Eleemosynary Chapter Summary & Analysis | Scene 7

Scene 7 Summary

Echo recalls her performance at the National Spelling Bee with no illusions about the ruthlessness with which she competed. She wanted to destroy that little boy and was pleased when she did so. Though she is called on to spell a word meaning "charity", she does so with the sole purpose of not just overcoming, but of humiliating her competitor. She succeeds.

For two years following the Spelling Bee, Echo and Artie barely speak. Only Dorothea's sudden stroke and physical decline can bring Artie back to her family. Artie and Echo bicker back and forth about living arrangements and so forth, but a ghostly Dorothea calmly narrates the last healthy years of her life. She admits with bemusement that, in those final years, her thoughts were with Artie, her estranged daughter, and not Echo, her very present granddaughter.

Eventually, Artie and Echo have to put Dorothea in a nursing home...
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