Sandra K. Friday
Our reading of the novel and character study of Ellen will culminate in a writing project focusing on a choice of questions, such as: "What does it mean to be rejected by, and/or to reject, your blood relatives as your family, as Ellen does? (Consider Ellen's question on page 56, "What do you do when the judge talks about the family society's cornerstone but you know yours was never a Roman pillar but is and always has been a crumbly old brick?"); "How does Ellen work through her inherited, stereotypical, southern prejudice toward her only friend Starletta, and Starletta's family who is her only port-in-a-storm from her father's abuse?"; "What is the significance of Ralph Waldo Emerson's inscription to "Self-Reliance" that Gibbons used as an epigraph for her book?"
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Cast the bantling on the rocks,
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Suckle him with she-wolf's teat,
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Wintered with the hawk and fox,
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Power and speed be hands and feet.
