Eleanor and Park by: Rainbow Rowell

In the novel Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell, the story of Eleanor and Parks unique and unanticipated relationship is unfolded with many twists and turns. While Park is a seemingly very shy and simple character, Eleanor is quite the opposite. Eleanor fits under the archetype of the out casted, misunderstood new girl in school that nobody truly knows or gets to know except for Park.

One example that Eleanor fits under this archetype is that after Eleanor shows up on the bus going to school for the first time, she is immediately judged and disliked due to the fact that she doesn't look like everybody else. Her clothes aren't considered "trendy," in fact quite the opposite, and her out-of-control red hair and weight earned her many nicknames such as "big red" and "rag head." After seeing Eleanor for the first time Park was in shock, "She was dressed like...like she wanted people to look at her. Or maybe she didn't get what a mess she was." he thought to himself. This shows that Eleanor was quickly out casted by her new peers seeing that she stood out from everyone else right away, and not in a good way. 

            Another example that proves that Eleanor out casted and misunderstood is that in the story, Eleanor is constantly bullied at school for many reasons. One of the most common causes of the bullying is her wardrobe. However, her peers may think that she chooses to dress in patched up jeans and men’s sweaters and shirts because she is a strange girl, when really she has no other option. During just another day in gym class, Eleanor has a rude awakening when she discovers that all of her clothing has been dumped into and unsuccessfully flushed down the toilet. Instead of being able to just throw out these clothes though, she grudgingly keeps them because she knew that these clothes, even though soaked in toilet water, were quite valuable to her because for someone like Eleanor who had to share one room with four other siblings and brush her teeth with her finger and salt, these toilet-water clothes were a privilege. This shows that Eleanor is treated terribly for things that are out of her power to fix.

            My last example that shows that Eleanor is an outsider is that she is not only rejected by her peers, but by her own family as well. Even though Eleanor did used to have an alliance with her siblings against their stepfather and a strong connection with her mother, that had all been put on hiatus after she was kicked out of the house and left with family friend’s for over a year. “Eleanor had spent so much time thinking about what it would be like to come home…but when Eleanor walked in the house, it was like her siblings didn’t even recognize her.” This showed me that even Eleanor’s own family didn’t even seem to appreciate her homecoming and that she was an outcast to them.

            In conclusion, it is clear that Eleanor fits the archetype of the outcast in this story because of the way she is treated both by her family at home and her peers at school.  She may seem like just another quirky new girl, but she does have her own story and baggage hidden under her red-hair and ripped jeans, only nobody knows.