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'White Oleander': A Historical Analysis

By Ben Harper & Sophie Monk

Modernity:past-present-future.jpg

a paradoxical unity, a unity of disunity: it pours us all into a maelstrom of perpetual disintegration and renewal, of struggle and contradiction, of ambiguity and anguish” (Berman, 15).

Janet Fitch’s ‘White Oleander’ explores this paradox of modernity; the struggle to move forward whilst being shaped by a historical context. Fitch’s personal historical background provides an insight into the interplay between the past and present. This interplay is reflected in the relationships within the novel, as Ingrid is ever present in Astrid’s life and the present is always saddled with the past. However, this historical influence can be used as a springboard in reshaping the future. Just as Astrid’s character is developed by past experiences, the concept of modernity is founded upon historical upheaval. Thus, ‘White Oleander’ presents the overbearing yet necessary influence of history upon the process of modernisation.

Janet Fitch’s personal background represents the complex transition from a historical focus to a decisive writing of the future. Whilst Fitch shows an academic interest in the study of history, acknowledging herself that “I was going to become an historian” (Salon), her decision to pursue a career of fiction writing represents a break from her solely historical concern and the realisation “that there was more to the world than just the past” (Salon). However, the enterprise of writing is inevitably intertwined with layers of history and experience. Ingrid, in ‘White Oleander’, directly parallels the historical literary figure of Sei Shonagon, “a lady-in-waiting to the Heian empress in Japan in the 11th century” (Salon). Moreover, the relationship between Ingrid and Astrid seems directly influenced by the relationship between Fitch and her own mother: “We had a very hard time when I was young. My mother wasn’t ready to be a mother” (Salon). This use of anachronism, in placing an image derived from Heian antiquity into a late twentieth century setting, paired with the allusion to the writer’s personal experiences, points to the inseparability of history and creativity. Thus, as Fitch’s break from the past is never clean or complete, the wider societal struggle towards the new remains burdened by what has come before.

As a bildungsroman, the structure of the novel places Ingrid, and the memory of Ingrid, at the origin of the action. In doing so, the process of Astrid’s individual development situates Ingrid as Astrid’s history, always “shaping me” (Fitch, 308). As a result, Ingrid’s letters to Astrid provides a representation of the continuous presence of the past. Astrid cannot “cut [herself] free of [Ingrid] so easily” (313) as embodied by Fitch’s motif of letters: “I made you” (313). This active influence even extends beyond Astrid, tainting her very surroundings including the character of Claire. Positioning herself as the dominant figure, Ingrid simultaneously reduces Claire to just another one of “my loyal readers” (216) and positions herself as a force of influence in her life. Through this paradigm, Claire’s passivity mirrors Astrid’s, who felt “betrayed, helpless, anxious” (216), subordinate to the dictatorial power wielded by her mother. Ironically, Ingrid is all the more influential in Astrid’s experience despite her incarceration, reinforcing the overbearing influence of the past upon the present.

However, this dominating presence is shown to be a necessary starting point in the development of the future. As Astrid highlights, “the people who denied who they were or where they had been were in the greatest danger” (269). The episode where Astrid When Astrid “began cutting, snapping the strings of her words” (309), taking Ingrid’s letters apart line by line, she utilises Ingrid’s original work to formulate a narrative of her own. In this respect, the past is necessary as a foundation to be remolded. In fact, “Astrid’s survival depends on substantive engagement with the past” (Callanan, 426). Moving on is not about making a clean break from the past but embracing history in order to fashion oneself: “The past is still happening, it never stopped” (372). Whilst Ingrid believes to be protecting Astrid from the “senseless artifacts” (370) of the past which she deems to be hurtful and destructive, Astrid is insistent upon understanding her past in order to develop and progress.

In a broader context, Astrid’s traumatic experiences mirror the historical upheavals upon which modernity is established. Astrid consciously embraces her scars in order to highlight how her suffering is central to her identity: “Without my wounds, who was I? My stimeline_kids_b.jpgcars were my face, my past was my life” (268). In a similar fashion, revolutions and wars have scarred the face of the modern world, their vestiges shaping the very character of modernity. Significantly, Astrid settles in Berlin, a place whose history is plagued by war and division, with large sections of the city having been destroyed in the Second World War, and its division into different Allied-controlled sectors in 1944. Moreover, the role of Berlin in the Cold War as a city divided not only logistically but also ideologically by the Berlin Wall echoes Astrid’s experiences throughout ‘White Oleander’. The choice of Berlin as a final setting links “her traumatic past with the space of a nation riddled with the aftermath of an extreme cultural trauma” (Callanan, 463). The monuments in the city, such as the “Kaiser Wilhelm Church” (379), like Astrid’s scars, testify to this “traumatic past” that Callanan identifies. Additionally, Fitch compares Astrid’s losses to the monumental losses at Gettysburg; for Astrid, “Claire died, Barry died” (315) but “seven thousand died at Gettysburg” (315). With this, the battle of Gettysburg “ripped in the fabric of existence” (315), shaping both Astrid's identity and the identity of modern America alike.

The immediate historical context in which White Oleander was written is also significant in order to understand the tension between past and present in the novel. The Yugoslavian wars that raged through the Balkans in the 1990s, at the time of Fitch’s conception and creation of White Oleander, and the struggle between popular sovereignty and the government embodies the power struggles within modernity and echoes Astrid’s battle within her own “totalitarian state” (355) governed by Ingrid’s autocracy. Closer to home, the political strife within the USA, concerning the military involvement in the Middle East since the end of the Cold War, is reflected in the ongoing struggles in Astrid’s life. The war on terror that dominates the American political scene at this time reflects the ultimate tension between Eastern and Western cultures, whilst also emphasizing the effect of splicing together different cultural elements, a process central to the historical interplay between modernity and its history. Thus, the choice of a late 20th century American setting for White Oleander is apt in the light of the divisions that have historically plagued even the most self-assured, Western economies. Los Angeles therefore is a reflection of modernity and the conflict and divisions integral to its “unity of disunity” (Berman, 15).

Thus, Berman’s “maelstrom of perpetual disintegration and renewal” (15), and the experience of modernity, is active throughout ‘White Oleander’. This “paradoxical unity” is reflected through the perpetual forward movement of Astrid due to the bildungsroman genre, yet the persistent influence of the past remains. This paradox is further more reflected in the historical context of Janet Fitch’s personal background and the wider context of historical revolution and war. Now, in a 2012 setting, this relationship between past and present has never been more relevant. The tensions of the past are ongoing and hard to relinquish, providing an understanding of why and how the world is the way it is. Ultimately, Mr. Delgado acts as Fitch’s vocal reinforcement of such a necessary paradox: “He said the reason we studied history was to find out why things were the way they were, how we got here” (355). Therefore, the novel is a testament to the necessity of contextualisation and the study of history in the process of modernization.

Works Cited

Berman, Marshall. All That Is Solid Melts into Air. London: Verso, 2010. Print.

Callanan, Laura. "“Three Cheers for Eve”: Feminism, Capitalism and Artistic Subjectivity in Janet Fitch’s White Oleander." Women’s Studies: An inter-disciplinary journal. 37.5 (2008) 495-518. Web. 13 May 2012.

Fitch, Janet. "Making a Monster. " Interview by Laura Miller. Salon. Salon, 1999. Web. 11 May 2012.

Fitch, Janet. White Oleander. London: Virago, 1999. Print.