by Ashley Kim<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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As one lies in the warm grass of a sunny June day, the surrounding atmosphere is filled with chatter and chirps that cannot help but soothe one\u2019s soul. However, despite such a tranquil setting, the mind still travels, wandering far off, passing by locked doors of fear and distress. The colors of the leaves above fade along with the sun and gentle sounds, leaving only the growing darkness that one tried so desperately to push away. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In some ways, the tranquil scene seems to have caused this. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nowhere is such juxtaposition between grimness and tranquility more prevalent than in Elizabeth Strout\u2019s \u201cA Little Burst,\u201d one of the thirteen short stories that comprise her novel Olive Kitteridge<\/em>. The story centers around the eponymous Olive as she becomes overwhelmed with apprehension for her son, Christopher, due to her contempt for his newlywed wife, Suzanne. In the tranquil solitude three hours after the wedding, Olive secludes herself in the newlyweds\u2019 bedroom where she struggles with her inner turmoil. Throughout \u201cA Little Burst,\u201d Strout repeatedly uses the imagery of death to deepen the motivation behind Olive\u2019s contempt for Suzanne.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The recurring imagery of death elucidates Olive\u2019s dark emotional state in response to Christopher getting married, and specifically married to her new daughter-in-law, Suzanne. For instance, as Olive sits alone in Christopher and Suzanne\u2019s bedroom, a \u201clittle girl, still swaying, says calmly, \u2018You look dead\u2019\u201d (64). Olive\u2019s lifeless appearance reflects her grim mentality before the little girl\u2019s comment. Olive had been visualizing a moment from the wedding in which Suzanne showed kindness to a flower girl, reminding the insolent Olive of how different their personalities are. Strout\u2019s audience begins to understand that any reminders of her son marrying Suzanne exhaust Olive. In fact, Olive reveals that she had \u201cpictured herself having another heart attack on the day of her son\u2019s wedding\u201d (64). Olive expresses relief at surviving an event that is supposed to be a joyful celebration, reinforcing how painful the wedding was for her to endure. By scattering such images of death throughout the story, Strout intensifies the magnitude of Olive\u2019s stress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The repeated invocations of death may seem unnecessary to demonstrate Olive\u2019s aversion to the wedding, or even histrionic, as Strout already demonstrates Olive\u2019s contempt through the character\u2019s ill-mannered dialogue and childish, judgmental thoughts. For instance, instead of replying maturely, Olive offers this retort to the little girl\u2019s question about where Olive got the hairs on her chin: \u201cFrom little girls I\u2019ve eaten up. Now go away before I eat you, too\u201d (65). Olive\u2019s exchange exemplifies that she is unfazed by, and not above, behaving rudely in order to escape from the wedding and its participants. Indeed, Olive depends on rudeness to achieve her goal. Moreover, Olive\u2019s personal reflections are just as childish as her words as she thinks, \u201cthe dress worked out\u2026 much better than the dark, grim clothes the Bernstein family is wearing\u201d (62). Olive\u2019s reflection is both superficial and judgmental. By criticizing Suzanne\u2019s family\u2019s clothing, she expresses her resentment toward anything linked to Suzanne.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While these petty remarks certainly show Olive\u2019s contempt for Suzanne, they do not reveal the deeper underlying motivation for Olive\u2019s hatred. Death still plays <\/strong>a crucial role, therefore, in revealing Olive\u2019s actual issues with her son\u2019s marriage beyond her notably temperamental personality. Olive\u2019s aforementioned behavior can be easily misconstrued as a product of her petulance rather than a product of her love for her son Christopher. For example, Olive ponders her son\u2019s future with Suzanne and reflects, \u201cThey think they\u2019re finished with loneliness\u2026 she knows loneliness can\u2026 make you die\u201d (68). Through Olive\u2019s reflection, readers grasp how deep Olive\u2019s love is for Christopher. In contrast to her previous childish thoughts, this revelation goes beyond the surface and into the depths of how Olive\u2019s contempt for Suzanne is chiefly driven by her motherly love for Christopher. Furthermore, Olive revisits a memory of the previous Christmas, when neither knew Suzanne, and Christopher revealed that he sometimes thought about killing himself (71). Here, Olive\u2019s uneasiness about Christopher is specified\u2014she\u2019s concerned about his suicidal thoughts\u2014and the association of death with her son is revealed as more literal and realistic than previously suggested. Later, Olive unveils her concern regarding Suzanne, who does not know about Christopher\u2019s battle with suicidal thoughts, looking after her beloved son. The potent images of death expose the equally potent underlying love beneath Olive\u2019s often erratic behavior. Her love and concern consumes her soul as she tries to protect her son, desperately shoving away those she views as threats to Christopher\u2019s mental health. Without the death imagery, Olive\u2019s contempt for Suzanne appears superficial; with the death imagery, Olive\u2019s contempt is revealed to be a subconscious byproduct of her deep concern for Christopher. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Strout\u2019s suggestions of death intensify our sense of how colossal Christopher\u2019s marriage is for Olive. Strout depicts Olive as a brusque, fierce woman who prizes her son. Most significantly, continually linking death with the newlywed couple and with Olive\u2019s distress about them straightens out any misinterpretations about the climax of the short story. In the climactic scene, Olive steals two articles of clothing of Suzanne\u2019s and vandalizes one of her sweaters. If Strout excluded the reminders of death before this event, a reader might assume Olive\u2019s explosion was simply the temper tantrum of an immature woman. The inclusion\u00a0<\/strong>of death is pivotal to the reader\u2019s overall impression of Olive and her incentive to steal and ruin Suzanne\u2019s clothing. Death reveals that this outburst is not simply because of her erratic character, but due to her fear of sharing her son with a woman she believes does not know how to care for him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Strout, Elizabeth. \u201cA Little Burst.\u201d\u00a0Olive Kitteridge.<\/em>\u00a0Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2016, pp. 61\u201374.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Ashley Kim As one lies in the warm grass of a sunny June day, the surrounding atmosphere is filled with chatter and chirps that cannot help but soothe one\u2019s soul. However, despite such a tranquil setting, the mind still travels, wandering far off, passing by locked doors of fear and distress. The colors of… <\/p>\n