Analyzing Janet Fitch's 'White Oleander'

glrWhite Oleander

White Oleander is the harrowing story of Astrid Magnussen, who finds herself in foster care after her relentless mother, is imprisoned for murder. It’s a novel written by Janet Fitch, which then had a film adaptation in 2002 directed by Peter Kosminsky. The screenplay of this beautiful story leaves the audience without experiencing the full emotional impact. New elements were added and major components were left out for the film composition to be less complex, thus easier to sympathize with. For this to be a reality Kosminsky disintegrates the novel by altering its theme, character development, and the setting.

To begin, the film interpretation of the story captures the theme of motherhood and self discovery, yet it succumbs

when compared to the original writing and the great diversity of emotions felt through it. Kosminsky chooses to focus on a couple of various women in the original print, who each impact Astrid’s life immeasurably, leading to Astrid’s awakening to the idea of “the real mother, blood mother” (404) in the novel.

Kosminsky never displays this scene, he compensates by adding a theatrically emotional bit of Astrid and Ingrid’s last encounter at Ingrid’s court hearing, the audience feels the mother becomes a better person when Astrid says “she let me go” tearfully with a close up camera shot to the background disheartening, plaintive music. The film doesn't get any closer to displaying the unbreakable, yet fragile relationship between the two. Whereas in the book, Fitch further analyzes the tangible mother, the physical child-bearer contrasted to the incorporeal blood mother. Astrid angrily cries reading a letter from her mother, “So now I was supposed to feel pity for you and those other women who’d lost their own children during a holdup, a murder, a fiesta of greed?” (349). Fitch refuses to let Astrid forgive Ingrid so easily; the reader goes through the journey with Astrid, from admiring to rebelling against her mother, and finally forgiving. Astrid’s life is traumatic at every turn and event, giving her

knowledge and experience, yet at the end still entrapping her in her own mind. Since Kosminsky’s film doesn’t include Astrid’s heartfelt hardships, she’s left with a clearer state of mind. She’s able to accept her mother like a completed chapter in a book, Kosmisky’s innocent Astrid concludes with “The Times said she was close to winning a retrial after a first failed appeal... No matter how much she's damaged... I know my mother loves me,” as the audience watches her settle into her new life. In contrast, the novel leaves the readers puzzled as Astrid contemplates between continuing her own path in life and going back to her mother. Astrid conflictingly thinks of “...a place with heat, a degree, decent food, and someone taking care of me... Before, I couldn’t afford to think about it, but now she was out, how could I not?” (441). Not only does Fitch let Astrid suffer in turmoil and confusion, but also the reader is left in a state of distress for wanting Astrid to make the right decision so her struggles don’t go to waste. Since the movie fails to include important segments connected to the themes, the audience never feels the complete effect of importance of the mothers’ or self discovery in the film.
To further break down the intricate novel, the motion picture modifies character development which doesn’t allow the audience to feel the full impact of Astrid’s struggle. She never learns the preciousness of life, and it changes how characters are perceived. Astrid’s age is different in both mediums when her mother is imprisoned; she’s younger in the novel than the movie. The difference in age is heightened throughout the explicit affair between her and her foster mother’s boyfriend, Ray. In the novel this is seen as child molestation, since Ray is fifty and Astrid is 13, although in the film she’s 16 and he’s a handsome young looking man in his twenties. The film makes it almost acceptable for such a dalliance to occur, both parties are conscious of its wrongness with Ray uttering “This isn’t right.” This silent scene with close up shots for emotional connection is overlooked due to zero mention of the characters ages in the film. Moreover, the director chooses to leave out the two foster houses that teach Astrid to survive, and think for herself which in turn also affect her mother who’s shown as only an antagonist. Astrid learns survival when she’s left stranded by Christ, she calls her own bible “...The Art of Survival... I looked at my life and saw quite clearly that I was not surviving... I was letting my sails crust up with salt...I would pull myself together,” (129). The movie makes no mention of it. This is supposedly the turning point for Astrid. Her character changes, and the reader thinks things will start to improve. In a letter to Astrid, Ingrid addresses her growing concern of her associating with Olivia Jhonston, a prostitute, Ingrid writes “Dear Astrid, Wasn’t Uncle Ernie bad enough? No, you had to locate the most detestable kind of creature to attach yourself to. Don’t you dare allow her to seduce you. All Ernie wanted was your body. If you possess the slightest hint of common sense, RUN from this woman as you would a flesh-eating virus...My God, the woman is a prostitute, what would you expect her to say? 'Stand up for your rights'? You’d think, as a black woman, she would be ashamed to lick the master’s boots, say its Whitey’s world, make the best of it...A woman like her is a parasite, she fattens on injustice like a tick on a hog. Of course, to the tick, it’s a hog’s world,” (155). The director doesn’t include Olivia Jhonston, the one person who teaches Astrid to have opinions for herself, even if the opinions are atrocious and cheap, thus it never gives the audience the chance to watch Ingrid play the role of a mother in a positive manner. This adds to Ingrid's characterization, readers know that Ingrid only wants Astrid to follow the right path. Whereas Kosminsky portrays Astrid as the better character; all her faults are hidden to make Ingrid to stand out as the antagonist.
Lastly, Fitch writes the subtle details of the setting to make the reader look at issues in the United States of America.

A country perceived by the world to be filled with hedonism in the 1990’s. The course of the story is set in California; the change in the setting is significant in the end to represent the world’s glamorized view of the country contrasted to the actual reality of the state. A state that consists of daughters and mothers with struggles that are overlooked, and hedonism is an utter fantasy perceived by the world. After Astrid’s scuffle with life, she compares America to Berlin, a land of horrors, “Nobody had forgotten anything here. In Berlin, you had to wrestle with the past, you had to build on the ruins, inside them. It wasn’t like America, where we scraped the Earth clean, thinking we could start again every time.” (433) On the other hand, the ending of the movie is set in New York, so none of Fitch’s ideas are included, the viewer watches scenes of a lovely New York loft turned into a workshop, accompanied with cheery instrumental music, where she happily lives with her boyfriend. Moreover, Berlin is the ideal place to end White Oleander. The city is home of monstrosity and struggle, complete parallel to Astrid’s character, but both in the end still stand confidently. Astrid’s beautiful metaphor says it all, “Like Berlin, I was layered with guilt and destruction. I had caused grief as well as suffering it.” (436) The whole idea of differentiating the

setting from the beginning to the end is symbolic to the basic fact that life and living standards contradict in distinct countries. It contrasts the alluring worldview of the United States to the actual reality.
Janet Fitch’s White Oleander is a captivating story of struggle and self discovery. The protagonist Astrid Magnussen grows up in foster homes while her mother is behind bars for murder. It’s a narration filled with pain, poetry, proclivity of danger. In Peter Kosminsky’s version Astrid is played by Alice Lohman, who fails to let the audience experience the full emotional depth of the haunting story. Kosminsky changes the character development, setting, and alters the theme to make the story less complex. What Fitch takes away with the harsh story, she reciprocates with imagery, and Kosminsky’s attempt at portraying it physically is admirable, but it fails when compared to the original.