In the realistic fiction novel Ellen Foster, written by Kaye Gibbons, a young girl named Ellen Foster yearns for a loving family and a better life after enduring a tremendous amount of abuse and loss. Throughout the novel, Ellen exemplifies resilience by making the most of difficult circumstances and finding ways to rise above hardships. Of all of the qualities that Ellen demonstrated during the hardships she faced, resilience was the most valuable to her future success, because it enabled her to develop a strong sense of identity and bounce back from adversity. Ellen developed a strong sense of identity when tending to her dying grandmother. Although her grandmother deprived her of love and respect, she vowed to take good care of her saying, “I will look after this one good and I will not let a soul push me around this time (Gibbons 77).” With this statement, …show more content…
After her grandmother passed away, her aunt Nadine and cousin Dora took her into their home. Ellen hated living with them, for she knew in her heart that they didn’t truly care about her. Despite being passed from one residence to another and having no place to truly call home, she held onto the belief that she could do something to escape her present circumstances and bring about positive change: “I decided that if I quit wasting time I could be happy as anybody else in the future and right now with one year ending and a new one starting up I thought now was the time to get old Ellen squared away for a fresh start (Gibbons 95).” Instead of giving up and settling for a miserable life with her relatives (or ending up on the street), Ellen took matters into her own hands. She searched for a “new mama” to live with - someone that would keep her, take good care of her, and be the parent that she never had. Rather than succumbing to a defeatist mentality or waiting around for her circumstances to change, Ellen took control of her
Cara Sierra Skyes has a hard role in Perfect by Ellen Hopkins. Cara is in love with her boyfriend Sean, she describes him as fun, good-looking, adventurous, and a jock. Everyone expects the perfect girl to go out with the perfect guy. Caras mom has always taught her, appearances are everything. So, Cara held onto that. She is a pretty and popular cheerleader. Cara holds a special trait, she is actually really smart and has a scholarship lined up at Stanford. Problem is, Cara has a twin brother, Connor. Connor is super suicidal and has tried many times to kill himself, sadly one day he succeeds and leaves a girlfriend and his family behind in his high school years. So everything is definitely not the idea her parents have of “perfect”. At Least she tries. Cara is in love with her boyfriend Sean but she starts to spark an interest for a girl at the ski slopes one day and she becomes very confused. Between dealing with all her school activities, her grades, and her brother that she worries about all the time, Cara is struggling to keep her life together and be
When faced with a traumatic experience, one’s true nature reveals itself. The trauma forces those suffering from it to cope. How one copes is directly linked to their personality. Some will push everything away, while others will hold whatever they can close. Both of these coping mechanisms can be observed in the two short stories “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” by Katherine Anne Porter and “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner. In “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” and “A Rose for Emily,” the two protagonists prominent characteristics distinctly affect the way the protagonists copes when faced with trauma and the outcome of the short stories endings. To begin, Granny Weatherall is a prideful control freak. While, in contrast, Miss Emily is delusional and stubborn.
Anne Frank: The Biography, by Melissa Muller, proves that Goodrich and Hackett are not justified in using dramatic license in The Diary of Anne Frank because they changed the character roles, removed the emotions of the SS officer, and removed the characters from the play from real life.
This book is about a girl name Ellen Foster who is ten years old. Her mother committed suicide by over dosing on her medication. When Ellen tried to go look for help for her mother her father stopped her. He told them that if she looked for helped he would kill them both. After her mother died she was left under her fathers custody. Her father was a drunk. He would physically and mentally abuse her. Ellen was forced to pay bills, go grocery shopping, cook for herself, and do everything else for herself. Ellen couldn't take it any more so she ran away her friends house. Starletta and her parents lived in a small cabin with one small bathroom. One day at school a teacher found a bruise on Ellen's arm. She sends Ellen to live with Julia the school's art teacher. Julia had a husband named Roy. They were both hippies. Julia and Roy cared a lot about Ellen. After Ellen turned 11 years old she was forced to go live with her grandmother. Ellen didn't want to leave Julia and Roy but her grandmother had won custody. Her grandmother was a cruel old lady. Ellen spends the summer with her grandmother. Living with her makes her very unhappy. Since her grandmother owns farmland she forces Ellen to work on the field with her black servants. Ellen meets a black woman named Mavis. Mavis and her become good friends. Mavis would talk about how she knew Ellen's mother and how much Ellen resembled her mother. Her grandmother didn't think the same. She thought that Ellen resembled her father. She also hated that man. Her grandmother would often compare her with her father. Her grandmother would torture her because she wanted revenge from her father. Her grandmother also blames her for the death of her mother. While Ellen was staying with her grandmother her father died. When her father died she didn't feel sad because she had always fantasized about killing her father. Ellen just felt a distant sadness. Ellen cried just a little bit. Her grandmother was furious because Ellen showed some emotions. She told her to never cry again. After that Ellen becomes scarred for a long time. One day her uncle Rudolph bought the flag that had been on Ellen's father's casket. Her grandmother turns him away. Later that day she burned the flag.
Ellen Foster lived through a disturbed childhood. Within that unique childhood, there is a few things I can relate to like the resembles of Ellen to her parents, the lack of love and affection from her parents, and a fragile and feeble mother.
At the age of ten, most children are dependent on their parents for everything in their lives, needing a great deal of attention and care. However, Ellen, the main character and protagonist of the novel Ellen Foster, exemplifies a substantial amount of independence and mature, rational thought as a ten-year-old girl. The recent death of her mother sends her on a quest for the ideal family, or anywhere her father, who had shown apathy to both she and her fragile mother, was not. Kaye Gibbons’ use of simple diction, unmarked dialogue, and a unique story structure in her first novel, Ellen Foster, allows the reader to explore the emotions and thoughts of this heroic, ten-year-old girl modeled after Gibbons’ own experiences as a young girl. Kaye Gibbons’ experiences as a child are the foundations for this.
...family that she grew up in was such a negative environment. It is very possible that she will grow up to be an art teacher. One might think this because she looked up to her art teacher so much and admired her; Ellen’s mind is full of creativity and ideas. When Ellen’s school found out that her dad was abusive to her they put her up at her art teacher’s house. Ellen says “I came a long way to get here but when you think about it really hard you will see that old Starletta came even farther… And all this time I thought I had the hardest row to hoe” Like Ellen did, it is important for everyone to look back into their life and see what they have learned. Doing so cannot change ones past but only add to their future. Ellen will always carry the horrors of her childhood with her but by using all of her assets that she gained throughout the book her future can be enriched.
In the story Ellen Foster, Ellen was a great example of a dynamic character. Ellen had a very tough life. Ellen’s life was like a rollercoaster going up and down dramatically not knowing what was going to happen next. Ellen was a racist child at the beginning but changes her opinion after going through many challenges throughout the story.
Adversity affects the lives of many individuals. Through facing adversity people tend to show their true selves. In the novel “Speak” by Laurie Halse-Anderson, the main character Melinda, faces a few different types of adversity. One form of adversity that she faces is that she was sexually assaulted. Another type of adversity that Melinda goes through in this novel is that she loses all her friends and starts to lose her family as well. Throughout my life, I have faced many different types of adversity, one major thing that I have dealt with in my life is depression. Those who face adversity in their life can choose if they want to face it or to ignore it, and the outcome will prove what they chose to do.
Jane Erye’s childhood is not what one would think of as a normal childhood in the worst of ways. Jane was an orphan, which is hard enough as is. The severe treatment by her cousins really sets it over the top. While she had a few good moments in her childhood, hers could not be called a very joyful or very normal childhood. Through no doing of her own and through conditions beyond her power, she lived a quite challenging life. Jane would probably look back at these hardships and think that they shaped her into the woman she became and she is thankful for them, however that doesn't justify them.
Everyone seeks the comfort of the stability in their own home. Ellen Foster knows her home is rather abnormal. Enduring physical, mental, and sexual abuse from her family, Ellen learns early on that what she wants is what she cannot seem to find: a loving home. Through challenging adversities in the novel, Ellen finally found a family that suited her needs, in a foster home. Once she had at last found her place that she felt fit, her first thought was to invite her best friend, Starletta, to present her pride of her new, blissful, life. This passage, references to history, repayment, and equality serve to emphasize Ellen’s desire to atone for thinking she was better than Starletta in the past. Ellen’s journey of finding a stable home life leads to her discovery of the love of her true friend.
My grandmother has a certain look in her eyes when something is troubling her: she stares off in a random direction with a wistful, slightly bemused expression on her face, as if she sees something the rest of us can’t see, knows something that we don’t know. It is in these moments, and these moments alone, that she seems distant from us, like a quiet observer watching from afar, her body present but her mind and heart in a place only she can visit. She never says it, but I know, and deep inside, I think they do as well. She wants to be a part of our world. She wants us to be a part of hers. But we don’t belong. Not anymore. Not my brothers—I don’t think they ever did. Maybe I did—once, a long time ago, but I can’t remember anymore. I love my grandmother. She knows that. I know she does, even if I’m never able to convey it adequately to her in words.
...). When working in the fields, Ellen mentally recites poetry while imagining herself speaking in front of others, strongly (Rambo 670). This daydream keeps Ellen from breaking down while working in her grandmother’s cotton fields (Rambo 668). When her Mama’s Mama gets sick, Ellen is forced to care for her. When her Mama’s Mama falls asleep, Ellen fantasizes being at an ocean, far away (Gibbons 79). These and many more daydreams Ellen experiences throughout Ellen Foster ring true to Ellen’s desire to break away from her harsh life.
Ellen is successful and is encouraging to the students, so that they can become the same or greater. She repeats this a few times throughout this speech. The speech is about being the person you want to be, no matter what hardships that you may face in life. The speech is mainly directed towards her emotional reality.
Helen’s early life was very much shaped by her loss and abandonment. The greatest loss Helen experienced was the death of her parents. As she was orphaned by the age of six, it left her with great grief, darkened childhood memories and bewilderment of where she truly belonged. She eventually found her position as a labourer in her uncle’s house. After working on her uncle’s farm for two years and being denied an opportunity for education, she faced the most significant abandonment in her life: being turned