47 pages • 1 hour read
Claire KeeganFoster
Fiction | Novella | Adult | Published in 2010A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Essay Topics
Many of the girl’s observations imply something that she never fully articulates. Identify several instances like this. What is the effect of this lack of commentary?
How does Keegan portray sibling relationships?
What is the role of food in Foster? Using quotes from the text, discuss its significance to the narrator and its role in the community that surrounds her.
How does Keegan construct Foster’s language to reflect its young narrator? Discuss literary devices and specific passages that communicate the childlike lens through which the story is told.
Analyze the passage in which Edna Kinsella gives Da a bundle of rhubarb (14). How does this scene inform both of their characterizations? In what ways does the rhubarb represent the narrator?
Examine Foster’s portrait of rural life in Ireland. What types of details create verisimilitude? Include specific examples.
Compare and contrast Ma and Edna. How does Keegan portray their similarities and differences?
What do Kinsella’s nicknames for the narrator, “Long Legs” and “Petal,” communicate about his character and his relationship with the narrator?
How does Keegan portray death in Foster? For instance, what are the differences between the characters’ dialogue about the dead old man at the wake and about the Kinsellas’ son?
Water is another motif in Foster. What ideas does it convey?
