Analysis Of Young Ellen Foster

Ellen Foster by Kaye Gibbons, is a realistic fiction novel that introduces the life of Ellen and how she has overcame her childhood of hardships. That including: her mother undergoing domestic violence from her alcoholic father and then eventually leading to the death of her mother. This had all went down when she was merely a child. Although, it was a lot to handle for her, she still has that resilience in her that she was not willing to give up no matter the obstacles that she has come across.

Ellen finds a woman at church that takes in orphan girls, but will there be any room for her? Will it just end up being another misunderstanding, like with her aunt, who was under the assumption that she would just be visiting for a few days. It is Ellen’s determination which eventually lands her a place in a loving home, with loving companionship.

At the age of ten, most children are reliant on their parents for everything in their lives needing a great deal of concentration and concern. However, Ellen, the main character and combatant of the novel Ellen Foster, demonstrates a significant amount of self-reliance and mature, impartial thought as a ten-year-old girl. Ellen is a bantling even though she was not deserted, she was impoverished of a normal childhood. Her life as a child was immensely hard, physically and emotionally. She never had a mother or father take care of her through her entire youth. The recent mortality of her mother sends her on a journey for the optimal family, or anywhere her father, who had shown insensitivity to both she and her frail mother, was not. Kaye Gibbons’

The mother seems to have one final wish that Emily will have the strong sense of self worth and believe that she is more than the dress that is “helpless before the iron.” This comment suggests that the mother hopes Emily will be able to overcome the mother’s mistakes, rather than succumb to the circumstance of her birth and of society. The mother is more than a character in a story, Olsen brings her too life with an emotional pain and realistic sorrow. The readers relate themselves to this oppressed mother, who struggled to support her family but constantly battling with her quilt and regret due to her absence in her daughter’s life.

world and people around her, such as ^He was a big wind up doll of a

Cora Lee had many children. As a child she was obsessed with baby dolls. Every Christmas she would get a new baby doll. Until she was 13, when her father said she was too old. Beginning in her sophomore year of high school, she started having babies one after another. Cora Lee neglects her children as they get older since she can only take care of them while they’re babies. Kiswana catches one of Cora Lee’s children eating out of a trash can and takes him to his mom to tell on him. Kiswana then see how filthy Cora Lee’s apartment is. Kiswana offers her to come and bring the children to a play. So Cora Lee cleans her children up and they all go to the play with Kiswana. Cora Lee is touched by seeing how much her children enjoyed the play and from that day to vowed to be a better mother.

The ability to handle hardships in the world can come easy to some and to others it may be so completely out of their own grasp that they give up without even trying. During the time frame of Kaye Gibbon’s novel Ellen Foster, the world was divided; the rich verses the poor. Others could view the nation as the whites verses the blacks. Ellen Foster is right along the middle of this division. Ellen is a white eleven year old child who faces hardship one after another. A main theme in Ellen Foster is how she deals with her pain by distracting herself with self-determination as well as comedic relief.

Kaye Gibbon’s novel, Ellen Foster, exists as a coming of age story for a young girl named Ellen. Throughout Ellen’s life she experiences several traumatic events. Most of these events included family member’s death. Her mother dies of an overdose from her cancer medication. Ellen’s father drinks himself to death. Also her grandmother dies of an illness.

For my outside reading book, I chose Ellen Foster by Kaye Gibbons. It is a novel centered around the life of eleven year old Ellen Foster. Early in the book, Ellen’s mother commits suicide, leaving Ellen alone with her father. After this, Ellen endures different kinds of abuse from her alcoholic father including physical, psychological, and sexual, and is forced to fill the role her mother has left behind. She has to pay bills, shop for groceries, and take care of herself. Ellen then takes matters into her own hands and seeks refuge from her friend Starletta, a person of color. After a day at school, Ellen's teacher notices a bruise on her arm and she is sent to live with the art teacher, Julia, and her husband, Roy. Despite Ellen living a happy life with Julia and Roy, Ellen must leave because Ellen’s grandmother wins custody over her in court. Ellen's grandmother orders her to work in the fields alongside the servants and Ellen becomes friends with a lady named Mavis who teaches her to do the work of the field. While at her grandmother’s, her father dies from a brain aneurism. Later on, Ellen's grandmother becomes ill and Ellen takes care of her. Despite her efforts, her grandmother dies. After this, Ellen

In the book In Search of April Raintree, April is the protagonist, she is the player the primary personal figure of the book. Her personality and characteristics portray many First Nations women in the 1960’s: “Woman have a wonderful instinct about things. They can discover everything except the obvious (Oscar Wilde). Throughout the book April changes drastically from A naïve child to an insecure teenager and finally to a mature young woman who is still not willing to accept her very own heritage and culture: “She is disavowing the part of her that might be since Native, a disavowal also reflected in her fear of being a mother of “brown-skinned babies” (p.117 and p.211).

This short novel have taught me something important. This mere world of fictional characters, places, and actions have shown me that i've got a wonderful sister (don’t tell her I said that), and two outstanding parents. And that's all you need. Those connections, shared memories, and strong bonds is enough to keep a family together. Not a fancy car, a private island, or an unlimited bank accountant. So I say thank you Cadence, thank you Mirren, Johnny and Gat. Thank you for teaching me a lesson, for showing me that fiction is oh so close to

“Every child deserves a champion – an adult who will never give up on them, who understands the power of connection and insists that they become the best they can possibly be” (Pierson). Kaye Gibbons’ novel, Ellen Foster, recounts the journey of a young girl who is actively searching for her champion; someone who will take her in and love her as their own. She does this while also interjecting the experiences she has with her new family. Born as Bertha Kaye Batts in 1960, Kaye Gibbons was the child of a farmer and grew up poor (Disheroon-Green). Her first novel, Ellen Foster, began as poem that eventually grew into something much greater (“Kaye Gibbons”). After the novel published in 1987, Gibbons won two literary awards, the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction and a citation from the Ernest Hemingway Foundation (“Overview: Ellen Foster”). Despite being reluctant about revealing the real drive behind Ellen Foster, Kaye Gibbons opened up to the media. Ellen’s character was inspired by Kaye Gibbons herself. Her mother’s suicide at ten years old, an abusive and alcoholic father, and the placements with family members were characteristics passed on to Ellen Foster (Telgen and Hile). Aside from creating a novel from the perspective of a young girl and the tribulations that she experiences, Kaye Gibbons also focuses on specific themes throughout the novel. The main themes that Kaye Gibbons elaborates on in her novel Ellen Foster are independence, trust, family,

When Hannah’s beloved husband Frank Roennfeldt takes their infant Grace and jumps into a dinghy to protect her from a swarm of racial abuse, Hannah is unaware that this is the last time she will ever see her husband. She is forced to cope with the unknown for four years, wondering every day if her husband and daughter are alive. Despite never giving up hope, this loss takes a toll on Hannah’s mental health, as she feels isolated/isolates herself ??. Stedman emphasises Hannah’s loneliness and vulnerability through bittersweet lines of dialogue such as “The baby I lost is never coming back.” (pg. 310) and “Frank was a lovely man.” (pg.

Though Ellen at this point has lost hope in George she knows she must keep going if she wants to have the family, husband, and house she imagines of. So that's exactly what Ellen did she pushed on and eventually married John whom she had five children with. I feel that she eventually built that "hope" back up. Though once again Ellen loses more hope, upon the death of her husband, John. I feel that at first this definitely "kills" her, but she knows she must keep going, she must continue to raise her children. Her hopes are crushed once more upon the death of Hapsy, her favorite child, during childbirth. So when it is finally nearing Ellen's death and Cornelia says she will see Hapsy again, she doesn't believe it, at this point she has lost hope in life, she has prepared to die and this is the end. I feel that these losses of hope shape her life by pulling her down though she is determined to have a successful family so she fights on. Though when it comes to her death she has simply appeared to give up the fight and loose hope in the future and her life. From personal experience, I understand Ellen's loss of hope and the feeling that it's not worth it anymore though just like her I continue to

After I read the short story, I read and analyzed the questions. When I first read the story, I thought Mansfield was trying to say how life and death are both beautiful concepts. The gift of life is very underrated and isn’t praised as much as it should be, in my opinion. My results to the questions were acceptable but I didn’t realize how much I had missed. I understood how Laura accepted her own place in the higher class and others in the lower class. In Foster’s essay, where he compared Laura to Persephone really helped me because he really corresponding everything. It was very helpful at uncovering minor details that you would normally see as unnecessary to be very important.