Ellen Foster Character Analysis

In the short story “Choices” by Susan Kerslake and in the poem “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost, are two examples of literature which are similar to my experience.

Her grandmother treats her badly. She acts as if Ellen is to blame for her daughter's death. This is how Ellen describes the beginning of hers’ and her grandmother’s relationship, “My mama’s mama picked me up in her long car that was like the undertaking car only hers was cream. I told Roy and Julia on more time I did not need to go. If we have to live together the least you could do is talk to me like you know I am in your car is what I thought to say to her. I figured she would warm up to me. But all she asked on the way to her house was when does school start again? Lord it just ended and I sure am looking forward to the summer at your house I said for the icebreaker. I asked you when school starts. I do not need the commentary is what she said back to me hot. So September. I said September. I said my answer quick and on time like the army way. I saluted in my head.” {P. 61}

“I’m sick of this house” (75) exclaims 15 year old, revolutionary-minded Helen McBride. Living in a house with 11 other children was not the lifestyle she had in mind. Having her own beliefs suppressed by her mother was not what she wanted in life. Helen, feeling crowded and controlled, leaves her home and does not look back.

“When I was little I would think of ways to kill my daddy.” This beginning to the novel “Ellen Foster” by Kaye Gibbons, prepares readers to enter the world of one of the most influential and appealing young woman protagonists in modern fiction. Ellen Foster, the main character of the book by Gibbons, is, in my view, the most fascinating and remarkable character in the story. Readers are introduced to the narrator Ellen, a determined, yet mature and individualistic eleven-year-old, who lives in the South during the 1970s. She lives with an alcoholic father and a sick mother. Ellen must go through many hardships and face much trauma, when she foreshadows her mother’s death and the long journey in front of her by saying that a storm is coming- “I can smell the storm and see the air thick with the rain coming.” (p.7). Young Ellen must go through much more than the average child her age, but she knows that she will get her happy ending. After dealing with her abusive father and depressed mother, Ellen deserves to go to a happy family, one that will accept her with smiles on their faces and joy in their eyes. Even if it means jumping from foster home to foster home, from a cruel grandmother to a condescending aunt and cousin, Ellen will find the people that will love her, even if it means first having to go to those who don’t.

In The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, the Walls family is born and raised throughout the country, never settling down in one place. Rex, Jeannette’s father, is an independent thinker, and a highly intelligent man. He spends every second of his spare time inventing odd contraptions that he hopes will make his family rich. Despite his obvious intellect, Rex struggles profusely with alcoholism, making his goal of maintaining a job, and protecting his family very difficult. Jeannette’s dad is best known for “skedaddling”, when things get too hard in one place, or bill collectors come he takes his family, regardless of what they think or want, away from there. They have no say in it, he practically drags them along because they don’t have a choice. Rex asks Jeannette what

Plus, she is only a child and realizes that she is relatively powerless against him. As a result, Ellen does the only thing she can: She goes to sleep beside her dying mother. She may not say it herself, but Ellen loves her mother. By sleeping beside her dead mother, the heartbreaking picture of childhood innocence, Ellen is attempting to hold on in the only way she can.

This book is a memoir so it is all about Ashley’s life in the foster care program. Each chapter talks about the hardships she went through at all the different foster homes. Ashley was taken into foster care when she was only three years old. She was in 14 different homes in a total of nine years. She had a brother, Luke that was also in the foster care program with her. They were separated multiple times, but always ended up at the same foster home together. It was not until Ashley was adopted that they were separated for good. Ashley’s mom was in prison multiple times, she was also a drug addict. She had visitation rights, but her visitations were always supervised. At these visitations she always promised Ashley that she was going to turn her life around, and get both her and Luke back. It never happened; as a result, Ashley had a lot of trust issues and a hard time believing people actually cared for her. Ashley was adopted and had a tough first couple of years adjusting to having a family. It wasn’t until about the end of the book where she finally got used to having a real family.

Erma wasn't an ideal grandmother, she was always in a grumpy mood. She would tend to yell at The Walls children for the most simplest reasons. One day, Jeannette notices that Erma is touching Brian inappropriately. Jeannette runs to Brian and Erma and tells her to leave him alone. Erma gets aggressive with Jeannette, “Erma reached over to slap me but Lori caught her hand.

Firstly, Every hardship and obstacles she endured throughout her childhood helped Jeannette to become a successful adult.Jeannette’s parent were very unpredictable, her mother was self absorbed in her hobbies, and her father was an interminable alcoholic. Even though her parent neglected and gave less attention to Jeannette,

Jeannette’s personality shows the most with her independence and maturity at such a young age. An early example of this is when she tried to cook a hot dog on the stove and accidently burned herself when she was only three years old. As Jeannette ages, she begins to see the world in brand new perspectives because of her experiences with different lifestyles and environments, such as living in the desert with hot temperatures, to living in the poorest neighborhood of Welch, to finally living in the ever-moving city life of New York City.

“We don’t accept handouts form anyone” says Rose Mary Walls, the mother of Jeannette Walls. In the memoir The Glass Castle written by Jeannette Walls she describes events from her life from childhood to adulthood and how she overcame her struggles. She had to adjust to her family’s situation and comply with how her parents wanted her to act, which was to be independent. Walls’ memoir embodies the theme of being self-sufficient by illustrating scenes that take place in hers and her siblings life that demonstrate the need to become self-sufficient. Jeannette Walls has been learning how to be independent from a young age.

Throughout her early childhood, she ignores her father's drunken escapades, and thinks of him as a loving father and excellent teacher of the wild. It isn't until her junior year of high school that she realizes the indisputable flaws her father has. She resents Dad's drinking and how he constantly lets her and the rest of the family down yet never openly admits it or allows his flaws to be discussed. Jeannette also begins to resent her mother, whom she’s never been close to. Some cause of her resentment includes her mom’s refusal to hold down a job long enough to provide her kids with a stable food supply, especially since Rex won’t be providing like he says he will. This resentment eventually motivates her to move away from her parents and Welch. She ends up in New York City with her sister Lori in which she focuses on her studies and becomes a successful journalist. Jeannette is a natural forgiver and it shows even when she moves away from her parents, but this doesn’t stop her from being haunted by her past and with her transition from poverty into the upper-middle class. By the end of the novel, Jeannette is a symbol of the resilience and

Then, we have Robin Stokes, who is a young, beautiful woman but is simultaneously insecure and anxious and looks for her self-confidence through men who abuse her financially, sexually, and emotionally. Her relationship with her family creates another burden her, as her father has Alzheimer’s and her mother is the only one who wants to take care of him. Eventually, they have no choice but to admit him to a nursing home, but it is a decision that is hard for the both of them. Her relationship with men is also a tumultuous one, in which she has an affair with a man named Russell, and even though she finds out he is married to another man, her good sense is pushed away by her attraction for him.

Her role of an adoptive mother to Gerty changes to friend as they grow closer and share trialing events and heartbreaks with each other. When Emily finally discloses her heartbreak and reveals the mystery behind her blindness to Gertrude, she explains her hesitation and protection of her from the trouble of her story. “You told me, many years ago, that I could not imagine how much you loved Willie, and I was then on the point of confiding to you a part of my early history, and convincing you that my own experience might well have taught me how to understand such a love; but I checked myself, for you were too young then to be burdened with the knowledge of so sad a story as mine, and I kept silent” (Cummins 314). This chapter plays a pivotal role in Emily and Gertrude’s changing relationship and is a good example of the sentimentalism used in the

In addition to the summer of hard labor, Ellen is able to compare the dysfunctional and hateful relationship she has with her grandmother to the behavior of Mavis and her family. Her grandmother blames Ellen for her mother’s death, even going so far as to accuse Ellen of colluding with her father to force her mother to overdose on heart medication when she says, “You and your daddy let her take them pills or more than likely drove her to it and then you let her die” (Gibbons 78). She then adds insult to injury by accusing Ellen of having slept with her father’s friends and the surprise that she isn’t pregnant or has “some little nigger baby hanging off your titty.” Ellen silently endures the physical abuse of working in the fields and her grandmother’s verbal abuse, wrapped in racist slurs, while taking care of her as she dies of a respiratory disorder. In contrast, Ellen finds herself walking up the road sometimes to where Mavis and her family live in what could pass for slave quarters, in a rundown shack. Instead of verbal abuse and hatred, she sees a loving family sitting on the porch each night talking and picking with one another. The family has very little money and lives in meager accommodations, but they are happy compared to the toxic environment of her grandmother’s pristine and wealthy mansion full of treasures. This goes a long way to persuade Ellen to change her mind about her ingrained stereotypes of race and family. She begins to make a list in her mind of