About
the Author-Kaye Gibbons
The
story of Ellen Foster is semiautobiographical story
about Kaye Gibbons.
Similarities
between the author Kaye Gibbons and the character of Ellen
Foster
Grew
up in the Southern United States
Experienced
Discrimination and Prejudice
Orphans
Mothers
committed suicide
Alcoholic
Abusive Fathers
Passed
around to relatives
Foster
care system
Some Interesting
Facts about Kaye Gibbons
Kaye
Gibbons has been diagnosed with a mential illness, bi-polar
disorder.
Kaye
Gibbons has been married and divorced two times.
She
has 3 adult children
She has been
arrested for abusing prescription drugs and stealing prescription
drug order forms to obtain pain
killers.
Ellen
Foster A Modern Day Cinderella
Story
Cinderella-young
orphan girl who must take care of herself
Ellen-also a young
orphan girl who must take car of herself
Cinderella-Must
depend on mean, bitter relatives who resent her (stepmother
and step-sisters)
Ellen-Must depend on
mean, bitter relatives who resent her (mama's mama and her
aunts)
Cinderella-has a
Wicked Step-mother
Ellen-has Wicked
Grandmother
Cinderella-is a
servant in her own house
Ellen-a slave worker
in the fields of her grandmother's farm
Cinderella-step-sisters
constantly fight
Ellen-aunts are
constantly fighting
Cinderella-Stepsisters
mock and destroy her ballgown
Ellen-Aunt and cousin
Dora mock Ellen's handmade Christmas gift (painting of cats)
Cinderella-a
beautiful ballgown transforms Cinderella and she meets her prince
who saves her and she lives "happily ever after"
Ellen-a
beautiful blue dress with a lace collar transforms Ellen and she
meets her foster mother who saves Ellen and she "lives happily ever
after
Comparing To Kill a Mockingbird to Ellen Foster
Major Difference in the Stories
- Scout Finch, the narrator of To Kill a Mockingbird, comes from a loving home. Her father, Atticus Finch, is one of the most beloved and respected characters in literature.
- Scout does not experience any type of abuse in To Kill a Mockingbird
- Scout has a loving and supportive relationship with a sibling, her brother, Jem.
Similarities
- Both books are semi-autobiographical
- Both stories are set in the South
- Both stories deal with discrimination
- Narrators, Ellen and Scout, are young girls
- Narrators are precocious-wise beyond their years
- Narrators are intelligent love to read and write
- Narrators experience the death of their mothers
- Both stories have a mean, cruel, hateful older woman
Mama’s mama in Ellen Foster
Mrs. DuBoise in To Kill a Mockingbird
- Both stories have a kind mother figure
New Mama and Julia, the art teacher in Ellen Foster
Calpurnia and Miss Maudie Atkinson in To Kill a Mockingbird
- Both stories have a mean Aunt
Aunt Betsey and Aunt Nadine in Ellen Foster
Aunt Alexandra in To Kill a Mockingbird
- Both stories have a child character that experiences extreme poverty and prejudice
Starletta in Ellen Foster
Walter Cunningham in To Kill a Mockingbird
Kaye Gibbons and Harper Lee
- both grew up in the Southern United States
- both experienced prejudice, discrimination against Black Americans
- both authors grew up without a mother
Prologue-an introduction to a play or
story, often the prologue will tell the reader the end of the
story. We read the play or story to understand the ending.
In the prologue
to Ellen Foster the readers learn
that:
Ellen wanted to kill her
father
Her parents are both
dead
Ellen lives in a foster
home
We read the book to
find out
why Ellen
wanted to kill her father
How her
parents died
Why she is happy to be living
in a foster home
Notes
Dedication-The book
is dedicated to Kaye Gibbons' family
Theme-Self-Reliance,
Even as a young girl Ellen can depend on only herself for food,
shelter and love.
Chapter 1
inner
dialogue, the story shifts back and forth from the present to
the past
Ellen's
homelife
abusive,
alcoholic, lying father
mother
ill and home from the hospital
Ellen
living in a foster home that is neat, clean, she gets fed and is
proud to go to school
Chapter 2
Ellen's
mother has overdosed on heart meds
Ellen
lays down with her mother in bed until she stops
breathing
Murdered?
Suicide?
Whose
fault is it that mother is dead?
Ellen
loves to read classic books
Ellen is
getting ready for her mother's funeral
Ellen
despises her father, she thinks he is a phony
Chapter
3
Present Day-Ellen gets up early to be the first one to
ride the pony
Flashback to Funeral
Day
Ellen
wears hand-me-down clothes
Ellen's
father worries that she will tell somone how the mother
died
A
funeral director is paid to care
Aunt
Nadine-Ellen hates her, a phony, sells food slicers from
home
Cousin
Dora-same age as Ellen/wets her pants 2x a day, spoiled
Chapter
4
Flashback
Funeral-Ellen doesn't look or watch her mom in the
coffin
Ellen's
grandmother (Mama's mama) hates the father, calls him "trash"
and "nigger"
Grandmother is not
kind, slightly crazy and violent
Chapter 5
Flashback-After the
funeral
Ellen's
father disappears for 2 days , drinking
Ellen is
home alone, eats food from the funeralm wears her mother's clotes
under her own
Back to
School
Teacher
(another phony) wants to know how her mother died because she is
nosey. Ellen refuses to talk. Teacher was kind in the
past.
Father
is
negligent, doesn't pay the bills or feed Ellen
his
brothers get the father to sign over the farm to them
leave
$ in the mailbox
Ellen-self
reliant
uses
the $ to pay the bills
lives
off of frozen TV dinners
buys
fish and cooks for herself
plays make believe
with a family she has cut-out from a catalogl
Chapter 6
Flashback-Christmas
Day
Ellen visits Starletta's
family, very kind and generous people
Dirt
Poor-1 room house, filthy and smelly
Parents
are pickers/illiterate but live their daughter
Ellen shows
discrimination/prejudice
won't
eat "colored food" and is worried about "colored germs"
Father is gone on
Christmas Day
Ellen
home alone watching TV
Mama's
mama removes all of her mother's c lothes--donates them to "real
niggers"
Ellen very
intelligent--advanced for her age
loves to
read
bookmobile
even
reads the encyclopedia
Present Day-Foster
Home
5 foster children live
there
Evidence foster mom is
good
projects
terrarium
aquarium
washes
Ellen's hair
Flashback-New Years's
Eve
Father comes home with a
group of black men
eat all
of Ellen's food
get
drunk
pass
out
Ellen
assaulted by her father, sexual, calls Ellen by her mother's
name
Runs
away to Starletta's
Chapter 7
Flashback
Spends
New Year's Eve at Starletta's house, offers to pay them
$
Ellen
goes home, packs possessions and calls her Aunt Betsey "Can I stay
with you?"
aunt
has no children/no husband (selfish)
Ellen
gets to stay 1 weekend and then sent back home
Ellen survives the
summer
Father continues to abuse
Ellen
School starts--Teachers
notice bruises
Ellen
will be taken from her home
No
family to go to
Only
friends are Starletta's family (colored family) not acceptable in
the South
Present Day-Foster
Home
Ellen talks about grocery
shopping (a necessity)
sounds
GLAMOROUS
Foster
mom never has to put food back
always
has money
Chapter 8
Flashback
Ellen lives the art
teacher and her husband
kooky/artsy Hippies
who want to save the World from people like Ellen's
father
MEMORY of mama
Ellen
remembers a day picking beans with her mother
Realizes
she had "only one good season" with her mother
Ellen's
Birthday
Party-one
guest-Starletta
have
cake, go to the movies, present-art supplies
Starletta-very slow?
dumb? possibly handicapped?
Chapter 9
Flashback
Ellen's father comes to
the school
makes a
scene and brings $
Family Court
Judge
gives Ellen back to "her family"
"What do
you do when the judge talks about the family society's cornerstone
but you know yours was never a Roman pillar but is and always has
been a crumbly old brick?" (Page 56)
Present Day-Foster Home-On
Sundays
family
goes to Church
Eat a
big meal together
Prepare
meals for the whole week
Foster
kids must be good in church--get donations/$ from the
church
Chapter 10
Flashback-Summer spent at
Grandmother's house
Grandmother is WEALTHY,
large house with servants
Ellen sleeps in her
mother's old room
canopy
bed and a firplace
Ellen
has nightmares
Grandmother-Mama's
mama
mean,
crazy angry--all 3
verbally
abusive
Ellen's father
dies
She does
not attend funeral
Uncle
come to Grandmother's house to give her flag (Ellen's
father served his country in the military)
Fight
with grandmother
Grandmother holds
the deeds to everyone's farms (control)
Burns
the funeral flag
Grandmother fires all the
servants
gets
sick and is bedridden
Ellen
(age 11) takes care of sick grandmother
Chapter
11
Ellen tries to figure out why her
grandmother is
so mean
Revenge against her father for marrying the
mother
Grandmother pays Ellen's uncle Rudolph to spy on
Ellen's father
he leaves money from the grandmother in the
mailbox
when Ellen runs away, Grandmothe sends
less
trying to starve Ellen's father to
death?
Father dies of a brain anuerysm
Grandmother now blames Ellen for her mother's death (age
10)
plans to make father and Ellen pay for it
Grandmother dies from the flu
Chapter
12
Present Day-Foster Home
Ellen is happy/grateful
Life is perfect, like the pictures
on a cereal box
Baby Roger--biological mother is Stella, foster sister, only a 7th
grader
Stella dyes her hair and flirts with boys on the
bus
Starletta
Ellen
sees her at school
Misses
her only "friend"
regrets
feeling superior to Starletta because she is white
Ellen's perspective on
Blacks is changing
used to
be afraid that "Blacks" could kill her
realizes
it was actually her own white family that was lethal
Tuesdays meets with social
worker/psychologist
Ellen
hates it
gets a
"good hug" from her new mom on Tuesdays
Foster-Last name
comes from living with her "FOSTER FAMILY"
new identity
starting a new life
Ellen wants a new name, her old name is "worn
out"
Chapter
13
Flashback
Grandmother dies
Ellen calls funeral home and her aunts who
fight
Ellen's project-decorate mama's mama body
with flowers
Ellen bargains with God--she did right by
the grandmother, please let her mother into Heaven
Refuses to go to the funeral
Ellen goes to live with Aunt Nadine and Dora
She does not paln to stay
Wants to live with the nice lady from church
called "The Foster Family"
Ellen keeps to herself, stays in her room, only
eats meals with the family
Uncle is dead from a stroke
Ellen gets to go shopping
buys clothes that are a size larger, so they will
last
all the clothes match
Ellen buys a special dress for church to get
noticed by "Mrs. Foster"
Present Day
Ellen plans a sleep-over for Starletta at the foster home
of course foster mom says yes and makes it
special
Chapter
14