♪Whimsicle bitch♪

February 11th, 2005
Ellen Foster Essay
Prompt #1

In the book Ellen Foster by Kaye Gibbons, we learn the heartbreaking story of a little girl who has identity problems with herself and who she is, that may have been brought on by other people’s words and actions that have deeply affected her sense of self. We shall discuss these reasons and their causes and symptoms; and how they affect Ellen. Also, we shall discuss how these affect Ellen, not just that they affect her and her sense of self. We shall discuss the people who brought this on and their harsh words and actions, and ultimately, how Ellen overcomes this and realizes that she does know who she is and that she is a good person who deserves love.

Ellen Foster has an identity problem, and the nature of it is that she does not recognize herself. After she has a bath at her new mama’s house she looks in the mirror and she says that “No matter how I turn my head when I look I still seem like a stranger in my own self.” This means Ellen think sit is very odd to have people love her and she doesn’t recognize the girl in the mirror who is loved. Ellen thinks she is undeserving of love because of things that supposedly important people have told her, like her father telling her she killed her mother, her mama’s mama telling her that “All I know is when I look in your face I see that bastard and everything he did to my girl,” and Nadine telling Ellen that “[Ellen] was an ungrateful little bitch and [she] needed to have the hell beat out of [her.]”

All of these things have led Ellen to believe that she is a bad person who can not be loved. However, the reader knows that Ellen only thinks this because of things that have been told to her. We as the reader know that Ellen didn’t really kill her mother; she tried to stop her but her daddy had the weapon and prevented Ellen from helping her not die. We also know that Ellen is a much better person than her daddy, and it is not her fault that she resembles him in appearance. Nadine and Dora got what they deserved, being mean to Ellen like that, so they got what they deserved when Ellen was mean to them, and did not deserve to be cussed out because she was only telling them the truth, and sometimes the truth is not always nice to hear. Even though Ellen hears these things, they are not true; just because a person of “authority” tells Ellen something, it doesn’t mean it is true, especially if it is about her, and she knows it is not so.

Ellen’s identity problem is that she does not know who she is because she is constantly moving and doesn’t have good roots in which to know her family or herself. Ellen doesn’t know what a good person she actually is because her whole life people have mistreated her and been generally pretty horrible to her. This would lead to some identity problems with oneself if one goes their whole life thinking they are a terrible person that does awful things to people, and then to have a new mama who tells them how wonderful they are; it would be very confusing and mixed up in the head to have all these different people that one is. An example is that when Ellen over waters the terrarium and she thinks that her new mama will abuse her for doing so, but all she says to Ellen is to put another fern in the terrarium and everything would be okay. This amazes Ellen because she probably expected she would be beaten or humiliated for ruining the terrarium; or at least that is what would have happened at her old house, if she ruined something as small and silly as a terrarium. Ellen is amazed that her new mama loves her and won’t beat her over that, and this makes her scared to know she can be loved.

Ellen handles her identity problem by pretending that she does not have one, that she is all fine inside and that “you let the motion in your head wear you out. Never think about it. You just make a bigger mess that way.” Because if she thinks about the things that bother her, Ellen’s head will get too full and confused of scary old memories that she doesn’t need to remember or have in her thoughts, but if she just lets them swirl around, eventually they won’t be there anymore for a while; and then Ellen won’t think about these things until they come back to her and she just will have to wait it out again. Also, if Ellen talks about the things in her head, she will have to tell them to the psychologist, and he will have to interpret them and make them make sense, rather how everyone in class feels that we need to do to this book. Ellen doesn’t think that she has a problem and never wants to tell “the man who talks to her” what she is thinking, because he will have to decipher it and tell Ellen why she has this identity problem. Just like everyone in class feels the need to find symbols in this book and make them make sense to them; Ellen doesn’t believe she has an identity problem just like [redacted] doesn’t believe that this book has symbols to be found and interpreted.

In the end of the book, Ellen still has her identity problem, even though she has learned how to deal with it better. The way that Ellen has learned to deal with her problem is that she tells herself that Starletta has it harder than she does, because it is the only way she can survive. If Ellen believed that she had “the hardest row to hoe,” she would never be able to live. People need to know that someone has it worse than them, or they will become completely depressed and self-absorbed in their sorrow; and they wouldn’t be able to live a semi-normal life. Ellen then tells herself these things so that she can deal with her identity problems, otherwise they would just eat her up and she would slowly die.

So, Ellen has learned how to deal with her identity problem, but she hasn’t actually resolved it completely. Ellen has learned that if she thinks someone else has it harder than she does, it will make it easier for her to deal with her problem. Also, it doesn’t really matter if Ellen doesn’t resolve her identity problem, because she is still a good person with a loving family, and by the end of the story she has realized this is true, and that people love her. So, even if Ellen still has an identity problem, she has learned how to deal with it, which is all that matters.

(note:2026-slightly edited for formatting)

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