Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Enduring Impact of Trauma
Shame and the Stigmatization of Pain
Projection and Denial
The Vicious Circle of Isolation and Social Awkwardness
Summary
Analysis
Eleanor takes a taxi home from The Cuttings and realizes she has no vodka, so she goes to bed without drinking. She wakes up early and goes to a local shop to buy groceries. When she approaches the register, she asks to buy two bottles of Glen’s vodka. Eleanor is normally friendly with the store’s owner, Mr. Dewan, but he now bluntly informs her he can’t sell her any liquor, as it’s too early in the day. Eleanor leaves without her vodka, noting the changed demeanor in their formerly “cordial relationship,” though she doesn’t understand what caused the change.
The more Eleanor gets out and interacts with others, the more often she forgets to buy alcohol—her growing social life leaves her with less time for her loneliness. Mr. Dewan’s bluntness insinuates that he finds it inappropriate or troubling that Eleanor would try to buy a large quantity of vodka so early in the morning. Eleanor can’t understand Mr. Dewan’s disapproval because she is blind to how others view what she perceives as a healthy relationship to drinking.
Themes
Eleanor doesn’t understand the point of the licensing law that prohibits the sale of alcohol before 10 a.m. The law seems to be about requiring alcoholics to be sober for at least a few hours a day, but Eleanor reasons that this is counterintuitive: if she were an alcoholic, she’d merely buy in bulk so that she can have enough to drink in the early morning hours. But Eleanor isn’t an addict, of course; to Eleanor, “vodka is […] merely a household necessity” that helps her sleep when she hears “Mummy’s voice hiss[ing] inside [her] head,” along with “another voice, a smaller, timid one,” begging Eleanor for help. Eleanor needs vodka to silence these voices. Eleanor heads to a big supermarket, Tesco Extra—one of her favorite places—to procure her vodka and other groceries.
Eleanor doesn’t realize—or doesn’t want to admit—that she has a drinking problem, so she sets herself apart from alcoholics, claiming that alcohol “is […] merely a household necessity” for her, not a substance upon which she dependent. The voices Eleanor hears in her head seem to come from whichever childhood incident caused her to incur so much trauma. Although Eleanor’s memory is muddled, this “timid” voice implies that there was another person in Eleanor’s past besides Mummy—a person whose absence is so painful for Eleanor to process that she cannot consciously remember the person’s name. Eleanor’s earlier comments about siblings and the fact that this voice in her head is “smaller” and “timid” might suggest that the voice belongs to Eleanor’s younger sibling.
Themes
