The excerpt I chose to read for this assignment was Chapter 1 from Jeanette Walls’ “The Glass Castle: A Memoir” titled “A Woman on the Street” This chapter of the novel depicts the main character and her mother’s relationship. The mother has decided to live her life in poverty for reasons yet to be explained to the reader. It is said that this is how she wishes to live. Her daughter, the main character, is ashamed by her mother and the way she is living and intends to try to help better her life, however her mom insists that she isn't the one who needs help. This readings goal is to establish the core relationship of the novel, and set up the beginning of how the story may begin to change. The reading achieves its primary goals of establishing
In the novel, The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls recounts her childhood as a tale of harsh struggle and of conflicting viewpoints. The set of ideals which she developed as an individual along with those instilled within her by her parents seemingly rival those purported by society and the developed world, creating an internal struggle greater than any of her physical conflicts. Examples of such conflicts involve the abstract areas of race, wealth versus poverty, and idealism versus realism.
Human nature is filled with curiosity, imagination, the desire to learn, and constant change. Jeannette Walls, the author of The Glass Castle, has a childhood filled with all of the above, but it is constantly disrupted by greed, drugs, and fear. This memoir takes the reader on a journey through the mind of a maturing girl, who learns to despise the people who she has always loved the most. Always short on cash and food, Jeannette’s dysfunctional family consisting of father, Rex, mother, Rose Mary, brother, Brian, and sisters, Lori and Maureen, is constantly moving from one location to another. Although a humorous tone is used throughout the whole novel, one can observe the difficulty that encompasses the physical challenge
Jeannette Wall’s memoir, The Glass Castle, talks about the hardships and challenges that she and her family had to suffer from, as they were constantly running out of the food and cash, leading them to move from places to places such as Battle mountain in Nevada, Phoenix in Arizona, Welch in West Virginia, New York City and so on in the search of survival. Some places provided a better quality of live , while some worsen it. Thus, the author and her family were living under the condition of the poverty, where they had to struggle for the basic needs such as food, clothing, and shelter by not getting adequate resources to support the minimum level of their physical health.
There are some literary devices or methods that can be applied in analyzing a given story that can either be short or long. Other aspects include literary devices, contrast, repetition, and anomalies (Wallek and Warren, 1956). In this task, I will use the short story, The First Day, which is written by Edward P. Jones. I will provide a summary of the story and later analyze it by identifying the devices used and how they have been applied to bring out the meaning of the story. The story is about a little girl seeing her mother as a flawed woman. The first day of school or the young girl, she found out her mother is not perfect. It’s not easy when you grew up expecting something, but after a while you find out the opposite is completely right.
Poverty can be a choice or a last resort for many across the globe. The Glass Castle a memoir written by Jeannette Walls, portrays how her family rejected civilization and embraced poverty. I felt Rex Wall’s notion of “sink or swim” (Page 66) portrays the failure and success of having a family. The situation in the Wall’s hopes manifested itself as a Glass Castle, a mysterious glass house the family would hope to build and live in. In order for the family’s dream to succeed, they would have to face many demons on the way. Throughout the book, I protested against some of the choices that were made, but I soon came to an understanding that some people will not change the way they live. I kept on thinking there always a possibility that there is always a cure to a problem, but sometimes there is too little time or understanding on both sides. A common theme that kept on going
2. The book says that it is important to listen to the lower-class, the oppressed, the discontent. Virginia Ramirez lived in a destitute community, next to an old woman who was dying because she couldn’t afford to fix her home. Her outrage at this woman’s suffering inspired her to take action. If we listen to what she has to say, we too can be inspired. I had no idea that there were people in situations like that. Now that I know, it angers me.
Most negative relationships tear people down, however the author of the glass castle by Jeannette Walls uses the negative relationships to motivate her to succeed in life. A now successful journalist, Jeannette Walls, describes her hellish childhood. She experienced being raised by her alcoholic, manipulative, and acquisitive parents. Her extremely dysfunctional parents forced their children to learn how to feed themselves, protect one another, and be optimistic. Resulting in her going to college and having a “normal” functional family.
Other cases, self desire may occur for treating one’s self with respect and love. Through an exchange of information, two people may learn and grow to love about themselves. Nonetheless, parents are the ones who show their children how to love. In the absense of a parental figure, many children will face a sudden change in their life style. Children of all ages will learn from their teachers, their peers, and their influences from media. In Jeannette Wall’s The Glass Castle, children will change through different influences in their lives, as seen in the novel, “I hesitated. “Sometimes, I think, it’s neither.” (256). Jeannette grew up knowing that her parents weren’t the best examples. Although her dad illustrated his love for her through various actions. She finds that it was hard to talk about her parents in public. The fact that her parents are living in the streets while she is spending her money on school was gruesome. Her bond with her parents became worse and worse which aided Jeannette into becoming a promising
In The Glass Castle written by Jeanette Walls, Jeannette’s mother plays a crucial part to her development. However while it may be a crucial role, it is not a positive role in her development. Her mother always seems to find a way to avoid her obligations as a mother and have her life turn out better than her children’s.
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.
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
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.
It is commonly believed that the only way to overcome difficult situations is by taking initiative in making a positive change, although this is not always the case. The theme of the memoir the Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls is that the changes made in children’s lives when living under desperate circumstances do not always yield positive results. In the book, Jeannette desperately tries to improve her life and her family’s life as a child, but she is unable to do so despite her best efforts. This theme is portrayed through three significant literary devices in the book: irony, symbolism and allusion.
Feminist literary criticism is a type of literary criticism that “is concerned with ‘…the ways in which literature (and other cultural productions) reinforce or undermine the economic, political, social, and psychological oppression of women” (Purdue OWL: Literary Theory and Schools of Criticism). This criticism goes into our culture and looks at how certain aspects are male dominated. It is also concerned with the marginalization in our culture. Most theorists believe that there were waves of feminist criticism. The Yellow Wallpaper was originally written during the first wave. This wave includes works from the late 1700’s to the early 1900’s. It focused on the inequalities between women and men as well as contributions made during the suffrage movement.
I will explore the themes in Joyce Carol Oates’s emotional roller-coaster, “How I Contemplated the World from the Detroit House of Correction and Began My Life over Again.” The themes in this story are love, the hardships people go through, and how money cannot buy happiness. Throughout the story, the girl struggles with feeling love from her parents. That is why the girl steals and goes to downtown Detroit. She does this to get her parents’ attention because she wants to feel loved and accepted by them. The girl’s mother is more obsessed and worried about objects and social events than spending time with her daughter. Also, her father is too busy to spend any time with her too. Then, the girl starts dating Simon because she wants to feel