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Ellen goes by several names throughout the course of the novel, such as Elaine, Ellie, and Helena, and these constant changes reflect Ellen’s ongoing search for meaning and identity. She feels unfulfilled despite her successful career, and she constantly moves from one relationship to the next, never satisfied or truly happy. In Chapter 3, the novel leaves Ellen as a little girl walking with her widower father by the waterfront, dreaming of success. For Ellen, the search for her identity gets tangled up with creating a persona for herself. She has an idea in her mind of the success and notoriety that she ultimately wants, and she sets about pursuing it. When she appears again in Chapter 5, she is a married woman on the way back from Atlantic City with her husband. She has married John “Jojo” Oglethorpe not for love but to further her acting career and fulfill her ambitions. Ellen’s actions reveal that she is never invested in her marriage, and she knows Jojo is gay. She leaves Jojo only once she is established enough in her career to confidently step away.
Ellen values material things and thinks little of most people in her orbit, but she freely uses others to get what she needs. An exception to this pattern of behavior is Stan, who needs Ellen’s help more than she needs his. Since Stan cannot help Ellen with her career, it may be implied that she loves him with no ulterior motive. Although she loves him, Ellen never takes meaningful steps to make him stop drinking. After Stan’s suicide, Ellen is never content. She is lost and anxious. Even though she is fond of Jimmy, she uses him too. He serves as a father figure for baby Martin, and she is saved from the scandal of being a single mother. While Ellen carries no deep loving feelings for anyone, she can be considered a protagonist in the story. Despite her self-destructive streak, her happiness is anticipated throughout the novel yet remains elusive by its resolution. After a lifetime of using people, Ellen continues her pattern and marries George whom she neither loves nor respects. Ellen stubbornly holds onto her parasitic tendencies as he will provide stability for the aging ex-starlet in an unforgiving city.
