![]() ![]() Unwanted and mistreated at home and bullied at school, Eleanor is in a constant tug-of-war with herself as to whether she should make herself smaller to avoid scrutiny and negative attention, or puff herself up to declare that she won’t be silenced or made to feel invisible. As the novel progresses, her clothes emerge as a symbol of Eleanor’s competing desires to both shrink herself and to announce herself as a presence that will not go away no matter how much the world tries to bring her down. ![]() Eleanor’s clothes are always too big and too baggy-eventually, it becomes clear that Eleanor is trying to hide herself inside them from the prying eyes of her leering stepfather, Richie, and from the girls at school, including Tina and her crew, who mock Eleanor’s body. She ties scarves and men’s neckties in her hair and on her wrists, and wears brightly-printed Vans sneakers that clash with her outfits’ muted tones. Eleanor never looks “nice,” thinks her boyfriend Park-she looks like “art.” Eleanor, a self-admittedly big-boned teen girl with flaming red curls that she can never seem to tame, dresses in bizarre and ill-fitting clothes, often culled from the men’s section of Goodwill. ![]()
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