Britt-Marie Was Here

Many characters experience some sort of trauma in their lives. How they learn to cope with that trauma affects their lives and their character development, especially in terms of resilience. Britt-Marie best exemplifies this cyclical journey. Neither Britt-Marie nor her parents truly recovered from the loss of her sister—already overlooked when Ingrid was alive, Britt-Marie becomes truly neglected after Ingrid’s death, further damaging Britt-Marie’s self-confidence and self-image. With no positive role models, Britt-Marie finds her own coping mechanism: cleaning. Her obsession with order and tidiness—which extends to others’ cutlery drawers—ostracizes her from potential friends and leads to paranoia, indicated by her habit of cleaning hotel mattresses with baking soda to avoid hotel staff judgment.

She also fears being, and especially dying, alone, exacerbated by her parents’ neglect in childhood and Kent’s neglect and infidelity in her marriage. The reason she wants a job, she tells the unemployment office, is because “people notice if one doesn't show up” to work (19). This fear also makes her unhealthily dependent on others, to the point that she struggles and becomes anxious when she shops alone, and she initially channels Kent’s attitudes (and insults) when she doesn’t know how to behave in society. Kent calls her “socially incompetent,” but she is more accurately extremely isolated and thus learning from scratch at age 63. Borg constantly presents Britt-Marie with new people and new experiences, so her coping mechanism is to cling to who and what she knows: She cleans obsessively, calls the unemployment case worker instead of Kent, and insists upon extreme regulation in other aspects of life. It is only after she finds a place in Borg that she learns not only to be independent, but to mentor others. Kent’s reappearance reflects her character development—though she cannot reject him completely, she can rely on others without fear of reprisal. Britt-Marie’s desire to support the children she coaches—including her acceptance of Ben’s father’s incarceration and advising Sami to set boundaries—reflects her becoming a mentor for them that she never had at their age. In this way, she is not only able to move past her own trauma, but thrives and pays things forward.

Sami’s family also exemplifies the cycle of trauma and resilience. The siblings experience parental abandonment and neglect. However, each sibling copes with their trauma in different ways—Vega throws herself into soccer because when she plays, she doesn’t feel pain; Omar dreams of achieving stability by becoming an entrepreneur. Sami, the eldest, “do[es]n’t have time to feel things” (238) because he has to look after his siblings. However, each hides a deeper layer: “Vega’s afraid, even though she mainly seems angry” while “Omar is angry, though you’d probably think he was afraid” (238). Sami, unlike Britt-Marie, had Magnus as an escape from his family trauma, but like Britt-Marie, becomes overly attached to the past. Like Britt-Marie with Kent, Sami can’t let Magnus go. His death perpetuates the trauma cycle for his siblings, as Omar channels Magnus’s desperation to avenge Sami’s murder and Vega channels Sami and Britt-Marie by taking up cleaning—a chore she originally detests. While Britt-Marie couldn’t save Sami, she and the entirety of Borg band together to care for Vega and Omar, offering hope that their cycle of trauma can be broken.

Somebody and Bank both experience physical traumas that also affect their mental health. Somebody started using a wheelchair after a boating accident, but her mobility doesn’t affect her role as the village’s postmistress, mechanic, pizza baker, and general store manager. While the cause of her heavy drinking is unclear, she values Britt-Marie because Britt-Marie sees her as a human in a wheelchair, rather than a wheelchair with a human. This indicates some level of endurance and struggle regarding her disability, especially in terms of societal perceptions. Similarly, Bank, once a soccer star on the national team who used soccer as the basis for her relationship with her late father, struggles with her own disability. Her visual disability and chronic knee injury render her unable to play soccer and destroy her relationship with her father. Her method of coping is leaving Borg entirely, though whether that was because she wanted to escape the memories of her former glory or see the world before she couldn’t is unclear. Either way, returning to Borg is difficult for Bank. She destroys the photographs of her soccer success and often drinks too much. The children also insult her vision and her weight. However, as Somebody observes, she is good because of her trauma. Although Bank struggles with her disability, she also uses it to her advantage when she and her dog trick Omar after his insult, and when she threatens to sue the soccer council to allow the Borg team to compete. She demonstrates resilience by taking up her role as soccer coach for Borg. Although she can’t live her dreams as a player, she can advise future stars.

In this way, several characters in the novel demonstrate how they cope—positively or negatively—with trauma, and how they remain resilient and hopeful for the future, despite—or perhaps because of—what they’ve been through.