Ellen Foster Essay -- Essays Papers

Ellen FosterWhen I was little I would think of slipway to kill my daddy. P.1, says eleven-year-old Ellen. Thus the schoolboyish narrator begins her life-story, in the process film an extraordinary self-portrait. Ellen Foster is a powerful story of a young girl growing up in a burdensome world. As one reads this work presented by Kaye Gibbons, a chill runs down their back. Ellen, the primary(prenominal) character is faced with a hard life dealing with unfading losses, with the deaths of both her parents and her grandmother being included. Why would one get a chill you wonder? This individual has thoughts and feelings that many have never experienced and cannot express. Ellen is merely a child no older then the hop on of ten but if not knowing this fact, readers would think she was an aged woman who has lived their life sufficiently. In this book Ellen refers to herself many times as nonagenarian Ellen. I believe that she uses this name because throughout the book Ellen is alw ays pickings care of someone beside herself her colored friend, Starletta, and her dying mother. Ellens parents die, and her grandmother dies, but this isnt really a great loss for Ellen. Her mother was a soft and sick woman whom Ellen was constantly protecting from her drunken father. For a time, Ellens Art teacher, Julia, and her husband move Ellen into their home. She feels, for the first time, that she is apart of a winning family. She describes, in the book, the three of us could pass for a family on the street...