Social class has always been a controversial issue in America. This idea, that individuals are defined by their wealth, is explored by Jeannette Walls in her memoir, The Glass Castle. Walls shows, through a manifold of personal anecdotes, how growing up in a dysfunctional household with financially inept parents affected her and her siblings. Growing up in this environment, Jeannette was exposed to a very different perception of the world around her than those of higher social status. However, despite the constant hardships she faced, Walls makes it clear that a lower social status does not define an individual as inferior to those in a higher class. Growing up, Jeannette and her siblings never seemed to be jealous of the wealthy. They weren’t …show more content…
envious of the kids growing up in big apartments in the city with their expensive gadgets and clothes. One Christmas, while living in the Midlands, Walls writes about how even without money, her and her family would “be out of [their] minds to want to trade places with any of [the wealthy city people]” (Walls 39). Christmas in the Walls household was different than most; the kids were taught to not believe in Santa. Rex and Rose Mary, the Walls parents, refused to let their kids think that they weren’t getting any gifts because they were bad, but just because there wasn’t enough money. After this particular Christmas, Rex had lost his job in the mines, and there was absolutely no money for gifts. Instead of buying material things, Rex took each child out one by one and let them pick out their favorite star for them to keep. After Lori, Jeannette and Brian all chose a star, Rex described all the qualities of each specific star and why they were special. The kids were all so happy with their unique gifts and all became interested in the stars. Walls writes, “we laughed about all the kids who believed in the Santa myth and got nothing for Christmas but a bunch of cheap plastic toys” (Walls 41). In this passage, Walls also mentions how lucky her family felt to be living in the desert, where the sky was clear. She and Rex felt sorry for all the “rich city folks” whose air was so polluted that they couldn’t see the stars. Walls definitely shows, especially in this passage, how her and her family made the best of their situation. The little things they did because of their lack of money were some of the most special things to her. In no way did she feel inferior to those in a higher class than her, and more times than one, wrote of how lucky she felt to live the way she did. All those around Jeannette seemed to preach the idea that because she had a drunkard father and an essentially lazy mother, that her and her siblings would not amount to anything.
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 …show more content…
with wealthy and successful parents, and she was very upset when she heard the man’s comment. Although having less money may have meant limited opportunities in some ways, the Walls family’s situation also enabled them to experience many unique events that weren’t available, or considered appropriate, to others.
When living in Phoenix, Rex hears a story about a woman shooting a mountain lion that she saw in her backyard. He is infuriated and immediately decides to take the family to the city zoo. He felt as if they had lived a “comfortable” life too long and wanted all the kids to connect back to wilderness, even if it was just for a day. He also wanted to show the kids that he truly understood “animal psychology,” which the woman who shot the mountain lion obviously did not. As long as you communicated with the animals and showed that you were not afraid, the animals would leave you alone. Rex and the kids approached the cage of the cheetah, and Rex began to work. He hopped over the chain link fence that separated the people from the cheetah’s cage, and began to slowly stick his hand through pet to the creature. Jeannette and her siblings joined him at the fence and also began to pet the cheetah, stroking him like a dog. Although they were all calm, the rest of the crowd around the cage began screaming. A panic went through masses as some people even attempted to pull the kids back over the fence to save them. When they finally got kicked out, after being chased by the zoo police, Jeannette noticed the people all muttering negative comments about “the crazy drunk
man and his dirty little urchin children” (Walls 109). However, she brushed off all the negativity and disapproving looks. She didn’t care what the others thought because she just assumed they were all jealous of her. Walls writes, “who cared what they thought? None of them had ever had their hand licked by a cheetah” (Walls 109). Once again, the author shows that she never felt inferior to those around her just because her family was poor and dysfunctional. Being born into poverty does not determine one’s worth. Although growing up with just necessities versus luxuries does have a vast effect on people, it is not always for the negative. Walls and her siblings show how they succeeded not in spite of the hardships they faced, but because of them. The countless obstacles they faced did not slow them down or make them any less successful or happy than those who grew up wealthy.
Wall’s memoir The Glass Castle accurately portrays her horrifying life of growing up in extreme poverty. The memoir unravels a true story about Jeannette Walls’ brutal childhood as she grew up homeless and often lacked even basic necessities such as food, clothing, and shelter. Walls’ father Rex raised his children irresponsibly, leaving them with many mental and physical scars while compromising their safety. Similar to the way Walls was raised, human cruelty remains evident in the Mac Davis song “In The Ghetto,” where the lyrics describe an endless cycle of poverty and crime. However, the movie Les Miserables depicts the
Jeannette was angry at her grandmother for not accepting her having a black friend. She wanted her parents support to justify that all people are the same however her parents really needed a place to stay and would rather not back up their daughter than challenge Erma in fear of being kicked out. Jeannette realized how people become hypocrites and having to be forced to go against their own beliefs.
Jeannette and her sister Lori always talked about growing up and escaping to New York City (Walls 222). They dreamt of making it big, unlike their parents. Lori began to see New York as “this glowing, bustling place at the end of a long road where she could become the person she was meant to be” (Walls 222). This idea began to rub off on Jeannette, and she too felt the same way.
In “The Glass Castle”, the author Jeanette Walls describes her childhood and what motivated her to chase her education and move out to New York City with her siblings and leave their parents behind in West Virginia. The main struggle Jeanette and her siblings had was the conflicting point of view that they had with their mother on parenting. Despite their father Rex Walls being an alcoholic, constantly facing unemployment, and being a source of hope for his children, Rose Mary Walls had her list of attributes that shaped her children’s life. Rose Mary had a very interesting view on parenting in Jeanette Wall’s memoir and this perspective of parenting influenced her children both positively and negatively.
Just one become only two, which then leads to number three that will be the last… so they say and apparently so will the one after that, after that, and after that until they can physically drink no more. For some, this might happen on their twenty first birthday or only once, but for many people in the world this happens every month, every week, or even every day. “Alcohol is the most commonly used addictive substance in the U.S. 17.6 million people, or one in every 12 adults, suffer from alcohol abuse or dependence” (“Alcohol”). The need and overdose of alcohol is called alcoholism. This addiction causes pain, anger, and loss of control all over the world. One might say, “I can handle myself. I am just fine,” but we all know they are not fine because most of the time they are causing hurt around them. In Jeannette Walls’ memoir, The Glass Castle, her father, Rex Walls, is an example of one of these 17.6 million alcoholics and this disease affects the family in multiple ways.
Jeannette Walls has lived a life that many of us probably never will, the life of a migrant. The majority of her developmental years were spent moving to new places, sometimes just picking up and skipping town overnight. Frugality was simply a way of life for the Walls. Their homes were not always in perfect condition but they continued with their lives. With a brazen alcoholic and chain-smoker of a father and a mother who is narcissistic and wishes her children were not born so that she could have been a successful artist, Jeannette did a better job of raising herself semi-autonomously than her parents did if they had tried. One thing that did not change through all that time was the love she had for her mother, father, brother and sisters. The message that I received from reading this memoir is that family has a strong bond that will stay strong in the face of adversity.
The novel The Glass Castle, written by Jeannette Walls, brings to the surface many of the the struggles and darker aspects of American life through the perspective of a growing girl who is raised in a family with difficulties financially and otherwise. This book is written as a memoir. Jeannette begins as what she remembers as her first memory and fills in important details of her life up to around the present time. She tells stories about her family life that at times can seem to be exaggerated but seemed normal enough to her at the time. Her parents are portrayed to have raised Jeannette and her three siblings in an unconventional manner. She touches on aspects of poverty, family dynamics, alcoholism, mental illness, and sexual abuse from
In his essay “Land of Opportunity” James W. Loewen details the ignorance that most American students have towards class structure. He bemoans the fact that most textbooks completely ignore the issue of class, and when it does it is usually only mentions middle class in order to make the point that America is a “middle class country. This is particularly grievous to Loewen because he believes, “Social class is probably the single most important variable in society. From womb to tomb, it correlates with almost all other social characteristics of people that we can measure.” Loewen simply believes that social class usually determine the paths that a person will take in life. (Loewen 203)
There are several different social issues presented in Jeannette Wall’s memoir “The Glass Castle.” These issues include neglect – medical and education. unsanitary living conditions, homelessness, unemployment, alcohol abuse, domestic violence. violence, discrimination, mental health issues, physical and sexual abuse, hunger and poverty. Poverty was one of the major key issues addressed in this memoir.
As Jeannette gets older she realizes that her parents differences are not something to be proud of. She comes to this conclusion at first when she is in the hospital after getting severe burns from her mother letting her cook hot dogs at the age of three. She realizes that it is not right for a parent to let their three year old to be cooking. Another example of when she realized that is when she had to eat food from a garbage can at school while all the others had brought food from home. She decided to hide her shame by eating the food from the garbage can inside the girls washroom. As Jeannette gets older she changes a little bit more by her perspective of things when she meets Billy. Billy is a juvenile delinquent that also has a father for a drunk. When Billy laughs at his own father when he was sleeping from drinking so much the night before, Jeannette argues with him saying that no one should make fun of their own father. Billy
In America, many people are divided by a class system. Within our society, many people find themselves not interacting much with people outside of their class and can rarely find something in common with people of different financial backgrounds. In Andre Dubus the Third’s writing “The Land of No: Love in A Class-Riven America, he speaks about his experience with his roommate who comes from an affluent background opposed to his less advantaged upbringing. In “The Land of No: Love in A Class-Riven America, Andre Dubus the Third displays that the experiences the people face from different classes can differ entirely and therefore it makes it difficult to identify with someone outside of your class.
...’ family is in deep alcoholism, depriving children the benefits of a proper upbringing. The Johnsons are also chaotic and tyrannical. Jimmie and his ilk of brawling youths epitomize the violence that rocked the society. In the middle of this violence is pursuit of vanity. Children are fighting viciously to establish the superior one. Adults are watching on indifferently. Maggie gets into prostitution because of pursuing an elegant life. She lacks appreciation of her beauty and persona. In the end, the question to ponder is whether human beings have the capacity to make personal choices in midst of immense social circumstances. Regrettably, Johnsons share the blame for the kind of person that their children turned out. The society too has remained passive in the midst of great social trepidation. Maggie and Jimmie share the blame for pursuit of vainglorious vanity.
Social and economic class is something we as Americans like to push into the back of our minds. Sometimes recognizing our class either socially or economically can almost be crippling. When individuals recognize class, limitations and judgment confront us. Instead, we should know it is important to recognize our class, but not let it define and limit us. In the essay, “Class in America”, Gregory Mantsios, founder and director of the Joseph S. Murphy Institute for Worker Education at the School of Professional Studies, brings to light the fact that Americans don’t talk about class and class mobility. He describes the classes in extremes, mainly focusing on the very sharp divide between the extremely wealthy and extremely poor. In contrast, George
According to Schwartz-Nobel, America will lose as much as 130 billion in future productive capacity for every year that 14.5 American children continue to live in poverty (Koppelman and Goodhart, 2007). Sadly the seriousness of poverty is still often clouded by myths and misunderstandings by society at large. This essay studies the issue of poverty and classism in today's society.
Social class is a defining concept to each typical American family as it characterizes their place in society. It is important to use a structural diversity framework when demonstrating how class variation produces different social opportunities for each family. Structural conditions, such as class, race, and gender, all affect families differently, and create diverse family arrangements depending on their structural location. According to Maxinne Baca-Zinn in the textbook, Diversity in Families, using a structural perspective to study the stratifications associated to families demonstrates class, race, and gender all “foster group-based inequalities, are systems of subordination that shape family life and also place the family as a resistance