as Olive sits trapped and threatened in the hospital bathroom with a gun waiting to fire, "she was crying, everything was all messed up" (121). The amount of sympathy I feel for Olive as she lets all of her bottled emotions out remains immense. Not only did she lose her own father to suicide at a long age, but she also lost her son to a controlling wife, lost her husband's heart to a young coworker, Denise, and now sees the world losing touch with her. Finally, I can appreciate Olive, no longer a heartless robot, but a regular woman, facing her own struggles as life passes her by. Reading her thoughts, Olive has changed my once bitter emotions toward her and has taught me that more often than not, human nature makes it easy for us to judge people upon a simple look or greeting. No one can fully understand the life that someone lives day-to-day, so do not try.