Ellen Foster

Analyze the dual narrative strands and discuss how they work together to build the story. What does it add knowing right away that the Ellen speaking to the reader is doing so from a place of security? Discuss why you think Gibbons might have made that choice.

Discuss the friendship between Ellen and Starletta. What does Starletta teach Ellen over the course of the novel? How does Starletta help Ellen mature?

Analyze the novel as a coming-of-age novel. What lessons do you see Ellen learning, if anything? How has she evolved?

Compare Ellen Foster to another work about a young child who escapes an abusive or unpleasant situation, or finds themselves an outcast in their society, and compare that character’s quest to Ellen’s. Suggestions include The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle, To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, etc.

Discuss how Ellen Foster uses its setting in the American South to shape the characters’ perspectives and lives. Consider the book in terms of the genre of Southern literature (or specifically Southern Gothic) and discuss how characteristic elements of that genre appear in the novel, and to what purpose.

Analyze the theme of Motherhood and Nurturing in the novel. What qualities are modeled by characters like Julia, Roy, new mama, and Mavis? Discuss Aunt Nadine’s mothering of Dora and contrast that with mama’s mama’s mothering of her daughters to discuss the novel’s perspective on this theme.

Discuss the novel’s treatment of the subject of family. Contrast the judge’s model of family as blood relationships to Ellen’s experiences. What qualities does the novel ultimately argue constitute “family”?

Analyze the attitudes toward race and the racism that surfaces in the novel, with attention to how prejudice shapes Ellen’s assumptions. Describe the evolution in Ellen’s attitudes and the conclusions the novel draws about how biases and discrimination should be addressed.