Eleanor & Park Suffering Quotes

Within minutes of showing up at her new school, Eleanor becomes a target for every bully on campus. Tina takes a particularly special interest in making Eleanor's life miserable. Relentless name-calling? Just the tip of the iceberg.

Here's a quote that makes you stop for a minute. What does Eleanor mean? She's referring to Dr. Martin Luther King's final speech. Is she saying that other kids see bullying her as the greatest goal in life? This is one serious metaphor.

Is Eleanor out of line for comparing her home situation to Anne Frank's life spent hiding from the Nazis? The level of terror and suffering Eleanor's family experiences might be similar—they're afraid for their physical safety most of the time.

Eleanor notices visible evidence of her mom's abuse throughout the story, but she never says anything to her mom. Even though Eleanor can always hear her mom screaming and crying at night, this is one topic they never address.

Eleanor describes many scenes where she comforts her younger siblings at night when they hear Richie abuse Sabrina. What's most upsetting about this situation, perhaps, is that the little kids can hear everything that's going on, whether it's bedsprings or shouting.

Eleanor spends a lot of time thinking about how to take baths at home. She never explicitly explains why she can't bathe with Richie around, but we can take a guess; her mom seems to understand that Eleanor can't bathe with Richie there either. Hmm, we wonder who took down the bathroom door—and then the sheet that replaced it?

Here's the reason Eleanor's siblings always listen to Richie in a nutshell, and why Sabrina listens to him, too: They all believe there's literally nothing they can do about it. Calling the cops in this town doesn't seem at all effective, and Richie will only get angrier.

How scary is your life if you wake up in the morning and wonder if your mom made it through the night? Just think about that for a minute.

Here's another kind of suffering Eleanor experiences: not abuse, but neglect. She was raised by a father who simply didn't care.

Eleanor's poverty is another factor that causes her a lot of worry and discomfort. She can't buy batteries, doesn't have a phone, has no way to listen to music, and generally almost no possessions. She stresses out about not having a toothbrush. Seriously, what kind of family doesn't buy toothbrushes for their kids? Eleanor's family.