People tend to have differing views on what may be considered child abuse, yet the fact stands that trauma can affect a child’s entire lifetime. The Glass Castle is a memoir by Jeannette Walls that details the story of her childhood as her family moved all across the United States. Specifically, Walls goes into depth on her most memorable moments, such as the neglect and abuse she and her siblings suffered from at the hands of their parents. Particular examples of these memories are when she and her siblings had to live off of butter and sugar, since their parents used up all their money on everything but necessities, or when Jeannette had to rummage through dumpsters to find what they needed to survive. In The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, …show more content…
All three Walls children are exposed to the physical abuse their mother faces at the hands of their father, permanently scarring the children and influencing their future views on relationships. Rex and Rose Mary fought which led to Rose Mary launching herself out of a moving vehicle into the desert, the same vehicle that Rex then proceeded to tail her with, “Finally, Dad cornered Mom against some rocks. I was afraid he might smush her with the car, but instead he got out and dragged her back, legs flailing, and threw her into the car” (Walls 43). As an adolescent, Jeannette has no other exposure to relationships outside that of her parents, so any future bonds that she forms will heavily be influenced by the way her parents interact and show affection to one another. By exposing her and her siblings to domestic abuse, Rex and Rose Mary are training their children to tolerate abuse from others later in their life, and therefore, hindering their ability to fully pursue life. After being out for awhile, Rex returns in a drunken rage searching for Rose Mary, “He found Mom in the bathroom, crouched in the tub. As she darted past him, he grabbed her dress, and she started
In the book, The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls is trying to tell us that her parents are taking her happiness away. In this section, young Jeannette is witnessing how her parents get into argument about money and disrespect people who are trying to help their condition. Walls says, “I thought Grandma Smith was great. But after a few weeks, she and Dad would always get into some nasty hollering match. It might start with Mom mentioning how short we were on cash” (Walls 20).
Every day the safety and well-being of many children are threatened by neglect. Each child deserves the comfort of having parents whom provide for their children. Throughout the memoir, The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls explains the childhood from being born into the hands of parent who neglect their children. Many may argue that children need to grow with their parents; however, the removal of children is necessary if the parents disregard the kid’s needs and cannot provide a stable life for their children.
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.
The boundary between turbulence and order, a zone said to have no rules, like the Walls family. They didn’t live life like everyone else, there were no set rules they made or followed, and for the most part, the Walls family didn’t even follow the law. The Walls children’s life was built upon not having their parents tell them what to do and what not to do. Throughout the memoir, The Glass Castle, Jeannette endured many situations where she and her family are either pushing the boundary or are more on one side of it. Put simply, the Walls family epitomizes the line that separates chaos and control.
The Struggle Of Building Adversity means difficulties or misfortune. When someone's dealing with things or a situation turns out to go against them, they face adversity. Adversity is something someone comes across in life, it's like being part of a person. Decisions and actions are influenced by a lot of things. Conflicts influence all kinds of actions and decisions, depending on the person.
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
The Glass Castle is a memoir of the writer Jeannette Walls life. Her family consists of her father Rex Walls, her mother Rose Mary Walls, her older sister Lori Walls, her younger brother Brian Walls and her younger sister Maureen Walls. Jeannette Walls grew up with a lot of hardships with her dad being an alcoholic and they never seemed to have any money. Throughout Jeanette’s childhood, there are three things that symbolize something to Jeannette, they are fire, New York City and the Glass Castle, which shows that symbolism gives meanings to writing.
When you think about your childhood, how would you describe it? Lonely? Happy? Different? Chaotic? Restrictive? Angry? Whatever word or phrase you use to describe your childhood, undoubtedly you would agree that how we are raised as children impact and shape our life as we grow up. Whether we duplicate our parents style of teaching, habits, or behavior we usually are affected by what we see and deem to be the right or wrong course of action. In The Glass Castle, the Walls children experience a very dysfunctional, chaotic, and untraditional way of life. Their parents believe in nonconformity and they are very permissive in terms of parenting. They would spend most of their time wrapped up in their own interests foregoing
The Glass Castle is a book about the childhood and adolescence of Jeannette Wells, the daughter of Rex and Rose Mary Walls. Throughout her childhood, she moved all over the country with her family, moving from one town to the next, often lacking food and good clothes, and living in a state of perpetual poverty. Once the children have grown up, they go to New York, where they live out their dreams while their parents live on the streets. There has been much debate whether Mary and Rex are bad parents are not. Even though their childhood was less than ideal, the fact that they survived and are now productive citizens means that they were better off living with their parents than in a foster home.
My family isn 't like the Walls family because my parents would never treat my sister and I like their parents treated them, my family and I have a decent living situation, and we would never hurt any animal. From the beginning, Rex and Rose Mary treated their kids wrong and didn 't take responsibility as parents. Every child deserves a loving home and should never have to worry if they are going to eat that night. West Virginia also seemed a lot different then because the laws are more strict now. The way the Walls are, they would get in trouble for the way they treated their kids, animals, and even their living space. "Mom always said people worry too much about their children. Suffering when you 're young is good for you, she said. It immunized
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.
Education plays a big role in our daily lives. Education is commonly defined as a process of learning and obtaining knowledge. The story takes place beginning in the late 1950s to the early 2000s. Jeannette Walls is the main character of the story and the narrator. She tells the events of her life living with careless and yet loving parents. This family of six lived in many cities and towns and went through tough states to stay alive. Her mother and father never kept a good steady job, but they had great intelligence. Jeannette and her siblings barely went to school to get the proper education they needed. In the book The Glass Castle, author Jeanette Walls discovers the idea that a conservative education may possibly not always be the best education due to the fact that the Walls children were taught more from the experiences their parents gave them than any regular school or textbook could give them. In this novel readers are able to get an indication of how the parents Rex and Rosemary Walls, choose to educate and give life lessons to their children to see the better side of their daily struggles.
Rex Walls While growing up in life, children need their parents to teach them and lead them on the path to a successful future. In the Glass Castle Rex Walls, Jeannette’s father, neglects to take care of his duties as a father figure in Jeannette’s life. In the same way, he teaches her to be strong and independent at a very young age. As we read through the story, we see the special relationship that Jeannette shares with her father. Even though he, in many instances, failed to protect his children, refused to take responsibility for them, and even stole from them, Jeannette still loved him until his death for two reasons: one, for his ability to make her feel special, and two, because he is a never-ending source of inspiration.
Could the dysfunction of the Walls family have fostered the extraordinary resilience and strength of the three older siblings through a collaborative set of rites of passage? One could argue that the unusual and destructive behavior of the parents forced the children into a unique collection of rites of passage that resulted in surprisingly resilient and successful adults. In moving back to Welch, Virginia, the children lost what minimal sense of security they may have enjoyed while living in their grandmother’s home in Arizona. The culture and climate (both socially and environmentally) along with an increased awareness of their poverty resulted in a significant loss of identity. As they learned new social and survival skills in this desperate environment, there is a powerful sense of camaraderie between the older children. Their awareness, drive and cunning survival skills while living in Welch result in a developing sense of confidence in their ability to survive anything. This transition, while wretched, sets the stage for their ability to leave their environment behind with little concern for a lack of success. As the children leave, one by one, to New York, they continue to support one another, and emerge as capable, resourceful young adults.
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.