Previous
Chapter 6
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Foster, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Family
Loss and Grief
Parenting and Judgment
Secrets and Shame
Money and Priorities
Summary
Analysis
Now that the girl knows she must leave, she almost wants to go sooner rather than later so she can get it over with. The next day, she asks John if he can take her home, and John says that they can go whenever the girl likes. A man whom the girl recognizes from the card games at night then arrives at the Kinsellas’ house. He asks John to come with him to help deliver a calf. After John leaves, Edna takes over for him milking cows. The girl thinks about joining her but knows she would just be in the way. She then decides that she’ll go to the well to fetch water for Edna, so Edna will have water for tea later. It will be the last thing the girl does before leaving the Kinsellas. She walks with the bucket to the well and dips it into the water, just like Edna does. But when the girl tries to lift it, the bucket is too heavy, and the girl falls into the well.
Notably, the girl goes to the well to fetch water for Edna’s tea, underlining the mutual care and concern that Edna, John, and the girl all have for one another. The novel then argues that true family is forged through that mutual care and concern and is not determined strictly by biological connections. It’s also significant that this chapter ends on a cliffhanger. As a result, the reader does not know whether the girl remains in peril or not. The sense that she is at risk of drowning then implicitly links the well and the girl’s unknown fate to the Kinsellas’ son, who died by drowning. In that way, the novel suggests that in addition to being a sign of the peace and tranquility of the Kinsellas’ house, the well also symbolizes John and Edna’s grief, which threatens that tranquility.
Active
Themes
Literary Devices
