The Glass Castle, written by Jeannette Walls, is a memoir about the childhood of Jeanette Walls, and her three siblings, Lori, Brian, and Maureen. The Walls’ family is very dysfunctional, and lives a nomadic lifestyle. Jeannette’s parents, Rex and Rose-Mary Walls, are irresponsible and unordinary parents. Rex, bounces from odd job to job, but the money somehow seems to diminish and go towards his alcohol addiction or unnecessary items. Rose-Mary has a love for painting but refuses to work a real job. Rex has this dream to build, the Glass Castle, for the family to live in but never seems to find the time or money to start. It is up to Jeanette and her siblings to try to keep their parents in line. The children had to find their own means of …show more content…
In order for Jeannette to learn how to swim, she had to try over and over when faced with predicaments. Rex taught Jeannette from a young age to learn how to swim, and he told her, “if you don’t want to sink, you better figure out how to swim” (66), by facing Jeannette with life or death challenges she manages to learn. Forcing Jeannette to learn how to swim is a life lesson in dealing with teaching her to learn how to survive by herself. Jeannette wanted to get out of her house and the city of Welch to do bigger things rather than stay in a house that’s falling apart. Jeannette and her sister, Lori, had a dream of leaving Welch for a while and hatched a plan. The girl’s big dream led them to hide a piggy bank to save money for New York. Jeannette took the opportunity of moving to New York to live with her sister quickly upon her high school graduation. Leading up to Jeannette’s graduation she had to take on several jobs just to raise enough money to leave her house on Little Hobart Street. Things in Jeannette’s life did not come easy. She had to work for everything she earned and if she did not succeed in something at first she tried until she grasped the concept. From a young age Lori and Jeannette knew they wanted to do something with their lives. Rose-Mary said, “things usually work out in the end,” Jeanette replied “what if they don’t,” and Rose-Mary said “it
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
What do you think the writer wants his/her readers to think and/or do after reading this book?
The Glass Castle starts in what could have been our modern day New York. Jeannette Walls was in taxi when she saw her mother picking through garbage. She felt ashamed and asked her mother what to tell people when they asked about her. Her mother simply said “tell them the truth”. This is what triggered the flashback that brought us back to what could have been the 1960s-1970s. Jeannette’s first memory was one that would leave her scarred for life after getting burned while cooking hot dogs. The Walls were a family of six. Rex Walls and Rose Mary had 4 children. Jeannette had an older sister Lori and a younger brother Brian. Maureen was born soon after the Walls moved from Southern Arizona to Battle Mountain. The main problems that bring up the suspense are the parents themselves. Rex Walls has a drinki...
American businesswoman Carly Fiorina once concluded, “If a decision-making process is flawed and dysfunctional, decisions will go awry.” In the critically acclaimed memoir The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls pilots a turbulent excursion through the bottleneck of her childhood and dysfunctionality and flawed decision-making is all too common. Throughout this memoir the reader learns of the the appearances and disappearances of stability and functionality, discovers the theme of fantasy vs. reality, and determines how and why the familial dynamics of the Walls alter through the duration of the memoir. The reasons for the instability of the family are evident.
When has someone achieved maturity? They achieve it when they have fully developed their mind and are able to fend for themselves successfully. In The Glass Castle , Jeannette Walls illustrates her childhood with a mother who acted more like her children then a responsible adult. Rose Mary did not nurture her children in a typical way, but ultimately the children must fend for themselves. Fending for herself and her siblings affects Jeannette’s adult feelings regarding her mother because of how it taught her to not be dependent on others.
Everyone has to deal with struggles during their everyday life. Some people’s problems are more serious than others, and the way that people deal with their problems varies. Everybody has a coping mechanism, something they can use to make the struggle that they’re going through easier, but they’re usually different. Some people drink, some people smoke, some people pretend there is no problem. There are healthy and unhealthy coping mechanisms, and people will vary the one they use depending on the problem they’re facing. In The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, the author and her family deal with their struggles in multiple different ways as time goes on. However, the severity of her situation means that the methods she uses to deal with it are very important. That’s why it’s bad that Jeanette’s and her family have such unhealthy coping mechanisms, such
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls deals with hardships with what she went through in her life. Life is just a big game in my eyes. For example things come unexpectedly that will knock you down over and over again, and it how you respond and react to the struggles that bring all of the success. So remember, that it’s not about how hard life hits, it’s about how many times you can get up, shake it off, and move forward in your life. That to me is the key to growing up successful. Like the Glass Castle, I have had hardships of my own.
The Glass Castle, written by Jeannette Walls, is an autobiography that has been enjoyed by many. It encompasess many themes that deal with the darker sides of life. Issues such as alcoholism, abandonment, and poverty are just a few that plague the family in this book. This personal story offers an insight to the childhood of Jeannette Walls. As an outsider looking in, it is crazy to think that such a young girl went through so many traumatic events, but to her, those events were nothing out of the ordinary. Her parents were different than most. They were guilty of constantly uprooting the kids, not holding steady work, and not always providing for the needs of their children. Strangely enough, through their eyes they were doing everything right and
The book of "The Glass Castle" by Jeannette Wall’s a powerful and emotional memory. It was published in March 2005 in New York City. The novel is about the author's personal life. I'm very thankful for her willing to share her story. In this memoir, she told us the strength, sham and the growth of age she went through.
Jeannette’s mother, Rose Mary is another story altogether; there is very little about what her parents were like. There was the time when the kids found the diamond ring and the mother refused to sell it, even though Jeannette had to point out that they could buy some food. "That’s true, Mom said, but it could also improve my self esteem. And at times like these, self esteem is even more vital than food" (p. 186, para 2).
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
Throughout the Glass Castle there is a constant shift in Jeanettes tone through her use of diction. Her memoir is centered around her memories with her family, but mainly her father Rex Walls. Although it is obvious through the eyes of the reader that Rex is an unfit parent and takes no responsibility for his children, in her childhood years Jeanette continually portrays Rex as an intelligent and loving father, describing her younger memories with admiration in her tone. The capitalization of “Dad” reflects Jeannette’s overall admiration for her father and his exemplary valor. “Dad always fought harder, flew faster, and gambled smarter than everyone else in his stories”(Walls 24). Jeanette also uses simple diction to describe her father, by starting sentences with, “Dad said,” over and over. By choosing to use basic language instead of stronger verbs, she captures her experience in a pure and honest tone.
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.
There are several different social issues presented in Jeannette Wall’s memoir “The Glass Castle.” These issues included neglect – medical and education,
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls is a harrowing and heartbreaking yet an inspiring memoir of a young girl named Jeannette who was deprived of her childhood by her dysfunctional and unorthodox parents, Rex and Rose Mary Walls. Forced to grow up, Walls stumbled upon coping with of her impractical “free-spirited” mother and her intellectual but alcoholic father, which became her asylum from the real world, spinning her uncontrollably. Walls uses pathos, imagery, and narrative coherence to illustrate that sometimes one needs to go through the hardships of life in order to find the determination to become a better individual.