Narcissism and Addictive Personality in White Oleander

In the movie White Oleander many of the characters had psychoactive disorders. They all lived hard life styles that were very different. The main character Astrid is in the middle of all the chaos, and has to deal with every person emotionally that come into her life. Two major disorders that are seen within the movie is narcissism and addictive personality. It is very hard for Astrid only a fifteen year old at the time to encounter all of these problems.












Narcissism
Astrid’s mother Ingrid, is the main reason for all of the trouble caused throughout the movie. She has drastic signs of narcissism. She is a wonderful and accomplished artist that many people admire, which does not help with her condition.
Some of her symptoms are: Has achieved a lot more than most people her age (artist)
Firmly convinced she is better than everyone else
Little interest in others and their feelings (mainly Astrid)
Takes advantage of others to get what she wants
Always feels she is misunderstood
Needs a lot of attention (boyfriend)
These are only a few symptoms of narcissism, but Ingrid portrays many. The scene that shows most of these is when Astrid first visits her since the murder. At this time Astrid is in her first foster home which is very different from her life style and her mother is very unhappy. When Astrid first gets to touch her mother, she begins to cry while they are hugging and her mother sharply replies “We are the vikings, we don’t do that.” She feels she is too good to cry and she will seem weak and does not want Astrid to destroy her reputation. Astrid then asks Ingrid how it is in prison and if she is doing okay. Her mother says prison agrees with her there is no hypocreaceae. This shows that Ingrid always feels people are judging her and she needs to be better then them. Astrid then goes on and asks if they hurt her, Ingrid replies “Not as much as I hurt them.” With that reply it shows she feels she is better and stronger than every woman in prison. Going along with Ingrid feeling superior to everyone she asks Astrid why she is wearing a cross necklace and starts yelling at her about how she raised her better than that. During there argument Ingrid makes Astrid second guess everything and change her opinion to agree with her mother. The scene at the prison is very short but mainly revolves around Ingrid. She is very self centered and can’t see past her self not even for her daughter. When she murdered her boyfriend because he was not giving her enough attention she did not consider what killing him would do to Astrid. Narcissism is a very difficult disorder for others to deal with. Astrid’s mother’s condition is the main reason she leads a hard life.





Addictive Personality
The first foster home Astrid is forced to go to is very different from her daily life that she was used to. They are more lower middle class and live on the out side of town. Her foster mom’s name is Star, and when she first arrives the woman seems very nice and that she has a good head on her shoulders. That quickly changed when Astrid finally got settled in their home. People who have an addictive personality have many issues and it can sometimes be mixed up with depression.
Signs of an addictive personality are: lying (saying she is a Christian but doesn’t act like it)
Irresponsible (not taking care of house and appearance)
Behaving compulsively (sex and shooting Astrid)
Lost of interest in things (family)
The scene I choose that show Star had an addictive personality is right after Astrid comes home from visiting her mother in prison. Star is addicted to alcohol, and starts drinking again because she feels threatened by Astrid. All of her Christian characteristics are thrown out the window and she no longer follows what she says she stands for. Star become very irresponsible, the house is very messy and her appearance looks very rough. It just seems that she doesn’t not care about anything else but her alcohol. She has compulsive behaviors, wanting sex all of the time with Roger and does not try to hide it. All of her children are aware when they have sex and it is very inappropriate the way she does not care about her children. Star’s oldest daughter decides to run away and they get into a huge argument, and basically the daughter says she is a horrible mother. Her parenting style is neglectful and it is due to her addiction problem, because she only has one thing on her mind. She has lost interest in most of her daily activities. She also shoots Astrid in the shoulder because she has no control over her addiction. She was so drunk and her true feelings came out, and instead of talking to Astrid again she is very irrational and shoots her. Star’s addictive personality impacts Astrid in a very negative way and after the shooting she has to go to juvenile detention to face more struggles.





White Oleander is a great movie for psychoactive disorders and studying people. It has many different characters with all types of problems that are well known. This movie was very interesting and enjoyable to watch. Narcissism and addictive personalities were shown greatly during the movie. All of these people with their problems affected Astrid in a negative way, but she also was able to learn from them and build her self into her own woman. After all of those experiences allowed Astrid to learn what she did not want to become and enabled her to be the strong woman she was at then end of the movie.

“Love humiliates you. Hatred cradles you.”

By. Amber VanBuhler