Olive Kitteridge Essay

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I have to say that I am a little disappointed this week with reading Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge, because I had pretty high expectations after reading Russo’s Empire Falls, and this novel, so far, has fallen flat for me. In the first few chapters, I was very confused on what exactly the time line in the novel is. I feel myself not knowing if what is happening has happened in the past, present or in the future in comparison to the chapter I read before. Strout also begins adding new characters in a way that at first does not connect them to anyone else, so I become further confused as to why they are in the story. I read page 140, and can say that I am not sure what really happened in the previous chapters. When new characters would …show more content…
The way he described her was not a description coming from an older friend, but coming from someone who seemed to have a crush on her. I began to feel bad for Olive, even though she seemed like a bitch at points, but her husband was off in his own little world with Denise. Later on in the text, you find out that Harmon is cheating on his wife with Daisy, although he does not see it as cheating on his wife. It seems to be a repeating trend in this novel that the wives are not making their men happy and the men are looking somewhere else. No one in this text seems to be overly happy. They all seem to just be getting by in life and not living the life that they want or deserve to have. Something else that was a bit off, was the scene at the hospital with Olive, Henry and the masked men. I found myself wanting Olive and Henry to shut up and just listen to the men. It seemed like they kept getting themselves into trouble, Henry more than Olive. The stranger part about that chapter was the fact that they wanted to check Olive out at the hospital. She had come in to use the bathroom, not to see a doctor, and yet they were adamant on seeing her. I did not understand the meaning behind the
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