Olive, Again Literary Elements

Novel, Fiction

The novel is set in contemporary Maine and focuses on the circle and the world of Olive Kitteridge

The novel has a third person narrator. When Olive is the main character in a story or exploit, the story is told from her perspective.

The tone is quite nostalgic and in many cases the mood reflective and melancholy.

Olive is the protagonist of the majority of the related stories in the book. She thinks of Henry as the antagonist but realizes that in their relationship it was actually the other way around.

There is conflict between Olive and her son Christopher when she announces her intention to marry Jack and tries to hurry their introduction.

Olive moves into an assisted living facility where she makes friends and begins the next portion of her eighties.

Jack's driving too fast foreshadows his getting pulled over and getting a ticket.

The MacPhersons are said to not get along, but this is an understatement as it is really rather hyperbolic behavior to divide a marital home into two halves with duct tape in an effort to stay away from each other.

Many of the characters allude to the characters and adventures in Strout's other books, such as the first book about Olive herself. Isabelle Daignault also alludes to the book in which she was the central character.

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Although Christopher speaks to her in an inappropriate fashion, Olive is actually sad, rather than grateful, when his wife chastises him for doing so, because she realizes that he is now quite henpecked, largely due to the example that she showed him of married life in the way she treated his father whilst Christopher was growing up.

There is a parallel between the way Olive treated Henry and the way in which Christopher is treated by his wife.

The town is the way in which the people who live in the town are referred to rather than listing each by name.

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