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
It’s Wednesday night, and Eleanor reluctantly initiates her weekly chat with Mummy, who is institutionalized. Eleanor tells Mummy about the concert and the musician, to which Mummy responds enthusiastically and requests regular updates. Mummy tells Eleanor she’s missing out by not having a partner, though Eleanor insists that she’s not lonely. Cruelly, Mummy reminds Eleanor that she hasn’t always been alone but tells Eleanor to believe whatever she needs to believe.
Eleanor is vague about where Mummy is institutionalized; given that Honeyman has already established Eleanor as an unreliable narrator, Eleanor’s vagueness suggests that—consciously or unconsciously—she is potentially hiding something about Mummy by not disclosing her whereabouts. Mummy’s enthusiasm for Eleanor pursuing the musician is rooted in the fact that she believes Eleanor is missing out by being so socially isolated, but beyond this, her motivations remain unclear. Her cruel reaction to Eleanor’s insistence that being alone doesn’t make her lonely suggests that Mummy likes to manipulate her daughter, playing on her insecurities. Mummy’s following comment about Eleanor having not always been alone raises the question of how whether Eleanor is actually content with social isolation; if one is to take Mummy’s words literally, they insinuate that there was a time when Eleanor had more people in her life, and that her insistence that she has always been alone is merely a coping mechanism she enacts to deal with her social isolation. Finally, given that Honeyman has established that Eleanor and Mummy’s relationship is strained by Mummy’s unremitting emotional abuse, it’s notably odd that Eleanor would willingly agree to having weekly chats with her.
Themes
Mummy reminds Eleanor that she can always tell her about anything and anyone, and she gushes over the “unbreakable” connection between mothers and their children. Eleanor will never be able to destroy this bond, says Mummy. Eleanor wonders whether this is true. After Mummy hangs up, Eleanor realizes she’s been crying.
