Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses death of a child, implied parental abuse and neglect, and separation of a foster child from their preferred family.

Unspoken events and emotions are portrayed as both protective and dangerous in Foster. Characters frequently remain quiet about emotionally weighty information in the name of loyalty, love, or self-protection.

The unspoken reality of the Kinsellas’ drowned child shapes the text. As the dramatic irony around this event develops, it gains more and more weight, building to the moment when Mildred tells the narrator that she’s been “living in the dead’s clothes all this time” (55). Mildred’s question, “Sure didn’t he follow that auld hound of theirs into the slurry tank and drown?” (56), is frank but grotesquely flippant and jarring. The girl is rocked by this knowledge, but she has had enough time with the Kinsellas that it doesn’t destroy her relationship with them, hinting that Edna and Kinsella were thoughtful in not detailing their past earlier.

Kinsella advocates for not speaking unless it is truly necessary. His point that “[m]any’s the man lost much just because he missed a perfect opportunity to say nothing” speaks to the political

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