Ellen Foster :: Free Essays

Kaye Gibbons, the author of the novel Ellen Foster, believes that a quote from the Emersons Self Reliance is connected with Ellens struggle to survive and find her way in the world. The first line of this quote says, Cast the bantling on the rocks is related to Ellen herself. A bantling is an abandoned child. Ellen is a bantling even though she was not abandoned, she was deprived of a design childhood. Her life as a child was extremely hard, physically and emotionally. She never had a mother or father take care of her through her inviolate youth. You could say that her childhood was cast on the rocks. The last line reads, Power and speed be hands and feet. This reminds me of how Ellen ran from her problems at home and stayed away from her house as much as possible. The line also represents strength and Ellen was a strong person. She dealt with losing a mother, father and grandmother within one year. She never even had a good relationship with her father or grandmother. The short in scription to Self Reliance is almost a short summary of Ellens character. In it, a child without parents is raised by someone that is a lot different than she is. After Ellens mother died, she is unwillingly left with her alcoholic father who mistreats her. Ellen spent a lot of time at her friend, Starlettas house and at the house of her grandmother. Life with her grandmother was no better than life with her father. She did not fatality to be in either situation. After living with her grandmother, Ellens struggle to find a suitable, comforting home comes to an end. For the second time in her life, a family member has died right next to her, basically in her arms. Ellen is able to overcome this, even as a