Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine Study Guide

Gail Honeyman was born in 1972. Her mother was a civil servant and her father worked in science. She attended college at Glasgow University, where she studied French language and literature. She attended the University of Oxford for postgraduate studies in French poetry but decided against pursuing a career in academia and worked “backroom jobs” at Glasgow University instead. While working in administration, Honeyman enrolled in a writing course where she composed short stories and began work on Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine was published in 2017 and earned Honeyman numerous awards, including the 2017 Costa First Novel Award and the “Debut Book of the Year” and “Overall Winner” awards in the 2018 British Book Awards. Currently, Honeyman is at work on her second novel. She lives in Glasgow.

Although the doctor diagnoses Eleanor with depression and not posttraumatic stress disorder, trauma and abuse are thematically important to the novel, so it’s relevant to understand the historical development of trauma as a mental health condition. Today’s accepted understanding of psychological trauma is that it is caused by stress that results from an exposure to a triggering stimulus. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a mental disorder that can occur after an individual is exposed to an act of trauma, for example, sexual assault, war, and child abuse, among other acts of violence. Not all individuals exposed to trauma will develop PTSD, but those who do may suffer from disturbing thoughts or feelings when exposed to trauma-related cues or triggers. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine was published in 2017, by which time PTSD had been an official psychiatric diagnosis for nearly 40 years. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder as a term came into common usage in the 1970s, resulting from the diagnoses of U.S. veterans of the Vietnam War. The disorder first appeared in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), a publication used by medical and legal professionals to classify mental disorders, in 1980, the DSM-III in 1980. The diagnostic category of the disorder has changed over time—for example, the DSM-IV (published in 1994) classified PTSD as an anxiety disorder, whereas the DSM-5 (published in 2013) classifies PTSD under a new category, “Trauma- and Stressor-Related Disorders.”

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine explores Eleanor’s journey toward understanding and accepting her repressed childhood traumas. Other literary works that feature protagonists coming to terms with personal or inherited traumas are Jazz by Toni Morrison (1992), the memoir Educated by Tara Westover (2018), and Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir Fun Home (2006). Honeyman tempers this seriousness of Eleanor’s trauma with the comic relief Eleanor provides through her frequent social faux pas. Other examples of works with a protagonist who has difficulty navigating social situations or views the world through an unconventional lens include Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathon Safran Foer (2005) and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon (2003). Eleanor references a number of books she reads throughout Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (1847) is particularly relevant to Eleanor Oliphant, as it, too, features a lonely, orphaned protagonist who remains strong despite her harrowing past. Eleanor explicitly states that she relates to Jane Eyre.