Obc 19971027 Kaye Gibbons
Obc 19971027 Kaye Gibbons
by Kaye Gibbons
Announced on October 27, 1997
Discussion Questions
1. Ellen is searching for a home. How does she define home at the beginning of the novel, and how does she refine her
definition during the course of the narrative? What examples of family life and of parenthood has she had to guide her?
How do the various parents she observes measure up? What message does Ellen receive during the course of the book
about parents and parenthood? Is Gibbon's point that, in the end, family members are unreliable? That one can rely on no
one but oneself?
2. Ellen is a person who is inclined to make lists; she is very concerned with order. What attempts does she make to
introduce order into her own life? What is the source of this need for order and what light does it shed on Ellen's instinct
for survival? How does the theme of control and personal responsibility come up in relation to the novel's other
characters? How does it relate to the deaths of Ellen's mother and grandmother?
3. Why have none of the concerned adults in Ellen's life—her teachers, Starletta's parents, Julia and Roy, Mavis—been able
to rescue her from the dreadful and dangerous life she leads within her own family? How does this failure reflect upon the
nature of Ellen's society? What is it about the life even of a small and inter-connected community that keeps people from
being able to help a desperate child? Is the legal system at fault? The social one?
4. "People say they do not try to be white" (p.29), Ellen says about Starletta's parents. What does this tell us about the
society they live in? What does Ellen's initial description of Starletta's home reveal about Ellen herself? What details in her
narrative expose her assumptions about black people? By extension, what do they show about her own vision of herself
and her family? How do these assumptions change, and what causes then to do so? How does Ellen's observation of
Mavis and her family contribute to her changing attitudes? Ellen's grandmother said she would learn something from
picking cotton. What, in fact, does she learn?
5. "Nobody but a handful of folks I know pays attention to rules about how to treat somebody anyway," Ellen reflects. "But
as I lay in that bed and watch my Starletta fall asleep I figure that if they could fight a war over how I'm supposed to think
about her then I'm obligated to do it" (p.126). What discovery has Ellen made here? Why is Starletta's weekend visit to
significant to Ellen? Do you think the author is saying that Ellen is now a person without prejudice?
6. The South's violent history of slavery, war and racial hatred is the unstated background for this story. How does Gibbons
make us aware of its silent presence? To what degree is Ellen herself aware of it? Is the contemporary black experience as
she observes it still based upon the fact of slavery, paid or unpaid? What is Ellen's way of personally coping with this tragic
history?
7. The judge who awarded Ellen's custody to her grandmother expresses the common idea that a child should be with her
own family, but Ellen rejects. She asks herself, "What do you do when the judge talks about he family society's cornerstone
but you know yours was never a Roman pillar but is and always has been a crumbly old brick [p. 56]?" Does Gibbons imply
that a child's being with its biological family is not, after all, that important? Which is more important, the family you
choose or the family you are born into?
8. Ellen does not believe in the church's version of God. She rejects Nadine's version of Heaven. But she does have her
own version of God, and speaks to him on occasion. What sort of relationship does she have with the deity? What kind of
deity is he—fair or strict? Accessible or inaccessible? Forgiving or unforgiving? How much of his character derives from
the traditional God about whom the church has taught her?
o p r a h . c o m
Ellen Foster
by Kaye Gibbons
Continued
9. Society—especially around her mother's family—tries to make her feel guilty about many of her actions, even, in the
case of her mama's mama, about her very existence. To what degree does Ellen share the feeling that she herself is guilty?
Are the acts she feels guilty about the same ones she is blamed for by the people around her? She seems deeply
concerned with the idea of personal atonement. What are her feelings about atonement and how does she herself atone
by the end of the novel?
10. Money and the good and bad effects of having it or not having it are a recurring issue in Ellen Foster. Ellen boldly states,
"All I really cared about accumulating was money. I saved a bundle." In the book, economic status is often integrated into
characters descriptions or included in the rationale for characters' actions. How does Gibbons depict money as a force in
people's lives? Is money, in and of itself, deemed to be either good or evil?
11. In Ellen Foster, Kaye Gibbons has chosen not to use quotation marks for dialogue. Look at passages like the ones on
pages 32, 47 and 48, and 112. How do you know who is speaking? Are we listening only to Ellen, or listening in on a private
question? How does the author's decision not to use quotation marks affect the reading experience?
12. "Dora, let me tell you a thing or two," Ellen says. "There is no Santa Claus" (p. 107). Yet, on Christmas Eve, Ellen longs to
hear something landing on the roof. Having been deprived of her own childhood illusions, she hates Dora for retaining all of
hers, but in spite of Starletta's happy Christmas and her toys, Ellen does not hate Startletta. What is the difference
between Dora's and Starletta's innocent belief in Santa Claus? What does the Christmas scene as a whole say about the
characters of Dora and Nadine? What does it say about family, childhood, innocence and celebration?
13. What does Ellen's encounter with the school psychiatrist tell us about Ellen? What does it tell us about the psychiatrist
and the kind of therapy he practices? How effective is the therapy as a tool for dealing with children like Ellen? Is it the
psychiatrist's personal defects that keep it from working with Ellen, or would it be equally ineffective no matter whom the
practitioner was?
14. Two of the primary metaphors that recur throughout the novel are the magician and the microscope. What do you think
each symbolizes? Who is the magician? How do his "appearances" after the deaths of Ellen's mother and father affect her
internalization of the events? Why does the novel's diction change so markedly during these passages?
15. Why has Gibbons chosen the quotation from Emerson's Self-Reliance to begin her novel? How does the quotation
relate to the text, to the character of Ellen, and to Gibbon's stated and implied themes? What has the novel itself to say
about the attribute of American literature? What other American novels does Ellen Foster echo? If you have read Mark
Twain's Huckleberry Finn, can you compare the two novels? Would it be fair to say that Ellen Foster is a female version of
that very masculine story? How does the concept of "self reliance" mold both books?
o p r a h . c o m