Fostering character and narrator growth: a summer of transition in Claire Keegan’s Foster

Foster (Claire Keegan, 2010) narrates a summer of transition for a young girl who is sent to spend an unspecified part of the summer in the home of her aunt and uncle whom she has never seen, the Kinsellas. There, the girl, who is the protagonist, narrator and reflector, becomes gradually more self-confident and less guarded. This paper explores the double transition at work here, and shows how, as the girl-as-character grows, changes in the narrative voice are introduced to translate this evolution.The article first analyses the manner in which Keegan highlights the character’s powerlessness by creating a narrative voice that seems to lack control over its tale. It then argues that both the character and her narration transition towards more agency. Proof that such a transition has occurred becomes apparent through the protagonist’s growing capacity to learn, which is reflected by the narrator’s increasing ability to voice her evaluation, both of which are examined in the last part of the present article.