Olive, Again

“And then Jack thought of the ants that were still going about trying to get their sand wherever they needed it to go. They seemed almost heartbreaking to him, in their tininess and their resilience.”

Earlier, Jack observed ants beneath his car, and returns to this image here. Although he is ostensibly talking about ants, it is easy to see this as a metaphor for the human condition. Like the ants, humans are absorbed in their tasks; they try to press forward despite inevitable and destructive disruptions. This image sets the book’s tone in the first story, and shows the reader a way in which to view the events and characters as they unfold.

“‘No reason to cry about it,’ Olive said. (Olive had cried like a newborn baby when she hung up the phone from Christopher after he told her.)”

Olive tells someone about her son’s baby, which died in the womb. The contrast of Olive’s hard exterior with deep inner emotion is characteristic. With this juxtaposition, Strout reveals that Olive’s brusqueness is an act designed to protect herself, both from others and from her own feelings.

“He roared with laughter. And what a sound it was; Olive felt a physical sensation, a thrill. At the very same time she felt terror, as though a match had been lit on her and she had been soaked in oil. The terror, the thrill of his laughter—it was nightmarish, but also as though a huge can she had been stuffed into had just opened.”

Olive has stayed the night in Jack’s guest bedroom; she is still in bed when Jack comes in to greet her. As Olive and Jack’s relationship develops, Jack’s openness and acceptance creates a safe space for Olive to drop some of her defenses. She is terrified by this, and yet feels huge relief, as she can finally emerge from her protective shell.

“It seemed to Kayley that the history this woman had clung to was no longer important, it would be almost washed away, just a dot left—not just by the Irish, but by so many things that had happened since, the Civil Rights movement, the fact that the world was much smaller now, people connected in new ways Mrs. Ringrose never imagined.”

Kayley is a young girl, cleaning house for one of her teachers, Mrs. Ringrose. Mrs. Ringrose has a preoccupation with her family’s Mayflower ancestry—her sense of self is rooted deeply in the past. Kayley, though young, understands that Mrs. Ringrose has based her identity on history that is being reevaluated. This connects to Strout’s exploration of identity threaded throughout the collection.

“‘You haven’t been here in a while,’ Olive said. ‘Things change and your memory is different too.’”

Olive tells Christopher this when he comes with his family to visit her. She could apply the same words to herself. Throughout the collection, she grapples with her understanding of the past. Here, she shows that she is now aware that memory can shape our understanding of the truth; this will make her reevaluate many aspects of her life, including the way she treated Christopher as a mother.

“But she saw behind her closed eyes the house, and inside her was a shiver that went through her bones. The house where she had raised her son—never, ever realizing that she herself had been raising a motherless child, now a long, long way from home.”

This is an important moment for Olive, one of the first times that she takes some responsibility for the man Christopher has become. When Ann reveals her personal history to Olive, Olive sees the impact that a parent’s behavior can have on a child. She applies that same understanding to Christopher, and begins to see how her behavior has shaped him.

“‘I think our job—maybe even our duty—is to—’ her voice became calm, adultlike. ‘To bear the burden of the mystery with as much grace as we can.’”

Suzanne and Bernie talk about faith; both say that they have sensed something larger than humankind. Suzanne acknowledges that she can never really know if there is something transcendent, something like God. Part of faith is recognizing, and then accepting, that mystery.

“‘People live with things,’ Bernie said. ‘They do. I am always amazed at what people live with.’”

Bernie is counseling Suzanne not to tell her husband about her affair. He feels that since the affair was her mistake, her husband should not have to bear its burden. As a lawyer, Bernie has kept secrets for his clients; in fact, he has kept secrets for Suzanne’s father. He is fully aware of the price of secrets, as secrets have the power to damage those who keep them.

“‘You know, Cindy, if you should be dying, if you do die, the truth is–-we’re all just a few steps behind you. Twenty minutes behind you, and that’s the truth.’”

Olive is visiting Cindy, who is undergoing cancer treatment. Olive exemplifies The Value of the Unvarnished Truth. Other characters, like Cindy, find great comfort in what we might normally see as a social gaffe. For better or worse, Olive speaks honestly; this helps Cindy gain a new perspective on her situation.

“‘But it’s never starting over, Cindy, it’s just continuing on.’”

Olive is talking to Cindy about her second marriage to Jack, and opens up new ways of thinking for Cindy. Olive understands that, for better or for worse, one carries the weight and history of one’s entire life. On the positive side, she takes everything she learned in her first marriage into her second marriage; she is able to be a better partner to Jack, who does the same.

“What Denny’s son had not understood was that Denny had never had his feelings hurt by being called ‘Frenchie.’ As Denny kept walking, digging his hands deeper into his pockets, he began to wonder if this was true. He realized: What was true was that he, Denny, had accepted it.”

Denny thinks about the prejudice he faced when he was younger for being French Canadian, an ethnicity deeply disparaged where he lives. Although he didn’t think it bothered him, Denny realizes that it affected the future paths he saw for himself. Because of bigotry, he followed the road that people said he would, fulfilling their expectations.

“[...] it returned to him, the fact that Olive was his wife, and that they had had a day together of happiness before seeing Elaine tonight. But it did not feel like happiness that he had experienced with Olive, it felt far away from him now […] And so the day they had had together folded over on itself, was done with, gone.”

After Jack and Olive see Elaine, the woman Jack had an affair with, Jack is unable to recapture the happiness of the day. He sees himself and Olive through Elaine’s eyes, and is uncomfortable. Jack also grapples with what having an affair with such a cold person illustrates about his character. This exemplifies Strout’s exploration of Identity: Do We Ever Really Know Ourselves?

“What frightened him was how much of his life he had lived without knowing who he was or what he was doing […] It meant that he did not understand, not really at all, how others had perceived him. And it meant that he did not know how to perceive himself.”

Jack is thinking about running into Elaine at the restaurant, and he realizes that he never really knew what he was doing, even when he thought he did. This is an idea that Olive grapples with as well. In Jack’s case, he is suddenly unable to trust his own perspective; therefore, he has no foundation from which to judge himself or his actions. His identity, as he knew it, has been destroyed. In accepting that he knows nothing, he will begin to grow. This aligns with Taoism, a philosophy that holds that, like an empty vessel, people can be filled when they acknowledge their emptiness.

“[...] even as he heard this, he understood that he was alone with his nighttime dream. As people always are, with these things.”

After Jack wakes up from a nightmare, Olive helps him to reorient. She is there for him, and yet he recognizes the essential solitude of his situation—he is alone with his dream. Further, he realizes that people always are, that we alone know what is in our minds. This loneliness, and the longing for real connection, is a central idea throughout the collection. Strout suggests that it’s impossible to fully connect with others—that we are essentially alone and atomized. At the same time, we still must strive to connect.

“But a quiet sense of almost-unreality seemed to come to him, and he thought the word ‘prejudice,’ and he understood that he needed to drive carefully, and so he did, and then they reached the hospital.”

Bob Burgess recognizes that his wife, Margaret, is prejudiced against Helen because Helen is rich. This is compounded by Margaret’s dislike of New York City—which he loves—because it is foreign to her. The issue of prejudice is probed throughout the collection from many different angles, including the reverse snobbery that Bob identifies here.

“He recognized now the smallness of her response to a world she did not know or understand; it was not unlike the response his sister had had to Helen.”

Bob reflects again on Margaret’s prejudices and her reaction to New York City. He loves the city and visits Jim, Helen, and his first wife, Pam, there. He is forced to go alone because Margaret will not go with him after her first visit. This connects prejudice to being closed-off—to new people and experiences. It does not matter that Margaret is a minister—she still has prejudices that are fueled by fear.

“And it came to him then that it should never be taken lightly, the essential loneliness of people, that the choices they made to keep themselves from that gaping darkness were choices that required respect.”

Bob helps Helen get comfortable after her accident and has a revelation—not just about himself, but about everyone. He realizes that human life is difficult, that we are essentially alone. People deal with this in a variety of ways, and no matter how we feel about other people’s choices and behavior, we need to respect them. Bob’s belief is at the heart of the collection. Strout suggests that recognizing isolation as part of the human condition doesn’t make us more atomized; it pulls us closer.

“When her first husband had died, she had not been aware of anything. This is what she thought. But here was the world, screeching its beauty at her day after day, and she felt grateful for it.”

Throughout the collection, Olive is in the process of coming fully into herself. Her journey is reflected through her awareness of the people around her and her environment. She is increasingly cognizant of the world outside her mind. She is grateful for it, even when it is jarring. Strout uses a literary technique of pairing together opposite qualities, “screeching” and “beauty.” The juxtaposition suggests that the world offers joy but also pain.

“It seemed to her she had never before completely understood how far apart human experience was […] Andrea had gotten it better than she had, the experience of being another. How funny. How interesting. She, who always thought that she knew everything that others did not. It just wasn’t true.”

Olive has always prided herself on being smarter than others, but when she reads Andrea’s poem, she realizes that this isn’t always the case. Olive recognizes that Andrea has more insight into Olive than the other way around. Characteristically, Olive is initially angered and humiliated by Andrea’s poem, but eventually responds with grudging respect.

“‘You all know who you are. If you just look at yourself and listen to yourself, you know exactly who you are. And don’t forget it.’”

Lisa MacPherson remembers how Olive, as her math teacher, had said this. Olive often appears through anecdotes in the stories that don’t feature her as a main character. From this remembrance, we understand what an impact Olive had on the children she taught. In this instance, Olive’s statement helped Lisa realize that she is a dominatrix.

“Olive thought about this: the way people can love those they barely know, and how abiding that love can be, and also how deep that love can be, even when—as in her own case—it was temporary.”

Betty has admitted to Olive that her love for Principal Skyler has persisted all these years, and that she is heartbroken by his death. Olive recognizes that this kind of love—however transitory, however lacking in real knowledge about the other person—is true and deep, and that people need it to sustain themselves.

“All love was to be taken seriously, including her own brief love for her doctor. But Betty had kept this love close to her heart for years and years; she had needed it that much.”

Olive meditates on love’s nature. After her heart attack, she had fallen in love with her cardiologist, an experience that gave her empathy for Betty. She understands that no matter how ridiculous it may seem to fall in love with your doctor or your principal, that love is real and should be respected. For Betty to have clung to her love for Principal Skyler all these years means that it was essential to her.

“She remembers how in college she had thought one day, looking at the inside of a frog: There must be a God who made all these things. Now she considered this, and then typed, ‘I was young then.’”

Olive reflects on how her views of God, life, and death are much more complex now that she is older. She considers the idea of God to be naive. Her understanding of the world is now too complex to accept what she sees as a simple answer to a complicated question.