59 pages • 1 hour read
Gail HoneymanEleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2017A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Summary
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Character Analysis
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
Book Club Questions
Tools
BetaChapters 34-37Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 34 Summary
Eleanor meets a hungover Raymond for lunch. He confesses he was out late with Laura. Eleanor asks if Lauran is his girlfriend. Raymond says he doesn’t want to see Laura again because she’s too high-maintenance.
After Eleanor shares pictures of Glen on her phone, Raymond nervously admits that he has researched the fire. He offers to show Eleanor what he’s learned whenever she’s ready. Eleanor becomes irritated and tells him he has stepped over the line. Realizing she has hurt his feelings, she begins to cry, and he reaches for her hands. They apologize to each other in unison and begin to laugh. They each say sorry for offending the other and part ways. Eleanor buys cat food on the way home and considers how the happy burden of caring for Glen has helped her stop drinking.
Chapter 35 Summary
Dr. Temple increases the frequency of Eleanor’s sessions to twice per week. She asks Eleanor to recall a happy memory from before the fire. She recovers a memory of a picnic with her younger sister, Marianne, a person she had forgotten. Dr. Temple commends Eleanor on her progress in therapy and tells her more memories will come in time.
One night, while Eleanor watches TV with Glen the cat, Sammy’s son, Keith, arrives at her apartment door. He has come to drop off the red sweater Sammy was wearing when Eleanor and Raymond saw him collapse. Keith knows Eleanor took a liking to the sweater and offers it to her as a token of her departed friend. After he leaves, she puts on the oversized sweater.
Chapter 36 Summary
On a crowded bus, Eleanor boards and scans the benches for a suitable seatmate. She selects an elderly woman, who departs at the next stop. Then a man boards and looks for a seat and walks past the empty one beside Eleanor. She becomes anxious that there’s something wrong with her and leans over, putting her head between her legs. The man is seated behind her and asks if she’s all right. Eleanor replies yes, and the man says he understands “‘taking a wee moment’” (294). He exits the bus, and Eleanor thanks him. She realizes her mother trained her to be judgmental, whereas Eleanor’s own inner monologue is more reasonable.
Chapter 37 Summary
Dr. Temple and Eleanor discuss how Eleanor sees her Mummy as “‘a bad person’” (296). Dr. Temple exhorts Eleanor that she’s her own person and suggests Eleanor herself can be a different kind of mother one day. Eleanor states she doesn’t want children for fear she’ll pass her mother’s traits to them. Eleanor also confirms she’s still speaking with Mummy once a week. Dr. Temple, trying to sound neutral, recommends that Eleanor cut off contact with Mummy.
Eleanor then reveals a recently recovered memory: “‘Mummy set a fire. She wanted to kill us both, except, somehow, Marianne died and I didn’t’” (298). Eleanor expresses guilt for not saving her little sister, Marianne. Dr. Temple assures Eleanor that nothing that happened was her fault and that she must forgive herself. Eleanor reasons that this must be true and also decides to cut off contact with her mother.
Chapters 34-37 Analysis
These chapters reveal key details about Eleanor’s backstory. She realizes that Marianne, the person she referenced in a previous therapy session, is her younger sister. In a previous chapter, she bursts into tears in Mrs. Gibbons’ kitchen when she states that she never had siblings. This revelation shows that Eleanor was not crying because she didn’t have siblings but because she lost her only sister. Her guilt over Marianne’s death has led Eleanor not only to repress the memories but also maintain an overly harsh view of herself.
Previous chapters imply that Mummy set the traumatic fire, but it is important that Eleanor admits the truth as plainly as she does in Dr. Temple’s office. She chooses not to deny her mother’s guilt any longer and indeed states that her mother is to blame, whereas Eleanor is not. For the first time, she considers forgiving herself and placing the guilt where it belongs. The prospect of cutting off contact with Mummy promises great psychological freedom for Eleanor, as her mother’s cruelty has gone unabated since the fire and has seeped into Eleanor’s sense of self.
Eleanor and Raymond also have their first major disagreement as friends. Whereas Eleanor is used to facing a ruthless counterpart during conflict with her mother, Raymond shows remorse for crossing Eleanor’s boundaries. Eleanor, unaccustomed to apologizing for her directness, also recognizes that she came on too strong. Rather than walking away from Raymond, as she might have done in the past, she gives him the benefit of the doubt and forgives him for a misguided attempt to help her.
On the bus ride in Chapter 36, Eleanor abandons judgment in favor of open-mindedness and empathy. She makes assumptions about the man who passes her by, but he reveals himself to be considerate after all. This scene also reveals a major source of Eleanor’s judgment: her own sense of inadequacy. The reason she assumes the worst about the man is because he didn’t sit next to her, which prompts her to question her appearance and her worth. At the end of that chapter, Eleanor shows a new skill for self-talk and regulating her emotions as she assures herself that people are not as bad as she assumes (and neither is she).
