I feel like the Jeannette’s father was sexually, physically or emotionally abused by his own family as a child growing up. From the way how Rex Walls became abusive to his family after he consumes alcohol drinks (Rex Walls wasn’t exactly abusive to the kids but he was abusive to his wife sometimes).
Who is the worst parent? The Mom or the Dad?
If your parents were like Jeannette’s parents what would you do?
Quotes:
“We were sort of like the cactus. We ate irregulary, and when we did, we’d gorge ourselves (Walls, 22)”.
This is a simile to make a picture in the reader's mind of what her early childhood was like and the struggles the Jeannette went through as she was growing up in the Walls family.
“He screamed like a wounded animal (Walls, 28)”.
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And his sympathetic side Rex rarely shows us expresses.
“I’m starting to feel like a rat in a maze (Walls, 106)”
This is a smilie indicating how Rex felt frustrated and confused while living the city life. When living in the city, Rex feels like he had lost his freedom and life was questionable.
“We’re not poor (Walls, 121)”.
When the Walls family gets a ride from a stranger after their vehicle breaks down on the highway. Jeannette is annoyed how the stranger keeps on uses and emphasizes the word poor on the Walls family. And that Jeannette is not accepting reality about her family being poor.
“I lit a match and held it close to tinkerbell’s face to show her how it felt….. Suddenly, her eyes grew wide, as if with fear: I realized, to my horror, that her face was starting to melt (Walls, 16)”.
This symbolizes Jeannette and her life. I think the tinkerbelle doll symbolizes Jeannette being lit on fire and also it symbolizes her life and how it keeps falling apart.
“She started talking about Picasso (Walls,
Symbol: “Piggy bеnt his flashing glassеs to thеm and could bе hеard bеtwееn thе blasts, rеpеating thеir namеs” (19). His glassеs arе
Throughout the book The Glass Castle, Jeannette and her family are essentially homeless, which leaves them with dealing with the daily struggles that come along with it. Although there are only a few instances where the Walls did not have a home, the conditions they lived through were horrendous. Jeannette and her siblings cope with their situations in many ways. At the beginning, the children never complained. Their parents Rex and Rose Mary had significantly different coping mechanisms. While Rose Mary was painting or sleeping, Rex was heading to the local bars. Their ways of dealing with their living situations and overall economic and political status did not help the siblings lead a fulfilling childhood. Coping mechanisms
One obstacle Jeannette overcomes is unstable home life. The Wall’s family moves frequently because some family members were worried someone might be after them for money. When the family started “Doing the skedaddle.” (17)-their dad referred as a movement of fleeing very slowly and sneaky. According to this philosophy, the family experienced moving outside of their home in search for prosperity. The parents made it seem like an adventure instead of escaping their problems. For example, they would talk about gold and the prospector design to give a sense of hope. However, in terms of stopping at a place to live, it was always run down. Unfortunately, conditions worsened in terms of not having beds for the Walls’ children but improvised with boxes. Another example includes the house at 93 Little Hobart Street, Welch, West Virginia. Some problems that arose in the house were rotten pieces of wood, no toilet system but instead improvised with a bucket in the kitchen, no running water, and minimal electricity when they make the payments. A hole was dug for the glass castle foundation but garbage piled inside as a backup plan because trash collection fees exhorted their income. Today, society is determined to escape lower conditio...
After Jeanette’s accident, where she burned herself, she took a match and held it too close to her doll’s face, causing it to melt. However, it still remains her favorite toy, even with its deformed face. The Tinkerbell doll is a symbol for Jeanette. She had developed a fascination with fire, after her accident, but she still possesses a fear of fire deep down. This is inferred when she talks about how Tinkerbell’s eyes grew wide, with fear, when Jeannette moved the match closer to the doll’s face. Jeannette is like the Tinkerbell because just as Tinkerbell’s face became deformed, Jeannette also has scars inside and out. Both the doll and her scars will never fully heal, but the Tinkerbell is still her favorite toy because Jeannette wants to
2. It represents her desire to be what her father wants her to be and the secret satisfaction she gets by making him proud. This quote shows how her father recognizes her hard work around the farm and that she is competent enough as a strong and boyish figure for him to express his pride in her to others.
Rex Walls, father of Jeanette, was rational to the core when it came to logic, an inventor, and quite an intelligent being but lacked the capability to sustain an economic stance to provide for his family. His mother, Erma Ruth, sexually abused him as a child, which later on in life led to alcohol abuse, because he questioned his masculinity and confidence. Clearly his mother’s actions psychologically affected him for life, leaving him to cope with such shame through the only ways of numbing his pain through alcohol. However, to what extent did this man loose the true sight that his problem was not the molestation as a child, but his own personal needs, as an alcoholic became the real issue at hand? Never did he seek out therapy to sober up, which in return affected his family. “A couple of months after Dad lost his job, he came home with a bag of groceries” (pg. 68), through his alcoholism, he was unable to sustain a stable job which ...
In “Half Broke Horses”, Jeannette Walls not only tells the story of her grandmother, but also introduces the reader to multiple themes.One of the most prominent themes that occours in this novel is that no matter what life throws at you, you have to be strong and keep going. Throughout the book, this theme is implicitly used many times, especially when Lily is faced with many struggles and hardships; such as finding out her husband’s married to someone else, or her sister’s
In the opening scene Jeannette is riding in a taxi headed to a party when she sees her mother digging through a trashcan. Walls has not seen her mother for months and she is struck by the reality that the woman who raised her presently appears no different to passersby than any other homeless person on the city streets. Jeannette quickly leaves out of fear that someone will notice her. Only a few blocks away from the party, she fears that her fixation on the woman by the dumpster would arouse suspicion. To avoid being seen she lowers herself in her seat and tells the taxi driver to take her to her home on Park Avenue. She cannot risk being seen by any others of the party because they might discover her secret.The driver turns around and Walls
This is an example of Jeannette’s parents trying to keep their children as optimistic as possible.They knew that their life would be rough and tough based on what they had gone through however if they always kept the positive mindset it would make things a lot easier for
... the male characters reveals that not all female characters were written to be “timid [and] dependant.” She also makes a deal with Captain Hook, the antagonist character. Tinker Bell is a representation of the fatal female, where a female tries to accomplish her hidden purpose by using feminine guiles such as charm and beauty. She is also manipulative and full of negative emotions, which were not seen appropriate in a female in the late Victorian era. However, despite Tinker Bell contrasting from the usual female gender roles, she does conform in terms of love. The women share unrequited attractions to Peter, and consequently their feelings are imprisoned in a limited range between their jealousy of one another and silent yearning for Peter.
Even though things were good with Rex and Jeannette , but “ He did have what mom called a little bit of a drinking situation”(23) which wasn’t that big of deal to Jeannette in the beginning, but due to his habit of changing jobs, more so losing them, and having the same excuses for losing them creates doubtful feelings in Jeannette’s mind. which exhibits a bit of concern in Jeannette about her father’s doings. One time the walls family went to the church but Rex wasn’t himself for he was drunk, so he started insulting the people at the church, which just shows his miserable state every time he drinks. He then goes out of hand by insulting Jeannette, “ I didn’t like dad when he talked like that” (p;114), first time Jeannette feels negative towards
Ever since she was a young girl. Jeannette had set high goals for herself. Since she was so advanced in school and genuinely enjoyed learning, it made sense that she would want to do big things with her life. Whether it was being a veterinarian or a geologist, her dreams extended far beyond her homes in little desert towns or Welch, West Virginia. However, because of her poverty-stricken home life, many people believed it didn’t seem likely that she would be so successful. One day, while living in Welch, Jeannette goes to the bar to drag her drunk father back home. A neighborhood man offers them a ride back to their house, and on the ride up he and Jeannette start a conversation about school. When Jeannette tells the man that she works so hard in school because of her dream careers, the man laughs saying, “for the daughter of the town drunk, you sure got big plans” (Walls 183). Immediately, Jeannette tells the man to stop the car and gets out, taking her father with her. This seems to be a defining moment in which Jeannette is first exposed to the idea that she is inferior to others. Although this man said what he did not mean to offend her, Jeannette is clearly very hurt by his comment. To the reader, it seems as if she had never thought that her family’s situation made her subordinate to those
...ndurance of poverty, as we witness how Walls has turned her life around and told her inspiring story with the use of pathos, imagery, and narrative coherence to inspire others around her (that if she can do it, so can others). Jeannette made a huge impact to her life once she took matters into her own hands and left her parents to find out what life has in store for her and to prove to herself that she is a better individual and that anything is possible. Despite the harsh words and wrongful actions of Walls’ appalling parents who engage her through arduous experiences, she remained optimistic and made it through the most roughest and traumatic obstacles of her life at the age of three. Walls had always kept her head held high and survived the hardships God put upon her to get to where she is today; an author with a best selling novel to tell her bittersweet story.
In the memoir The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls writes about her family's struggles with poverty, family dysfunction, and constantly moving. Specifically in this excerpt (pages 96-98), Jeannette’s family moves again from her grandparent’s house to a more desolate one. The house they now live in is described as shabby, poorly built, and dangerous, which none of the kids are happy about. Despite her dad’s reassurance of a future house being built, Jeannette still wants to leave and move back to their ‘home’ in Phoenix, Arizona. Throughout the excerpt, Walls uses figurative language and repetition to portray the big idea of a lack of contentment.
So, the burning of the doll represents the flaming of the year that just past, and it acts as a symbol for resolution and a gleaming start. Ordinarily, people from this culture tend to be highly religious and spiritual. It is kind of marvelous how much faith and hope people can have towards a higher power and the whole subject of positive and negative energies. Even though, this kind of shows how old-schooled and conservative we continue to be, it is also kind of optimistic and beautiful. The whole superstition that the painful energies ought to be burned in order to acquire a progressive start each year, shows that we believe that it is better to leave the rough memories in the past. It portrays that we prefer to forget about regret and the lack of power we actually need to change several situations. Therefore, it illustrates that we believe that something out there is giving us another chance by granting us the new year and thus we should start without anguish and with a constructive attitude, believing that destiny or life will grant us with excelling goods, and much more blessings.