Both the Hulu series and book by Celeste Ng, Little Fires Everywhere, have sparked a blaze in me as I devoured both from the perspective of an adult adoptee, mother, daughter, and writer. In celebration of both the book and the on-screen adaptation, over the next several days I’ll be sharing some of my reflections on various themes that stood out for me. There will definitely be spoilers in this review series, so if you haven’t yet watched and/or read, you may want to flag these for a different time, once you have.
Little Fires Everywhere, Narcissism, and Mother-Blaming
In today’s reflections on Little Fires Everywhere, I’ll touch on narcissism and mother-blaming—another oft-practiced form of misogyny.
Were you at all like me? I found it incredibly easy to dislike, and sometimes hate, the character of Elena Richardson throughout both the novel and screen adaptation. Elena made me bristle especially in the book, when I got more of a glimpse into her tainted motives than I did when watching the ever-effervescent Reese Witherspoon play Elena (where my fan-girl mind had to do some serious mental gymnastics to despise her).
Elena could be so calculating. Her striving to be perfect, to look good at all costs, and to present the idealized image of herself and her family members came off as abrasive, to say the least. (I cried at her cruelty over Izzy’s shoes during the Christmas photo re-take.) The way Elena meddled in others’ affairs was troubling. The subtle ways she dropped compliments and helped others, less out of altruism, and more because it made her feel good about herself—ick. And what about that uncomfortable, squirmy feeling that comes over other characters, and viewers, whenever Elena is giving herself props to appear “woke,” and in so doing, negates the impression she’s working so painstakingly to craft?
Little Narcissists Everywhere?
Personally, I think the word “narcissist” is dangerously overused in this day and age, almost to the point of meaninglessness caricature. Still, the word came to mind often as I both read and watched. I could see some of my own mother in Elena, and I’ve heard from others—many fellow adoptees—who have been affected by seeing their mothers in Elena’s character, too. While Elena is not an adoptive mother, adoptive mothers, like any other mother, can sometimes act in self-serving ways that compel adoptees and therapists to refer to them as narcissists.
If I’m brutally honest, I could also see some of myself in Elena at times. (Speaking of “woke,” that seems to be one of Celeste Ng’s wake-up calls: that we inspect the hidden, and sometimes darker, sides of ourselves that scare us.) I love an organized, color-coded family calendar as much as Elena does, for instance, and I get a dose of neurotic joy beautifying Pinterest-worthy lunches for my kids—both of which can be annoying to those around me if not tempered. I, too, have gotten frustrated when my great plans for sentimental photos are thwarted by the reality of others’ emotions that are out of my control.
But is this label fair for any mother—or woman, for that matter?
When Elena’s ex called her a narcissist at the end of their New York meetup scene, the word no longer seemed to fit. Somehow when a man was calling Elena a narcissist on screen, it woke me up. His name-calling reminded me of other words that are used to label women. Bitch. Cunt. Psycho. To name a few. In defense of Elena and all women who’ve been painted with any of these labels—by men and complicit women alike—I felt protective.
It would be easy to write off Elena as a narcissist—or any other degrading label of choice. As I wrote in my memoir, Searching for Mom, I took a significant life detour labeling my adoptive mother a narcissist. Easy. What was hard was the deep emotional work in looking away from my judgmental lens to see my mom as a whole person—to consider the wounds she suffered as well as the many gifts she brought to the world.
Labeling mothers and women as narcissists is almost always too easy—and too misogynistic, which is dictionarily defined as hatred, distrust, or dislike of women. Like I came to realize with my mom, there is more to Elena’s character than what some would coin her “nasty” actions. There is more to most of us than that. That’s the problem with caricatures: they mold complex people into one-dimensional objects of derision. Maybe I’ve been extremely sheltered or just plain lucky, but I’ve never gotten to know any person who is as simplistic as that—even those who seem to be among the most flawed.
Father-Blaming
Did you judge Elena’s husband, Bill Richardson (played by Joshua Jackson) on the same scale as Elena? At my first pass through the series, I’ll admit that I did not conjure any labels to throw his way.
But why not? Celeste Ng gives us many examples of ways we could father-blame, after all. Bill is largely absent when the four children, each born within a year of each other, are young and Elena is exhausted, struggling, and completely alone and unseen. During his kids’ adolescent years, Bill continues to be checked out a lot of the time, missing sibling conflicts as they take place under his nose that he turns away from in order to move along with his own agenda.
Most destructively, he knows important things about his daughter, Izzy, that would have been important to share with his co-parent—not at the sake of Izzy’s trust in him, but in the name of helping Elena, as the more engaged parent, come alongside Izzy, too. Had she understood more of Izzy’s feelings as she struggled to make sense of her sexuality, perhaps Elena could have grown more in her own understanding and acceptance. There were seeds planted that perhaps such understanding could one day be a possibility. Had Bill participated and coached Elena more, one of the main fires could have been extinguished before it had a chance to ignite.
Further, in episode one as Elena expresses concern about her daughter, Bill interrupts to ask his wife, “Have you considered talking to someone?” Not that therapy wouldn’t do Elena some good, but the implication is that Elena is entirely the problem. There’s no joint responsibility as co-parents, and underneath, there’s mother-blame.
All of this is not to say Elena isn’t problematic as a mother, nor do I mean to excuse diagnosed narcissism and abusive mothers. But in Little Fires Everywhere, Elena is not the sole problem.
Blaming mothers, and labeling them, are just other faces of misogyny that miss the grey areas that are a reality of humanity and life. Grey areas are what make people and this world interesting, and it’s why Little Fires Everywhere, exposing so many of these complexities, is so compelling.
What did you find particularly compelling about the book or the show? What are your thoughts on narcissism and mother- or father-blaming? I hope you’ll join me in the conversation on Facebook or Instagram.
