Ellen Foster is the story of the titular girl, Ellen, whose life in the home of her abusive and predatory father is followed by a string of terrible living situations within her dysfunctional family. Shunted from home to home, Ellen struggles with her history of sexual, corporal, and emotional abuse as her family dies around her from alcoholism, old age, and disease. Eventually she overcomes her difficulties and finds solace in a foster home.
Some of the major themes of the novel include determination, self-consciousness, self-criticism, and ignorance by social awareness.
Throughout the novel, Ellen struggles to find her place between the racial prejudices that have been instilled in her by society, and her desire for the love she identifies in "colored" families.
Ellen's family is broken and non-traditional. Her goal when growing up in a harsh world is to find the family she has always longed for. She sees examples of other families and their love and supporting relationships. Even though Ellen is very critical, she still creates a family image in her head for what she wants in life.
Ellen must continually overcome terrible hardship— abuse, alcoholism, neglect, poverty, cruelty. Throughout it all, however, she is determined to endure and knows that she deserves better than the horrific circumstances under which she is suffering. This determination strengthens Ellen's will to endure and undoubtedly pulls her through her griefand misery, as she knows only she alone can help herself; though others may have tried, no one has succeeded. Ellen eventually realizes that it has not been she, but Starletta, who has had the “hardest row to hoe,” as she is a black girl who is growing up in a highly racist community. Ellen gradually becomes conscious of this, especially when she recognizes that Starletta will not be able to date the white boy on whom she has a crush, solely because of her skin color.
Ellen's foundation was damaged from the beginning. With an alcoholic father, a mother who was in and out of the hospital, and no siblings, Ellen was forced to grow up rather quickly for her age. She never had the opportunity to experience childhood because the roles were reversed for her when she had to manage the family budget, pay the bills, and fend for herself at mealtimes. When Ellen was shipped to and from different households, she never got a sense of consistency.
This quote shows that Ellen's movement from family to family really took a toll on her. She does not want to accumulate possessions because she knows she won't be able to take them with her the next time she's forced to move.
Ellen is an impoverished narrator who is very aware of how people spend their money and makes a moral judgment about them based on their spending habits. For example, when Ellen's grandmother has just died and Ellen speaks with her aunt Betsy on the phone about the death, aunt Betsy states "...and so near Christmas". Ellen thinks to herself:
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