Ellen Foster

Ellen Foster Summary | Chapter 1 Summary

The story opens with the narrator (Ellen) revealing that she's considered killing her father in her mind. While she tries to lighten her confession with humor (e.g., a tale of a poisonous spider biting her father), her calculated response to his ensuing death (pretending to be upset and sad when she's really not) reveals a darker side to her nature.

Ellen then goes on to reveal that she never had to follow through with her murder plan because in the end her father drank himself to death. Soon after, Ellen is removed by county officials from her father's home and care. A confession that she's better off now that he's dead solidifies the bad blood that existed between daughter and father.

Ellen goes on to describe her living conditions as a ward of the county. Under such institutionalism, she finally receives the care she never had—proper feeding, bathing, dressing and praising. This stands in sharp contrast to her former home life, where she was neglected and surrounded by "crazy" people.

Next, the narrator reveals what occurs during her weekly psych sessions at school, during which she talks about her former life in the hopes of overcoming the damage inflicted upon her. A particular exercise, one involving bats, reveals Ellen's long-held, and pent-up fear, a diagnosis she denies still feeling. She does, however, admit that she used to be scared, describing her home life as a wild ride of sorts.

It is during this revelation that we find out that Ellen's mother is also now dead as a result of "tiredness" with her out of control life. As the scene unfolds, Ellen accepts her mother's hospital confinement prior to her death as lovesickness that has weakened her heart. At the same time, she feels no sympathy for her mother's situation and believes her better off in the hospital—where she is cared for—than at home—where her husband (Ellen's father) verbally abuses her and gives her the constant third degree.

Ellen thinks of her father as a mean monster while she views her mother's silence and lack of action toward his behavior as weak but attributable to her fragile physical condition. Ellen herself fails to act out against her father with the rationalization that "he is just too sorry to talk back to" as her excuse.

Here, Ellen reveals that in her mother's absence she is forced to fend for herself food-wise. In the end, Ellen's mother does what her husband orders as Ellen stands silently by her side, aiding and abetting all the while plotting her revenge.

The story alternates back and forth—a technique that will continue throughout the book—slowly showing the contrast between Ellen's past and present and uncovering a little bit more of the evilness Ellen and her mother have suffered at the hands of Ellen's father (bruises—indicating the mother's "sickness" actually stems from her husband's abuse). A furtive errand also turns out to be a liquor trip—the more Ellen's father drinks, the nastier he becomes, until he eventually passes out, a condition Ellen is responsible for making right so as not to burden her mother. In Ellen's final estimation, her father is a good-for-nothing failure while her mother is a helpless victim in need of comfort and protection.