So Much for Happy Endings

Finished. The last line of my summer reading complete. Relief. And extreme discontent. Why Strout? Why! Elizabeth Strout, author of a disappointing and fairly depressing book, Olive Kitteridge, writes thirteen short stories majorly surrounding concepts of loveless marriage, cheating, and desire to return to the "golden ages" of youth. Surprisingly enough, not the adventurous and thrilling reading book I typically imagine completing during the summer season. If I ever meet Strout, I plan to slam her with riveting questions. But first and foremost I will ask Strout, "Why does love exist in such a dark place in your mind?" Throughout the novel, Strout expressed the great disappointment of love as couples age, grow far apart and lose touch with the person they once thought of so fondly. For example, as Olive confronts Henry of not protecting her, Henry fervently claims, "'all the years... you've [never] once apologized'" (123). As Henry's emotions finally boil over the top, his claim creates an external conflict between a confused Olive and his own fed-up self. The conflict only adds to the growing gap between the once young lovers, desperately passionate and kind toward each other. As they age, however, Strout seems insistent on making their lives more miserable as they fight and struggle to find words to speak to each other without adding a tone of patronization. Similarly, after discovering that her husband, Roger, cheats on her, Louise speaks with extreme hatred claiming, "his heart beats twice an hour" (153). Through her livid tone, Louise indirectly characterizes herself as hurt and betrayed by the love of her life. I simply do not understand why Strout feels the need to destroy every relationship in this novel by one fowl swoop of her pen. An innocent Louise crushed by Roger's heartlessness, Nina left in the dark as Tom sleeps with another women, and even poor, old, Olive feels such betrayal as Henry moves even further away from their marriage. To top off my disappointment with the novel, Olive declares, "'I don't care if I die'" to a man she meets on a bench in her old age (254). Left alone by Henry and separated from her son, Christopher, Olive's life of continuous hardships finally catches up to her. While Strout creates sorrowful pathos from other elderly people who remain alone in the world, she writes Olive as sadly accepting of her own death due to the loneliness that drowns her. With no one left to love, her desperation breaks my heart, knowing that even after her father's suicide, her life never turned back around to present her with a slice of happiness. Does Strout assert that happy endings simply do not exist in real life? That only in fairy tales with longing princesses and handsome princes can a life full of love truly work out? Thanks to Strout's dominant tone of sorrow throughout the entire work, the future frightens me as I acknowledge the hurt that anyone can cause me. Overall, I feel that I will never understand the level of resistance the Strout so heavily enforces against love in the world. Why, Strout? Why?

"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.

Time Tales

As I prepare for my final year of high school, my final year before I reach "adulthood," I ponder how time has so stealthily carried me quickly through the past three years. As a child, I dreamed about the days when the law would allow me to drive, when I would have a curfew later than sunset, and when I would finally be tall enough to reach the microwave buttons without standing on a chair. So, now I stand at a crossroads: once a naive child longing to grow up, now I stand as a young adult pleading my mother to stop nagging me about filling out college applications. Do I want to move forward into independence or do I wish to remain in a carefree time of acting young and reckless? In Elizabeth Strout's novel, Olive Kitteridge, the author address the major conflict of time passing which affects the lives of many characters. The conflict holds a definite role in the middle-aged pharmacist, Henry Kitteridge's, life. Working with a young woman named Denise, Henry often finds himself infatuated with her "childlike" essence (9). As his marriage finds itself dull and passionless, Henry feels an intense desire to "be in... presence of this young couple [Denise and husband, Henry]" (5). Strout juxtaposes the exciting marriage of the young couple to the distant one of Olive and Henry. As Henry indirectly characterizes himself as jealous of the young couple's spark and extreme devotion to each other, he speaks with a nostalgic tone as he longs for the days of immense happiness with his wife. Through the nostalgic tone, Strout asserts that people often lose touch with their own youth, only erasing the worry-free world they one existed in. While I have never experienced marriage myself, I understand Henry's wish to return to his days of carelessness with Olive. I often reflect on my childhood days with my oldest brother, Justin. Once duty-free, we held the ability to play games for hours, while nowadays we have grown apart due to the hectic working world he now resides in. I truly miss the close relationship we once held, just like Henry misses his own with Olive. On a different note, Strout introduces the character of Kevin Coulson, a young man still in the process of growing up and finding himself. Looking from a different perspective, Kevin acknowledges that the world's youth tries too hard to grow up. Kevin thinks to himself deciding it "sad... always a new age dawning" (42). Through his declaration, Kevin seems disappointed as he backs Strout's claim that people need to slow down and enjoy today. As a teenager, I admit that I fall victim to Kevin's point. With each crave to snag the next iPhone, each desperate need catch the latest celebrity gossip; I have unfortunately let my days of youth pass me by. Always longing for the next best thing, I have allowed myself to miss out on the small things that make these years so special; however, I also acknowledge that I cannot turn back time as I also wish the characters in Strout's novel would realize. Always melancholy and nostalgic, characters like Henry, Kevin, and many others waste their lives trying to turn back the clock. I believe that at any age, young or old, people will wish for something they once held, or will hold in the future. Embrace the time given, "today is a gift, that's why they call it the present."