Ellen Foster

Despite her grandmother’s lack of care, Ellen shows she feels an obligation to her biological family in the way she cares for the grandmother through her illness. Ellen’s refusal to rely on adults, however, means she is left alone to nurse the older woman. Ellen’s aunts offer no support during their mother’s illness and Ellen’s perception that her aunts are largely inconvenienced by the timing of their mother’s death speaks to the theme that family does not mean close relationships come naturally. For example, Nadine is motivated by a sense of obligation, not compassion, when she offers Ellen a home.

Ellen shows her resilience not only in caring for an ill adult, but in refusing to see herself as her grandmother sees her, as a shadow or replica of her father. Instead, Ellen clings to how Mavis saw her mother in her; her mother holds good associations, and her father evil ones. At the same time, Ellen engages in magical thinking where she believes she was in fact responsible for her mother’s death. Through this line of thought, Ellen believes she can bargain with God about souls, reflecting her understanding that relationships are transactional at best. At the same time, as she prepares to move to yet another loveless living situation with Nadine, Ellen’s prayer betrays her deeper feelings. She believes if she is “pure,” then she might be properly loved and cared for, highlighting The Effects of Abuse and Trauma. This transactional notion of care to which Ellen continues to adhere demonstrates the lack of affection she has felt from most adults in her life. Ellen prides herself that it was her own efforts, her plotting and list-making, that secured her a new mama. She bought a fancy dress to catch her new mama’s eye, gambling on the importance of appearances rather than her own intrinsic worth.

Ellen is hurt when the counselor laughs at her reasoning for renaming herself Ellen Foster. For Ellen, this move toward self-identification shows independence and resilience; as with her earlier assertion that she would not let her grandmother tell her who she is, Ellen is carving out a hard-won place for herself. She suspects that the counselor is trying to see her as traumatized to suit his own purposes, and once again, Ellen insists on framing her own identity.

As is natural at this point in her development, especially as she finds herself in a new family situation, Ellen looks back at Starletta and attempts to understand her maturing self in relationship to Starletta, the one relationship from her earlier life that Ellen cherishes and wants to keep. Ellen, in her concern that she and Starletta might grow apart, focuses on how Starletta is maturing. Starletta no longer wears her hair in braids and Ellen’s wish to keep Starletta from growing up and away from her indicates her unacknowledged wish to retain her own innocence. Starletta represents Ellen’s childhood, but she is also Ellen’s closest friend, as demonstrated by the way they confide in one another.

Mavis’s kindness initiates an evolution in Ellen’s understanding of Racial Prejudice and Discrimination. Ellen’s thought that she could pass for a Black girl shows her grappling with the first step toward the realization that Black skin—while she continues to see difference—does not imply inferiority of intellect or character. With her own white family unable to offer her affection, contrasted with her observations of the strong familial bonds between Mavis and the other workers’ families, Ellen begins to understand kindness and compassion are not a function of skin color. Further, shared skin color does not compel loyalty or protection; as Ellen puts it, someone from the “same batch” can still harm you, as she has learned. These gradual steps lead Ellen to reject, finally, the bias she was born into and absorbed without examination. Ellen wishes to apologize to Starletta in part because of her transactional notion of relationships—she thinks she owes Starletta something for the way Starletta’s family embraced Ellen—but also because she wants to retain the relationship.

Ellen’s affection for Starletta, as well as her ability to give and receive embraces from her new mama, shows that Ellen’s capacity and hunger for affection is alive and well. Her appetite for new mama’s food reflects how Ellen has been hungry for the nourishment of a safe, supporting family environment. Her ability to cooperate with the others and do her part to take care of baby Roger when he wanders into her room show that Ellen retains her nurturing capacity, but is now expected to only take charge of others in age-appropriate ways.