Ellen Foster Study Questions

1.  Ellen uses different verb tenses in telling her story.  When is this story taking place?  How can you know?

1.  Ellen says she knew her daddy was evil, but "I did not have the proof" [p. 9].  What proof does she now have?

1.  How does Ellen feel about her Aunt Nadine and her cousin Dora?

2.  What clues indicate how Ellen might regard her "new mama"?

1.  At the funeral, Ellen seems to survey the attendees and describe whom she sees [pp. 19-22].  Which characters does she seem connected to?  Which disconnected from?

2.  How does Ellen's narrative answer her own question: "Do I have to watch?" [p. 21]

3.  Who is the magician?  Why is he there? [p. 22]

1.  What details hint at Ellen's age?

2.  What transaction takes place among Ellen's father and his brothers?

3.  Ellen shops for and wraps her own Christmas presents.  Why does she do this and why does she feel she has to?  What does Ellen mean when she declares she was "very surprised in the spirit of Christmas" [p. 28]?

1.  Ellen's description of Starletta's home reveals much about Ellen herself.   What details show her assumptions about race and class?

2.  Again, Ellen asks "Do I have to watch?" [p. 31]; she reminds herself "I could go" [p. 31], but she doesn't leave Starletta's home.  Why not?

3.  In talking about her father and his drinking friends, what does Ellen mean when she says, "You get out before they dream about the pie and the sugar plums."
[p. 37].

4.  What exactly are the events that cause the narrator to keep repeating "I am Ellen.  I am Ellen"? [p. 38]

1.  Ellen makes several moves in this chapter: to Starletta's house, to Aunt Betsy's house, finally to wherever the school is willing to send her.  What is she trying to escape?  What is she trying to find?

1.  When Ellen moves in with her art teacher, Julia, and her husband, Roy, she says, "I had no idea people could live like that" [p. 47].  What way of life is she commenting upon?  Does Ellen approve or disapprove?

1.  Why do Julia, Roy, and Ellen have to go to court?

2.  How does Ellen's "mama's mama" compare to her "new mama"?

1.  What does Ellen's description of her household tell you about her mama's background and her mama's mama's personality?

2.  What does the story of Mavis and her family further reveal about Ellen's attitudes toward race?  Toward family?

3.  Why does Ellen's mama's mama slap her [p. 69] at the news of the death of Ellen's father?

1.  What system did Ellen's mama's mama set up to keep track of her grandchild?

2.  What reasons does Ellen's mama's mama give for treating her granddaughter so abusively?

3.  When her grandmother dies, Ellen says, "The score is two to one now" [p. 80].  What does she mean?

1.  Ellen describes the daily routine at her new mama's.  What does this description say about the house-hold and its inhabitants?

2.  What new understandings has Ellen come to about Starletta?  How do you see this process of transformation?

3.  Why does Ellen rename herself and where does the name come from?

1.  What is it that Ellen find out by spying on Mavis and her family?

2.  Why is it so important to Ellen that Starletta visit her for the weekend?   Why is it also important that everyone in school, especially Dora, find out about it?

1.  What does the Christmas scene reveal about Dora and Nadine?

2.  Why does Ellen say, "And all I wonder is why I do not hate Starletta" [p. 110]

1.  How well does Ellen carry out her plan to get a new mama?

2.  What does Ellen have to "straighten out" [p. 121] with Starletta?

3.  On pages 125 and 126, Ellen seems to come to two very major philosophical conclusions.  What are they?