Summary: Chapter 2
The following morning, Ellen wakes to find her mother
alone with her father in the kitchen. This makes Ellen nervous,
as she knows that he is prone to abusive violence. Ellen laments
that even when they sleep, she tries her best not to leave them
alone together. When she hears them arguing at night, she demands
that she must sleep in her baby crib, which is still in their room.
In the kitchen, Ellen's father is rifling through her
mother's purse. Ellen sees her mother's heart medication on the
table, and her father barks that she has swallowed almost the entire
bottle. Ellen then asks her mother to vomit up the pills, but she
refuses. When Ellen suggests she run to the store to use their telephone,
her father threatens to kill her and her mother with a knife if
she does. He then tells Ellen that all her mother needs is sleep
and orders her to take her back to bed. He assures Ellen that the
pills will not hurt her mother. Lying beside her in bed, Ellen notices
that her mother's heart has stopped beating.
Later, Ellen prepares to go to her mother's funeral, tolerating
an ugly dress and contemplating wearing her mother's lipstick, though she
decides it would be improper. She notes that the redness of her father's
eyes is not from crying but, presumably, from liquor. Finally, though,
her mother has triumphed: for once, he is quiet.
Ellen tells of how, in her new home, she stays up late
reading, otherwise, she will not be able to fall asleep. She loves
to read and is bored with the stories she is assigned to read in
school.
Analysis
Throughout the entirety of the novel, Ellen carries the
story in her own, ten- year-old voice, using colloquialisms, improper
grammar, and, occasionally, a misconstrued phrase, such as "romantic
fever" (for rheumatic fever). There are no direct quotations, only
words that we are exposed to after they have filtered through Ellen's
sieve, thus taking on the distinction of her own voice. Many of
these indirect quotes are hysterically funny as construed by Ellen's
matter-of- fact delivery and provide a strikingly accurate and honest
portrait of the other characters in the book. Also, many of the
characters in the book do not have actual first or last names, as
Ellen knows them only by nickname, such as "mama" or "mama's mama."
Despite her young age, Ellen never once complains about her situation,
nor does she lose faith that one day she will escape it. Although
much of the language is basic, as is common to a ten year old, Ellen
is clearly precocious in her insights and understanding. Most importantly, she
understands that she deserves a higher standard of living and far more
happiness than she derives from her home, with an abusive father
and a dying mother. To have endured all that she has been through,
Ellen is unfailingly determined to prevail. She wants to kill her
father not because she is demonic, but because she is desperate. Ellen's
deepest desire is for survival, and she knows that the only possible
way she can survive is to cut her father out of her life. If the only
way she can do that is to kill him, then her determination will give
her the courage to go through with it. When her father dies of his
own accord, having drank himself to death, Ellen says that she is better
off without him, relieved not only that her primary source of torture
is gone, but also because she does not have to worry about how she
will escape him and is relieved from having to kill him.
As Ellen tells the school psychologist, whom she despises
for "picking into her brain," she was once scared
but is no longer. Throughout, it is evident that Ellen has a certain
toughness to her, a shell of courage and fearlessness that she has
developed over years of hardship and suffering. From the first to
the last chapter of the book, Ellen intersperses scenes from her
nightmarish past with those from her new, happier present. Although
her past and present are enmeshed together, the distinction between
them is brilliantly clear: in the past, Ellen feared for her life
and well-being; in her new home, she worries only about when she
will do her homework or what time dinner will be ready to eat.
