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Ellen, who is a young girl, lived with her sick mother and her alcoholic father. Her father was
very abusive, both mentally, physically and sexually. He was not the father that most read about in
story books. Her mother was sick with heart problems and was not very functional. Ellen was
convinced her dad would kill her and her mother. Ellen's mother took a bunch of pills and Ellen
tried to get her to vomit them up. Her father, who is not concerned at all, tells Ellen to let her be,
she would sleep it off. Ellen wanted to call for help but her father threatens to kill her if she does.
So Ellen sat with her mother until she passed. Ellen dealt with her hardships better than most
young girls. She became a heroine and became great at survival. She overcame great obstacles and
fights, against all odds, her way to happiness. The book is a work of fiction that mirrors Gibbons
own life. The story is narrated by Ellen herself. It is unusual for the subject of a story to also narrate.
Ellen uses different verb tenses, going back and forth from past to present.
Gibbons stressed that Ellen was afraid of her mother dying when Ellen would lie next to her
mom in bed and check to see if she was breathing. This showed that Ellen's fear of losing her
mother was intense. Gibbons repeats Ellen's fears that her dad would kill her several times in the
beginning as if to tell what happened next. This is how Gibbons built the beginning of the story up,
letting the reader know to expect something. In the novel, Ellen's mother was sick with heart
problems. Maybe Ellen's mother wanted to die because her husband's character was so mean.
When Ellen sat with her m...
... middle of paper ...
...girl overcomes them and
directs her life in a place she wants to be. It is a recommended read for any young girl or boy as
well as adults who is facing any type hardship. Ellen's character can be any little girl or boy in any
little town who needs reassuring that life can be what you make it.
Works Cited
Gibbons, Kaye. Ellen Foster. North Carolina, 1987. Print.
Groover, Kristina K. "Re-visioning the Wilderness: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Ellen Foster."
Southern Quarterly 37.3/4 (1999): 187. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 21 Mar. 2011.
Snodgrass, Mary Ellen. Kaye Gibbons: A Literary Companion. North Carolina, 2007. Print
Wood, Ralph C. "Gumption and grace in the novels of Kaye Gibbons. (cover story)." Christian
Century 109.27 (1992): 842. MasterFILE Premier. EBSCO. Web. 21 Mar. 2011.
While she might think that her plans are working, they only lead her down a path of destruction. She lands in a boarding house, when child services find her, she goes to jail, becomes pregnant by a man who she believed was rich. Also she becomes sentenced to 15 years in prison, over a street fight with a former friend she double crossed. In the end, she is still serving time and was freed by the warden to go to her mother’s funeral. To only discover that her two sisters were adopted by the man she once loved, her sister is with the man who impregnated her, and the younger sister has become just like her. She wants to warn her sister, but she realizes if she is just like her there is no use in giving her advice. She just decides that her sister must figure it out by
Sal explains, “When my mother was there, I was like a mirror. If she was happy, I was happy. If she was sad, I was sad. For the first few days after she left, I felt numb, non-feeling. I didn’t know how to feel”(Creech 37).
and biological father was of poor quality. In the book she describes the Negro living quarters on
In the young life of Essie Mae, she had a rough childhood. She went through beatings from her cousin, George Lee, and was blamed for burning down her house. Finally Essie Mae got the nerve to stand up for herself and her baby sister, Adline as her parents were coming in from their work. Her dad put a stop to the mistreatment by having her and her sister watched by their Uncle Ed. One day while Essie Mae's parents were having an argument, she noticed that her mothers belly was getting bigger and bigger and her mom kept crying more and more. Then her mother had a baby, Junior, while the kids were out with their Uncle Ed. Her uncle took her to meet her other two uncles and she was stunned to learn that they were white. She was confused by this but when she asked her mom, Toosweet, about it her mom would not give her an answer one way or the other. Once her mom had the baby, her father started staying out late more often. Toosweet found out that her dad was seeing a woman named Florence. Not long after this, her mother was left to support her and her siblings when her father left. Her mother ended up having to move in with family until she could obtain a better paying job in the city. As her childhood went on she started school and was very good at her studies. When she was in the fourth grade, her mom started seeing a soldier named Raymond. Not too long after this, her mother got pregnant and had James. Her mother and Raymond had a rocky relationship. When James was born, Raymond's mother came and took the baby to raise because she said that raising four children was too much of a burden for a single parent to handle. Raymond went back to the service for a while but then when he came back he and Toosweet had another baby. Raymond's brothers helped him build a new house for them to live in and they brought James back to live with them. During this time Essie Mae was working for the Claiborne family and she was starting to see a different point of view on a lot of things in life. The Claiborne's treated her almost as an equal and encouraged her to better herself.
She was seduced at an early age and then fell in love with a preacher, but was overcome by an exciting younger man. She experienced every form of lust and desire as well as loss. Somehow though all the hardship she was able to come out on the other side a more complete woman and ironically did so without any of these
At the end she risks her life and becomes a pretty to become and experiment to David’s moms to test a cure to the brain lesions created when they go ... ... middle of paper ... ... o save them from going through a transformation that will change them forever. The moral of the book is you don’t have to get surgery to look a certain way.
Although her father got her interested in storytelling it was Goodwin’s mother that got her interested in books. She goes on to tell that if her mother was not doing anything else she would always be reading no matter what time it was. Goodwin writes that every night before bedtime her mother would come and read to her. Goodwin’s favorite times with her mother though were when her mother would tell her real life stories about when she was younger. During this time Goodwin liked to believe that her mother forgot about the pain that she went through constantly due to her bad health.
Elizabeth Ann Pederson was born on July 18, 1951, in the Hibbing General Hospital. She weighed 6 pounds 14 ounces. She was welcomed into the family by her father and mother, Peter and Lydia, and her older brother Kenny. Ann had one extra finger that was removed shortly after she was born. She also had a birthmark on her heel. After I saw the birthmark, I wondered if there was something wrong with her, said Lydia. After five days in the hospital she went home. Ann’s home was in Buhl, Minnesota, where Ann lived all her 40 years and 10 months of her life. Soon the Pederson family found out that Ann was mentally disabled. They then had to fight society from that moment forward.
Her parents meet at a social gathering in town and where married shortly thereafter. Marie’s name was chosen by her grandmother and mother, “because they loved to read the list was quite long with much debate over each name.” If she was a boy her name would have been Francis, so she is very happy to have born a girl. Marie’s great uncle was a physician and delivered her in the local hospital. Her mother, was a housewife, as was the norm in those days and her father ran his own business. Her mother was very close with her parents, two brothers, and two sisters. When her grandmother was diagnosed with asthma the family had to move. In those days a warm and dry climate was recommended, Arizona was the chosen state. Because her grandma could never quite leave home, KY, the family made many trips between the states. These trips back and forth dominated Marie’s childhood with her uncles and aunts being her childhood playmates.
aside when she was born and he probably had been emotionally damaged ever since then.
Ellen also grew up, in the book. In the begining of the story Ellen she was shy
influence all her life and struggles to accept her true identity. Through the story you can
An example is her torture during the majority of the book. In 6th grade she went to her friends party, and to her astonishment, a couple began making out in the closet. She called her mom to tell her what was going on and her mom told the mother ...
Her family life is depicted with contradictions of order and chaos, love and animosity, conventionality and avant-garde. Although the underlying story of her father’s dark secret was troubling, it lends itself to a better understanding of the family dynamics and what was normal for her family. The author doesn’t seem to suggest that her father’s behavior was acceptable or even tolerable. However, the ending of this excerpt leaves the reader with an undeniable sense that the author felt a connection to her father even if it wasn’t one that was desirable. This is best understood with her reaction to his suicide when she states, “But his absence resonated retroactively, echoing back through all the time I knew him. Maybe it was the converse of the way amputees feel pain in a missing limb.” (pg. 399)
...ed from the fever, had slowly faded away, no longer to sit contentedly by the fire knitting and smiling. Jo unearthed a great emptiness in her heart and life after her sister's death. Meg and John, and Amy and Laurie were happily married. Though Jo had resolved never to marry, still she felt an awful loneliness as she wondered what direction her life should take. While struggling with these feelings, a tutor entered her life, Professor Bhaer. He was an older, German gentleman, filled with a gentle love. People turned to him because of the compassion he so freely gave, akin to Beth's spirit. This love healed Jo. They married and opened a "school for lads, a good, happy homelike school." Jo looked after the boys while the professor taught them in the large, Plumfield home, willed to Jo by her aunt.