Kaye Gibbons, the author of the novel Ellen Foster, believes that a quote from the Emerson’s “Self Reliance” is connected with Ellen’s struggle to survive and find her way in the world. The first line of this quote says, “Cast the bantling on the rocks” is related A bantling is an abandoned child. Ellen is a bantling eventhough she was not abandoned, she was deprived of a normal childhood. Herlife as a child was extremely hard, physically and emotionally. She never had amother or father take care of her through her entire youth. You could say thather childhood was “cast on the rocks”.The last line reads, “Power and speed be hands and feet”. This remindsme of how Ellen ran from her problems at home and stayed away from her houseas much as possible. The line also represents strength and Ellen was a strongperson. She dealt with losing a mother, father and grandmother within one year. She never even had a good relationship with her father or grandmother.The short inscription to “Self Reliance” is almost a short summary ofEllen’s character. In it, a child without parents is raised by someone that is a lotdifferent than she is. After Ellen’s mother died, she is unwillingly left with heralcoholic father who mistreats her. Ellen spent a lot of time at her friend,Starletta’s house and at the house of her grandmother. Life with hergrandmother was no better than life with her father. She did not want to be ineither situation.After living with her grandmother, Ellen’s struggle to find a suitable,comforting home comes to an end. For the second time in her life, a familymember has died right next to her, basically in her arms. Ellen is able toovercome this, even as a young child, by finding a foster home that gives hereverything that she wanted in a family.What Emerson said basically means that a person who is brought uplacking a true lov...
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