Ellen comes from a family that holds intellectualism in very high regard, so literature plays a pretty big role in how she interacts with them, especially when it comes to her father. He enjoys recommending classic novels to her, and then grilling her about what she thinks about them, and it becomes a way for them to communicate without talking about anything directly. It does make us wonder, though, why limit her pleasure reading to the classics? Can a girl get some YA lit once in a while? Maybe just as a palette cleanser? Not in My Heartbeat, she can't.
Questions About Literature
- Is Ellen onto something when she compares her love triangle situation to that of the one in The Age of Innocence? How are they alike, and how are they different?
- Why does her dad encourage her to read the books that he does? What is his motivation?
- How do their reading styles further characterize James and Link? What about Ellen's literary preferences?
- Why do you think Dad is reading that impossible German book?
Chew on This
Ellen was right to say that The Crucible, even though it was written as a protest of McCarthyism, can be applied to just about any persecuted group's struggle for legitimacy.
Dad's insistence on encouraging Ellen to read the classics (as opposed to more current bestsellers) is more about intellectual snobbery than developing her mind's heartbeat.