48 pages • 1 hour read
Olive, Again
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Symbols & Motifs
Color
Olive Kitteridge is a very no-nonsense, pragmatic woman. Her love of color and natural beauty might be surprising. However, she also has a rich inner, emotional life, and is deeply sensitive and empathetic. When Olive is happiest or most herself, the text reflects this through color. At the beginning of the book, in “Labor,” Olive is wearing a jacket that she had made the previous day, out of a “quilted blue-and-white swirling fabric” (22). She feels great pride in her colorful new jacket, which parallels her flourishing new relationship with Jack. At the end of the novel, Olive wants to plant a rosebush in her yard. Her growing contentment and new friendships at the senior apartments enables her to show her true colors; she puts them on full display with her rosebushes. They take root and bloom, even better than she expected, as she does.
Light
In this collection, light represents understanding and illumination. Throughout the stories in Olive, Again, the characters seek knowledge of themselves, their lives, and their relationships, and experience flashes of understanding. In Cindy Coombs’ story “Light,” Cindy believes that the quality of light is something that only she appreciates. Light strikes her powerfully: “You could see how at the end of each day the world seemed cracked open and the extra light made its way across the stark trees, and promised. It promised, that light, and what a thing that was […] the gold of the last light opening the world” (123). Later, when Olive says: “My God, but I have always loved the light in February” (138), Cindy is stunned. Cindy realizes that she and Olive are seeing the world in the same way. They experience connection, something that every character is seeking.
In another scene, Jack watches the sun set: “The field was darkening, the trees behind it were like pieces of black canvas, but the sky still sent down the sun, which sliced gently across the grass on the far end of the field” (17). Although the foreground is dark, the far side of the field is still lit, indicating that understanding is near. In “The Poet,” Olive describes Andrea as having “a light in her face,” (215). This reflects Olive discovery that Andrea is perhaps more insightful that she herself is.
Water
Water is omnipresent in Olive’s life. The town of Crosby, Maine is on the ocean, nearly always in view. Olive is drawn to water throughout the book, and feels a deep connection to it. When she sits in her car, eating and contemplating the water, she seems to experience the most contentment and is often at her most insightful. Olive goes to the water when she is contemplating deep issues. At times, the water represents her desolation: “Olive was alone with the bay spread out before her, the sunlight glinting over the water […] a loneliness that was profound assailed her” (23). On the other hand, she loves and takes comfort in her house, which is fully exposed to the bay—every view looks out upon it. When she marries Jack, Olive moves into his house. It looks over a large field, no water in sight. Olive hates this; she reincorporates water into her life by taking morning walks along the shore and frequently visiting the marina. The water reflects Olive’s life, the way it constantly shifts and carries her along in its wake.
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