The Pain Tree Analysis

“The Pain Tree” written by Olive Senior tells the story of a woman who comes back home after many years and begins to think about her childhood in a new light, which changes much of what she thought she knew of her family and childhood. The story shows the main character, Lorraine, revisiting the memories of her family and the woman who had taken care of her as a child, Larissa. Children mainly focus on the happy memories which may be tied to more important topics that they do not understand until they are older. Most children do not pick up on many of the complicated things happening around them. Lorraine can now see the bigger picture of her relationship with Larissa and how large the divides were between Lorraine’s family and Larissa’s …show more content…

Looking back on the death of Larissa’s son, Zebedee Breeze, Lorraine examines Larissa’s response to the passing of her child. Lorraine says, “I never saw her cry that day or any other. She never mentioned her sons.” (Senior 311). This statement from Lorraine shows how even though Larissa was devastated by the news of her son’s passing, she had to keep going. Women in Larissa’s position did not have the luxury of stopping everything to grieve. While someone in Lorraine’s position could take time to grieve and recover from the loss of a loved one, Larissa was expected to keep working despite the grief she felt. One of the saddest things about Zebedee’s passing, was that Larissa had to leave him and was not able to stay with her family because she had to take care of other families. Not only did Larissa have the strength to move on and keep working after her son’s passing, Larissa and other women like her also had no choice but to leave their families in order to find a way to support them. As a child, Lorraine did not understand the strength Larissa must have had to leave her family to take care of someone else’s …show more content…

Whenever they felt grief, like the death of a loved one, these women would take a nail and drive it into the pain tree to get rid of their burden Larissa and other migrant workers used the pain tree as an outlet for pain and grief. The pain tree held the burdens of many migrant workers like Larissa and provided a steady outlet no matter what happened. When Lorraine was young, she could not make the nail go into the pain tree, which shows that at the time she did not feel the anger and burdens of women like Larissa. Lorraine’s inability to hit the nail into the pain tree marked the only time Lorraine felt uncomfortable with Larissa because of their cultural divide. The last time Lorraine visited the pain tree, she was able to hit the nail into the tree easily, which represents the anger and sadness she feels for Larissa and the pain Larissa had to