White Oleander

“It was only natural to want to destroy something you could never have.”

As Astrid grows up, she learns the truth about her mother’s character and motivations. Ingrid is sociopathic and narcissistic; she cares only about her feelings and how she can manipulate others to play to her needs. This includes her daughter, whom she views as more of a trophy or a ball of clay to mold than a person. Astrid initially defends her mother’s actions, including the murder of Barry, by rationalizing the reasoning for it. After Ingrid is imprisoned, she actively tries to ensure that Astrid cannot build close relationships with anyone else, thus continuing to destroy what she cannot have.

“How it was. How it was that the earth could open up under you and swallow you whole, close above you as if you never were. Like Persephone snatched by the god. The ground opened up and out he came, sweeping her into the black chariot. Then down they plunged, under the ground, into the darkness, and the earth closed over her head, and she was gone, as if she had never been.”

When Ingrid murders Barry, social services come to take Astrid to a children’s center. In that moment, her entire world is changed forever, and she knows it. She is separated from her mother, the only person she has ever really depended on, and taken to a foreign place where everything is different. Astrid metaphorically compares herself to Persephone, from the Greek myth in which Persephone, the goddess of spring and seasonal change, is kidnapped by Hades and taken to the underworld. Astrid narrates her story through the changing of the seasons, and it is many years before she is “freed” from the depths. This quote helps illustrate the themes, The Delicate Balance of Mother-Daughter Relationships and The Meaning of Home.

“How many children had this happened to? How many children were like me, floating like plankton in the wide ocean? I thought how tenuous the links were between mother and children, between friends, family, things you think are eternal. Everything could be lost, more easily than anyone could imagine.”

White Oleander illuminates a significant issue within American society: the dysfunctional nature of the foster care system. This problem soon becomes clear to Astrid, as she shifts from home to home, none of which are stable or supportive as they should be. Astrid’s first placement is with Starr, who already has two foster children and two biological children. When Astrid meets them, she wonders how many children are out there who are just as lost and forgotten as she is. She realizes for the first time that what she thought was an unbreakable bond with her mother has already begun to sever and that one simple act, or one simple moment, could change everything. This quote helps illustrate the theme, The Meaning of Home.

“She thought because I was her daughter that I belonged to her, that she could do anything she wanted with me. Make me into poetry, expose my chicken bones and my cowrie shell, my unopened woman.”

Ingrid treats Astrid more like a piece of property than a daughter. She attempts to mold her to her own will, wanting to turn Astrid into a miniature version of herself. Ingrid sees the world in absolutes and does not compromise, and she tries to impart these absolutes to Astrid. When Ray finds Ingrid’s poem describing Astrid as a child, sleeping naked with her private parts exposed, Astrid is utterly embarrassed and ashamed of how little empathy her mother has. This quote relates to the novel’s themes, What It Means to Be a Woman and The Delicate Balance of Mother-Daughter Relationships.

“If evil means to be self-motivated, to be the center of one’s own universe, to live on one’s own terms, then every artist, every thinker, every original mind, is evil. Because we dare to look through our own eyes rather than mouth cliches lent us from the so-called Fathers. To dare to see is to steal the fire from the Gods. This is mankind’s destiny, the engine which fuels us as a race. Three cheers for Eve.”

Ingrid writes to Astrid angrily after Astrid tells her that she has become a Christian and attempts to convince Ingrid to accept Christ. Ingrid rarely asks Astrid how she is doing but is always ready with criticism and preaching. In this quote, she in a sense describes her own self, noting the self-centeredness and stubbornness that defines her. Ingrid challenges classic notions of good and evil and Christianity, telling Astrid that artists are defined by their willingness to learn and shed light on harsh truths. Ingrid often refers to the fathers or men in a negative light and wants Astrid to do the same. This quote relates to the novel’s theme, What It Means to Be a Woman.

“This was how girls left. They packed up their suitcases and walked away in high heels. They pretended that they weren’t crying, that it wasn’t the worst day of their lives. That they didn’t want their mothers to come running after them, begging for their forgiveness, that they wouldn’t have gone down on their knees and thanked God if they could stay.”

Astrid and Ingrid suffer a broken and complicated mother-daughter relationship. Similarly, Carolee and Starr, who Astrid lives with for a time, cannot seem to connect or understand one another. When they get in a physical altercation, Carolee packs her bags and leaves. Astrid watches as she walks away and thinks that this is how girls separate from their mothers and become women. It is not easy, it is not loving, and it is not something that anyone really wishes for. This quote relates to the theme, The Delicate Balance of Mother-Daughter Relationships.

“Nobody becomes an artist unless they have to.”

In one of Ingrid’s letters to Astrid, she justifies the suffering that Astrid is enduring at Marvel’s house by describing it as the fuel that Astrid can use to understand the world and become an artist. To Ingrid, art is about pain, suffering, and the dark side of life. Rather than empathize with her daughter, she tries to turn Astrid into a version of herself—someone who is cold to the world and lives to expose it. This quote helps illustrate the theme, The Capacity for Human Suffering.

“People didn’t fit in slots—prostitute, housewife, saint—like sorting the mail. We were so mutable, fluid with fear and desire, ideals and angles, changeable as water.”

After Astrid learns that Olivia might be a prostitute, she justifies this by reasoning that Olivia’s occupation does not necessarily define her. As Astrid starts to grow up and distance herself from Ingrid, all while moving from home to home, she realizes that she is easily changed by her environment. Like a chameleon, Astrid attempts to blend in wherever she is, and in this way, each new home and the people there shape her into the person she becomes.

“I wasn’t a good liar. My mother always said I had no imagination.”

Astrid has still only recently been separated from her mother and is still in many ways controlled by her mother’s will and influence. She has not yet reached clarity regarding the level of harm that Ingrid inflicts by twisting the truth into her own suitable version. This quote offers a glimpse into how much of a hold Ingrid initially has on Astrid, even after they are separated. In truth, Astrid is not a good liar because she is not like her mother. Furthermore, it is not that she has no imagination; instead, Astrid chooses to depict the world exactly as it is through her art. She sees no need to twist what is there, finding it interesting and beautiful as it is.

“I could feel this vision burning itself into my soul […]. The woman in the mirror would not have to orchestrate three different lovers. She would not dance on rooftops in Mexico, fly first class to London over the pole. She was in for varicose veins and a single apartment with cat litter and Lana Turner movies. She would drink by herself with tomatoes dying on the windowsills. She would buy magic every day of the week. Love me, that face said. I’m so lonely, so desperate. I’ll give you whatever you want.”

Throughout her time in the foster system, Astrid goes through several experiences of false hope. When she meets Olivia, who lives a life of luxury that she often extends to Astrid, she wonders if there is a possibility of this lavish lifestyle in her future. Unfortunately, when Marvel and her friends do Astrid’s makeup, and she looks at herself in the mirror, all she sees in her future is misery and loneliness. She envisions herself adult self as a desperate woman who compromises her dignity and self-worth for any morsel of attention or affection she can get. As Astrid meets these adult women, she also realizes that there is more than one definition of What It Means to Be a Woman.

“The world parts for Olivia, it lies down at her feet, where you hack through it like a thorn forest.”

Over time, Astrid slowly starts to view her mother’s way of living and thinking as toxic and flawed. She watches as her mother struggles against the grain and against the world, stubborn and uncompromising. Ingrid upholds these traits to the point of killing Barry and ending up in prison, separating herself from Astrid. By comparison, Olivia seems to have found a way to walk through life easily, going with the flow and maximizing the benefits of a high-demand commodity: sex and company. Where Ingrid invites and incites discomfort and pain, Olivia pursues pleasure. This quote is related to the theme, What It Means to Be a Woman.

“I felt like my mother in oleander time.”

Astrid refers back to the story’s exposition, when she was with her mother as the Santa Anas winds blew into Los Angeles. It is a fiercely dry time of the year, when forests burn along with the hearts of those who watch. Astrid remembers how passionate and pensive her mother was the last time she was with her at this time of year and feels the same way. She is emulating Olivia and appreciating the attention she is getting from boys. She feels powerful and brave. Oleanders are a recurring symbol throughout the novel, coming to represent love, passion, and desire, as well as how easily these emotions can turn to ones of rage and hatred. Oleanders also symbolize The Capacity for Human Suffering and how people can endure even the most horrible of circumstances.

“I held the bits of my luxurious life against the good side of my face as she cleaned out the wounds, injecting a beautiful numbness.”

When Olivia leaves town without telling Astrid, Astrid becomes distraught. She comes to depend on Olivia over a short period of time, and when Olivia vanishes, Astrid feels alone. She wanders out onto the street at night and is attacked by three stray dogs, who leave gashes on her face and body. The nurses cut the cashmere sweater that Olivia bought for Astrid, and Astrid holds the pieces in her hands, crying over what might have been a luxurious and pleasure-filled future.

“I took it away from her and sprayed it over my head so the mist fell like light rain. Wash my sins away. Make me a girl who’d never seen the firestorms of September, who’d never been shot, who’d never gone down on a boy behind a bathroom in a park. A nursery-rhyme girl in a blue dress holding a pet lamb in a cottage garden. It was me.”

When Olivia returns from England, Astrid is still upset, but when Olivia gifts her a bottle of perfume that reminds her of a childhood she pines for but never had, Astrid succumbs to the gift. She douses herself with the smell, hoping to come as close to the feeling of innocence and joy as possible. Astrid’s life was never normal or easy, but since Ingrid murdered Barry, it has been a series of terrible experiences that cause Astrid to make choices she later regrets. This quote relates to the theme, The Capacity for Human Suffering.

“She reminded me of a certain kind of rose she grew in the garden, called Pristine. It was white with a trace of pink around the outside, and when you picked it, the petals all fell off.”

Astrid is living with Claire, bonding with her, and coming to depend on her. A keenly observant person, Astrid often watches the people around her, including Claire, noticing small details that others may not. In this quote, Astrid compares Claire to a Pristine flower, noting how Claire appears to be put together and happy but is ready to fall apart at any moment. Flowers are a recurring symbol throughout the novel, adopting different meanings depending on the type of flower being referred to. 

“The stroke of the brush was the evidence of the gesture of your arm. A record of your existence, the quality of your personality, your touch, pressure, the authority of your movement.”

Claire encourages Astrid to pursue her goals and live up to her best self- something Ingrid never did for her. One of the ways that Claire encourages Astrid is by taking her to an expensive art class at the museum. There, Astrid is taught art theory and proper techniques. Although Astrid and her mother are both artists, Astrid distinguishes herself from her mother by the way she resolves to represent the world as it is, down to the finest detail, rather than twisting it into her own warped vision of reality. Artistic expression is a recurring motif throughout the novel, and is one of Astrid’s defining traits.

“I was a traitor. I had betrayed my master. She knew why I’d kept Claire in the background. Because I loved her, and she loved me. Because I had the family I should have had all this time, the family my mother never thought was important, could never give me.”

Ingrid views Astrid as a piece of property that she has the right to mold and influence as she sees fit. She does not view Astrid as her own autonomous person. Astrid knows that her mother has sociopathic tendencies and killed Barry, and she also knows that Ingrid would not appreciate knowing that Astrid has found a new mother in Claire. She is certain that something terrible will happen if Ingrid and Claire interact, and this is exactly what happens. Upon meeting Ingrid, Claire seems to change. Ingrid tells her that her husband is cheating, and Claire starts to give up on work, her appearance, and being sober. Eventually, Claire ends her own life, whether intentionally or not. Astrid blames Ingrid for this, knowing that she purposely inserted dark thoughts into Claire’s mind and took advantage of her fragility. This quote relates to the theme, The Delicate Balance of Mother-Daughter Relationships.

“If I had anything good, it was only because of Claire. If I could think of myself as worthwhile for a second, it was because Claire made me think so. If I could contemplate a future at all, it was because she believed there was one.”

For most of her life, Astrid lived under Ingrid’s shadow, being guided by her and going through life according to Ingrid’s whims. After she is placed in foster care, she lives in a series of dysfunctional homes that render her hopeless about herself and any possibility of a promising future. When Astrid meets Claire, everything changes; she becomes optimistic, taking honors classes at school and dreaming about a happy future. After Claire dies, Astrid feels like she has lost whatever glimpse of hope she had before because Claire was the only one who ever believed in her.

“Ron should never have trusted me with Claire. She should have gotten a little kid, someone to stay alive for. She should have realized I was a bad luck person, she should never have thought I was someone to count on. I was more like my mother than I’d ever believed. And even that thought didn’t frighten me anymore.”

After Claire dies, Astrid blames herself and Ron, Claire’s husband. Ron is often out working but seems to really love Claire and is likely not to blame for her death. Astrid blames herself because she feels like she was not enough for Claire. She believes that if Claire had adopted a young, untainted child, she would have been happier and stayed alive. Astrid sees herself as being poisoned because she is Ingrid’s daughter and feels there is no escaping it. It is not until later that she realizes that she and Ingrid are much different. This quote relates to the theme, The Delicate Balance of Mother-Daughter Relationships.

“What was beauty unless you intended to use it, like a hammer, or a key? It was just something for other people to use and admire, or envy, espies. To nail their dreams onto like a picture hanger on a blank wall. And so many girls saying, use me, dream me.”

Astrid learns to view beauty as a commodity that women use to get what they want from men. She believes that if a woman does not use her beauty to gain something from others, then she is simply selling herself off as an object for others to gawk at. When Paul calls Astrid beautiful, she is cynical about his attempts to compliment her. She has witnessed how Olivia and Starr use their beauty to take advantage of men, and she has also done the same herself many times. She decides to avoid men for a while, resolving not to let anyone touch her. This quote helps illustrate the theme, What It Means to Be a Woman.

“They could lock her up, but they couldn’t prevent the transformation of the world in her mind. This was what Claire never understood. The act by which my mother put her face on the world. There were crimes that were too subtle to be effectively prosecuted.”

Although Ingrid is still in prison, Astrid knows that her influence on the outside world remains palpable. Ingrid manipulates people to think like her, admire her, and see her as a wise poet. In truth, Ingrid is devious and lacks empathy for others; she uses them to suit her needs and for pure entertainment. Astrid spends a long time reflecting on what happened to Claire and realizes that it was not Ron’s nor her fault that Claire died; instead, Ingrid poisoned Claire’s mind with her lies, causing Claire to fall over the edge. In this way, Ingrid indirectly kills Claire.

“Who am I, Mother? I’m not you. That’s why you wish I were dead. You can’t shape me anymore. I am the uncontrolled element, the random act, I am forward movement in time.”

When Astrid stops writing to Ingrid, Ingrid amplifies her manipulative tactics. She becomes exceedingly cruel, even telling Astrid that she often wishes she was dead, so she did not have to worry about her. Astrid knows this is only a partial truth and understands that her mother is both angry and jealous because, after years of separation, Astrid is becoming her own person rather than a reflection of Ingrid. Astrid knows that this lack of predictability and control is unsettling for Ingrid and starts to feel a sort of power over her mother that she never felt before. This quote relates to the themes, The Delicate Balance of Mother-Daughter Relationships and What It Means to Be a Woman.

“How vast was a human being’s capacity for suffering. The only thing you could do was stand in awe of it. It wasn’t a question of survival at all. It was the fullness of it, how much could you hold, how much could you care.”

Over Astrid’s adolescence, she endures tremendous suffering at the hands of those who are supposed to take care of her. It begins with her mother, who murders Barry and sends Astrid out into the world alone. Then, Astrid goes through a series of foster homes, each occupied by dysfunctional adults who traumatize Astrid. As Astrid approaches her eighteenth birthday, she looks back on all of this suffering and realizes that she is still alive despite it all. She comes to the realization that human beings are built to suffer and that The Capacity for Human Suffering is in many ways what defines us.