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
Shortly after Eleanor arrives home with the old man’s shopping bags, a social worker knocks on the door to perform a biannual checkup. Eleanor tells the woman, June Mullen, that she doesn’t look like a social worker. June responds with silence, causing Eleanor to inwardly disparage the woman’s “underdeveloped social skills.” June Mullen is Eleanor’s first visitor since last November.
By criticizing June’s social skills, Eleanor projects her own awkwardness onto others. Eleanor’s judgmental comment may also be interpreted as another example of her unknowingly adopting Mummy’s critical perspective of others. June’s visit sheds additional light on Eleanor’s mysterious past, implying that whatever happened to her was significant enough to necessitate regular checkups with a social worker.
Themes
June and Eleanor sit down in the living room, and June thumbs through Eleanor’s case file, mumbling to herself about “biannual visits…continuity of community integration…early identification of any additional support needs.” Suddenly, June’s face grows dark and she looks up at Eleanor, who assumes that June must have gotten to the section about Mummy. June asks Eleanor if she misses Mummy, and Eleanor says she doesn’t. June becomes uncomfortable and changes the subject, questioning Eleanor about how she’s doing. Eleanor insists that she’s fine.
June’s discomfort with Eleanor’s response to her question about Mummy is evidence that Eleanor’s traumatic past involves Mummy, which suggests that the trauma likely occurred during childhood. Eleanor clearly doesn’t want to talk about Mummy, her past, or her current emotional state. This interaction with June should make the reader question whether Eleanor is truly fine or if she is merely saying so redirect others’—and her own—attention away from painful, hidden truths about her past.
Themes
June asks Eleanor whether she has changed her mind about wanting find out more about “the incident.” Eleanor insists that she’s fine not knowing and that Mummy would prefer that she not discuss the matter with anyone. June is astonished to hear that Eleanor doesn’t want to know more about her past and finds it strange that Eleanor still talks to Mummy. Eleanor watches as June scrutinizes the scars on her face, speculating that June is probably fascinated to be “this close” to “the pretty face of evil.”
The reader now knows that Eleanor’s residual trauma is tied to an “incident” that is seemingly so painful for her to think about that she actively chooses to remain ignorant of its details. June’s amazement that Eleanor still keeps in touch with Mummy is further evidence that Mummy is connected to this mysterious incident; by extension, June’s subsequent fixation on Eleanor’s scars suggests that Mummy was somehow involved in the injury. The italicization of “the pretty face of evil” implies that Eleanor is quoting a phrase uttered elsewhere. Given the evidence the reader now has to suggest that Mummy was somehow involved in Eleanor’s traumatic incident, it’s reasonable to surmise that “the pretty face of evil” refers to Mummy. Further, Eleanor’s suspicion that June looks in her face and sees Mummy recalls Eleanor’s earlier admission that she hates seeing Mummy’s features in her face, as well as Mummy’s earlier comments about the close bond between mothers and their children.
Themes
As June prepares to leave, she asks Eleanor about her plans for the weekend. Eleanor mentions visiting someone in the hospital. June says it’s nice to be visited in the hospital, which is something that Eleanor should know from being hospitalized as a child. Bluntly, Eleanor responds that she was only allowed visits with police and legal authorities. June tells Eleanor she’ll see her again in six months and exits the apartment.
The fact that Eleanor was hospitalized as a child is additional evidence that Eleanor incurred her facial scarring during her mysterious childhood incident. The fact that Eleanor was only allowed visits with police and legal authorities also sheds light on the seriousness of the incident. Despite gaining additional insight into Eleanor’s past, however, the reader remains very much in the dark about what happened to her because she avoids thinking about the incident in clear, direct terms. As a result, the reader must piece together Eleanor’s past from the scattered, often vague details she provides.
Themes
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Eleanor thinks it’s strange that June hadn’t noticed Polly, her Congo cockatoo plant. Polly was a birthday present and is the only thing that Eleanor has left from her childhood. Eleanor talks to Polly when her loneliness becomes so bad that she needs to hear her own voice out loud.
Eleanor’s comment that Polly is the only thing left from her childhood implies that Eleanor misses people or things from her past, perhaps because she lost them to the “incident” that causes her to have biannual checkups with social workers. Polly’s status as the only remaining thing from Eleanor’s childhood also suggests that the Plant holds some symbolic value to her. The fact that Eleanor talks to Polly to alleviate loneliness contradicts Eleanor’s insistence that she’s “fine” with her lonely life, suggesting that Eleanor is too ashamed of her pain and loneliness to admit to it.
Themes
Suddenly, the phone rings: it’s Raymond. He’s at the hospital with the old man, whose name is Sammy Thom. Sammy is “stable, but serious,” and Eleanor wonders aloud whether Sammy will have any need for his groceries if he’s in such a dire condition. Impatiently, Raymond tells Eleanor it’s up to her whether she visits and brings the groceries, and that, yes, Sammy “isn’t going to be making a fry-up anytime soon.” Eleanor says it’s likely fry-ups that got him into this situation in the first place. Raymond is annoyed by Eleanor’s glib attitude and hangs up, which she finds rude.
Raymond tries to engage in small talk with Eleanor, but Eleanor’s unpracticed social skills render her incapable of responding with anything but bluntness. The tension that arises between Eleanor and Raymond when Eleanor makes a glib remark about Sammy’s weight mirrors the tension that resulted from Eleanor’s earlier remark that Sammy fell over because he was drunk. Eleanor’s eagerness to pass judgment on Sammy mirrors the way Mummy cruelly criticizes Eleanor; despite Eleanor’s anxieties about appearing or acting similarly to Mummy, Eleanor is seemingly unaware of this particular inherited behavior.
Themes
Eleanor notices that June Mullen accidentally dropped a page from Eleanor’s case file under the table before she left. The paper is a case meeting note from 1999 concerning Eleanor’s behavior toward her then-foster family, the Reeds. According to the note, the Reeds requested the meeting because Eleanor was constantly rude, stubborn, and withdrawn. The Reeds also noted that Eleanor refused to help with chores like “lighting the fire or clearing out the ashes.” Legal authorities rejected the Reed’s requests to access more information about Eleanor’s past. Ultimately, the Children’s Panel decided that Eleanor should be placed in a “residential care home,” as foster care had proven to be an unsuitable fit. Eleanor thinks that this document is full of lies.
This paper from Eleanor’s casefile reveals that Eleanor grew up in foster care, which implies that Mummy was unable or unwilling to raise Eleanor herself. This detail is further evidence that Mummy is potentially to blame for traumatic event happened to Eleanor as a child. Honeyman provides another piece to the puzzle of Eleanor’s past when she includes the casefile detail that Eleanor refused to “light[] the fire or clear[] out the ashes” at the Reeds’ house. This detail, along with Eleanor’s apparent hatred of cigarettes and smoking, suggests that something in Eleanor’s past has given her an aversion to fire. Eleanor’s stance that the document is full of lies shows how vehemently she denies the reality of her past.
Themes
