Point Of View In The Glass Castle By Jeanette Walls

The Glass Castle: Prompt #1

The book The Glass Castle is written by Jeanette Walls, which details her unconventional childhood growing up with an alcoholic father and a mother who seems to not want the responsibility of raising a family. In The Glass Castle, published in 2005, Walls seems to reveals the intimate details of her upbringing within a dysfunctional yet loving family. Due to the fact that it is, a first-person point of view can effectively prove through storytelling and it can also have limitations to it. When a text is in first person point of view in general, certain opinions can be left out and may influence the reader's bias. A bias is a perspective/opinion. If The Glass Castle were told as an autobiography as opposed to a memoir, the story would have been more efficient in storytelling.

First person point of view is narrated by a character in the story.

In second person narrative, the narrator is not a character in the story but "you" are. In a third person narrative, the narrator exists completely outside of the story. All characters are described as "he", "she", or "it". In third person omniscient narration, the narrator can describe the innermost thoughts and feelings of her characters. This book The Glass Castle is written in first person point of view and with that said some advantages that it has is that it mirrors real life for example. We can only experience life from our own point of view, we don't know what other people are thinking. Also with first point of view it's easier to portray the characters personality, feelings and view of the world, as they are doing most of the talking. First person point of view makes readers more comfortable with the story because first person narratives have an easier time garnering empathy from their audience, since the reader spends so much time in the character's

brain.
I believe if The Glass Castle was written in third person point of view the reader would be able to understand how the other characters are feeling. Even though first person narratives you are speaking from the person's point of view and therefor you don't really get to focus on any of the other characters in the story as much.With third person point of view you don't have to make assumptions on the other characters, the way they are feeling, their personalities. For example, While I was reading the book The Glass Castle I felt as if the mother in the story didn't care for the children and the whole time I was dying to know what exactly was going threw her mind. I wanted to know why she didn't want to help her children and why she would let the father drink so much.
The Glass Castle is written as a memoir. In some general contexts a memoir and autobiography can be very identical writing genres. This book written as a memoir only focuses on one specific aspect of Jeannette Walls life. In this book the writer provides various person event that occurred in her life, although not entire life. However if this book were to be written as an autobiography it would focus on the chronology of the writer's entire life.
I believe with this book The Glass Castle it would have been more efficient written in third person point of view and as an autobiography because with third person point of view you get a lot of different opinions from different characters in the story and you get to know how exactly they are feeling and their thoughts. I also believe that this book would be better written as a n autobiography because with this genre it centers more on the writers whole life. With that said if it was written in this writing genre the audience would be provided with more information about Jeannette Walls life and family then opposed to the memoir. It would have revealed things that happened in her life and different events that would soon have led up to the main idea of the story.