Griffith Park is a recurring Los Angeles landmark in Norma Jeane’s searches and disorientation. It first appears on a drive undertaken while she is trying to find her absent father; later, she is lost in the park as well as at Forest Lawn Memorial Cemetery and in Glendale, unable to remember where she lives.

Setting and Position

The park lies within a sequence of places Norma Jeane traverses while driving east on the Ventura Freeway. She goes first to Griffith Park, then to Forest Lawn Memorial Cemetery, where I. E. Shinn is buried, and continues driving for hours through residential neighborhoods. The account places the park within a sprawling urban landscape she can see as full of people but cannot orient herself within.

Episodes and Associations

On the first drive, Norma Jeane has borrowed a car and is suffering the threat of a terrible migraine. She does not know precisely what or whom she is seeking, yet believes she would recognize her father if she saw him. Griffith Park is one stop in that uncertain search, which continues through the cemetery and beyond.

The park returns in a later episode of confusion. Norma Jeane becomes lost in the hills above the city, at Forest Lawn Memorial Cemetery, in Griffith Park, and eventually around Glendale. Although she reaches Hollywood and Beverly Hills, she cannot remember exactly where her studio-paid apartment is. From a Glendale shop, where people recognize and stare at her, she calls Mr. Z; a chauffeur is sent to bring her home.

Narrative Significance

Griffith Park is not presented as a refuge or a place of resolution. Its significance comes from its recurrence in journeys that fail to give Norma Jeane a secure point of orientation: first, a search for a father she feels certain she could recognize, and later, a physical and mental dislocation so severe that even her own home becomes difficult to locate. The park’s place in both episodes links the open geography of Los Angeles to her unstable sense of where she belongs.