A comparison of the characters in the film “White Oleander” with characters in Plato’s Symposium.
“White Oleander,” a film based on Janet Fitch’s novel of the same name, is the story of Astrid, a fifteen-year-old girl, whose life is heavily impacted by her manipulative mother Ingrid. After Ingrid is imprisoned for the murder of her boyfriend, Astrid is placed with several foster mothers who each have their own concept of love and life. Astrid’s four mother figures – Ingrid, Starr, Claire, and Rena – can each be compared respectfully to Alcibiades, Pausanias, Aristophanes, and Eryximachus in the Symposium.
Astrid’s biological mother, Ingrid, can be compared to Alcibiades due to their desire for power. Ingrid views her daughter as an extension of her own identity (“Don’t forget who you are. You’re my daughter and you’re perfect, remember?”), and while in jail, continues to attempt to control and instill in Astrid her personal cutthroat perspective of the human condition (“kill or be killed”). Ingrid thinks that life is a power struggle and in order to be victorious in life, one ought to use all resources available, such as physical beauty. She isolates herself from love (“love humiliates you; hatred cradles you”), and tries to isolate her daughter as well (if her daughter has outside influences, including that of love, it would make controlling her more difficult). As a result, Ingrid is incredibly possessive and territorial regarding any new influence on Astrid. She often scorns her daughter for changes in her appearance that occur during placement in successive foster homes, and she blatantly reveals her displeasure over her lack of control. This is made evident when Ingrid tells her daughter, “I would rather see you in the worst foster hell than with [another woman]. What could you possibly learn from her?” Similarly, in the Symposium, Alcibiades glorifies power and control over others. As with Ingrid, he considers love to be, at the very most, secondary to power. This is revealed when Alcibiades chooses to praise Socrates’ power of persuasion – his ability to manipulate people with speech – rather than praising love. Also, Alcibiades displays competitiveness with Socrates over Agathon’s attention: Agathon has artistic abilities, which could be a viable tool for manipulation. Alcibiades primary focus in the Symposium and Ingrid’s in “White Oleander” is their desire to obtain power, not love.
Astrid’s first foster mother, Starr, can be paralleled with Pausanias. Starr is a former stripper and drug addict who claims to have been redeemed by Christianity, but whose lifestyle is not consistent with what is often correlated with typical Christian morality. For example, she tries to convince herself that she is living a virtuous life by taking in several foster children, but in actuality, she is just using the children for the monetary compensation. Starr’s hypocrisy is, without a doubt, evident when she shoots Astrid out of jealousy after discovering Astrid and her boyfriend were sleeping together. Pausanias, though not quite as intense as Starr, is a hypocrite as well. He interprets Eros as duplicitous: “common” or vulgar love and “celestial” or heavenly love (the former focuses on the love of the body, whereas the latter focuses on the mind and soul). Pausanias seems to be capable of making distinctions between physical and spiritual love, however, his position is motivated by his desire to maintain a sexual relationship with boys who give sexual favors in return for wisdom. And whether or not wisdom is actually gained is unimportant to Pausanias, as well. For him, it is the underlying desire for wisdom that makes the sexual act with a boy virtuous (“to give oneself to another for the sake of excellence is [the essence of] true nobility” Plato, 180c-185c). Both Starr and Pausanias are revealed as hypocrites by the motivation behind their actions.
Astrid’s second foster mother, Claire, is an actress whose marriage is on the brink of divorce and can be compared to Aristophanes’ stance on love. Her husband is away on business most of the time and Claire is often left behind. She cannot have children of her own, and she considers adopting Astrid. However, her choice to adopt a grown child instead of a baby reveals that she is looking for a companion, not a daughter. Even with the company of Astrid, Claire remains unfulfilled and demands more of her husband. As a result, Claire’s husband retaliates out of frustration and decides to divorce her. During the confrontation, however, she suggests sending Astrid back if it would save their marriage (an attempt to save their marriage by sacrificing whatever she had begun to care for as a demonstration of her love). Unfortunately, Claire’s husband leaves anyway and Claire panics and commits suicide by a drug overdose. Shortly before she dies, Claire tells Astrid to “stay away from broken people.” This is an interesting comparison to Aristophanes’ Creation Myth involving dissected creatures whose goal was to be recombined with their other half (“Restoring humans to [a semblance of] their original, natural condition, Eros strives to remake one out of two, and therefore, to heal the deepest wounds of human nature.” Plato, 189c-193e). Claire felt incomplete without the love and attention of her. Had Hephaestus given Claire the choice to meld together with her husband, as Aristophanes entertains in his speech, she would have agreed. This is clear because she committed suicide when she lost that option; she felt that no one could make her complete except her husband, not even Astrid.
Astrid’s third foster mother, Rena, is a Russian immigrant who values capitalism over sentimentality. She views attachment to objects as a waste of time and only a reminder of pain. For instance, she convinces Astrid to sell the clothes that Claire gave her because reminders of the past only cause pain; profit will bring material well-being in the present. This is similar to Eryximachus’ view that Eros rules the art of medicine (as well as agriculture and gymnastics), which in turn maintains a balance of harmony within the body. Eryximachus states, “A good medical practitioner is an expert at producing eros [desire] were it ought to flourish, but does not, and in removing eros [desire] from where it thrives but should not.” (Plato, 185e-188e) Both Eryximachus and Rena are seeking to make the human condition a comfortable one. They both also subscribe to the notion that life is better when pleasure triumphs over pain, a concept expressed by Eryximachus when he states, “It is fitting and right to yield to the good and wholesome desires of every body.” (Plato, 185e-188e)
Eventually, Astrid gains her independence away from her mother. She does this not by showing her mother how to love, but by forcing her mother to realize her notion of love was really just that of power and control. Perhaps Ingrid stopped trying to control Astrid when she finally realized she no longer could (Astrid consciously chooses to lie under oath for her mother to get her out of prison, yet Ingrid ultimately rejects it); Astrid was no longer an extension of personal identity. It is interesting to note that none of the characters or relationships within “White Oleander” can be correlated with the most idealistic depiction of love and life in the Symposium: Socrates and Diotima’s.
Bibliography:
Plato. Symposium. Trans. Emil Piscitelli.
White Oleander. Dir. Peter Kosminsky. Perf. Michelle Pfeiffer and Alison Lohman. Videocassette. Warner Video, 2003.