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Essay on symbolism in The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls
Essays about effects of alcohol on families
Essays about effects of alcohol on families
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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 …show more content…
Choose at least three symbols and explain what these objects represent:
The Glass Castle symbolizes the illusions that Jeannette must release in order to fully mature. For years, Dad has made blueprints and floor plans for a magnificent transparent palace built in the desert and relying on solar panels for electricity.
Fire is present in The Glass Castle from one of the very first scenes, when Jeannette accidentally lights herself on fire while making hot dogs as a three-year-old. Fire is both a source of heat and light and a force for destruction.
The Joshua tree symbolizes the strength and beauty that can arise from dysfunction. As Mom tells Jeannette, the tree’s struggle is what gives the tree its beauty. This symbol can be applied to Jeannette’s need to surmount incredible difficulties in the process of growing up.
9. Choose at least one theme that recurs throughout the story and two specific examples of this
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Jeannette 's father, Rex Walls, suffers from severe alcoholism. Throughout the novel, not only Rex himself is affected by this, but his family too is brought down and hurt by this also. When sober, Rex was a very smart and intellectual individual, but due to his abuse of alcohol these good attributes of his are taken over by alcohol. For example, when sober, he would teach his children physics, Morse code, and other skills. All of this changes when he gets drinks. After drinking, he becomes a mad person who throws around chairs and threatens his wife and other people who come across
As much as Walls loved her father, she realized he would “never build that Glass Castle. But we had fun planning it.” (279) Rex told them that special kids could have “those shining stars, he liked to point out, were one of the special treats for people like us who lived out in the wilderness.” (39) Walls really felt special when her mother said, “life’s too short to worry about what other people think. Anyway, they should accept us for who we are.” (157) This vicious cycle proves to the reader that Walls never had a way to escape from her parent’s cruel ways; she grew up thinking like her parents did. This cruel way of thinking made Rex feel good about himself while making Walls’ feel special. The idea of the Glass Castle gave Walls a sense of hope that her dad would stay true to his word, but the impracticable idea of a house of glass symbolizes just how unstable the Walls’ foundation was. Walls said, “As awful as he could be, I always knew he loved me in a way no one else ever had.” (279) Rex never had the stability to protect her and she knew he would endanger her. Walls’ father Rex had extraordinary power in convincing Walls that he only wanted the best for her, even while causing her to
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).
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.
By keeping Dinitia away from Erma, Jeannette protects her from Erma's racism. By protecting her former bully, Jeannette shows how caring she is. Additionally, Jeannette believes in people and chooses to see the good in them. When Brian accuses their father of spending all his money on booze, Jeannette defends him (Walls 78). Her father says, "I swear, honey, there are times when I think you're the only one around who still has faith in me" (Walls 78).
Conflicts influence someone’s actions and decisions because they can control whether to make it bigger or make it better. In this case, Rex made some decisions to make things have a good turnout instead of bad. Jeannette uses many literary devices to tell this book, and to introduce adversity. There were many other conflicts in the book that turned out bad, because of the decisions that were made. Bravery is something Jeannette and her family have, because of everything they have dealt with and been through. Adversity popped up often in the book, Jeannette made people realize it by her literary
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.
Jeannette and her siblings learn to provide for themselves and try to avoid the continuous problems caused by their parents and others around them. The effects of poverty, as witnessed through The Glass Castle, are still felt throughout America today.
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
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
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.
Prose , Francine. "The New York Times > Books > Sunday Book Review > 'The Glass Castle':Outrageous Misfortune." The New York Times. The New York Times Company, 13 Mar 2005. Web. 31 Jan 2011. .
As I read the Glass Castle, the way Rose Mary behaves, thinks and feels vary greatly and differently throughout the memoir. The immediate question that pops up in my mind is to ask whether Rose Mary carries some sort of mental illness. Fortunately, given the hints and traits that are relevant to why Rose Mary lives like that in the memoir, we, the readers, are able to make some diagnosis and assumptions on the kind of mental illness she may carry. To illustrate, one distinctive example is when Rose Mary blames Jeannette for having the idea to accept welfare. “Once you go on welfare, it changes you. Even if you get off welfare, you never escape the stigma that you were a charity case.” (188). In my opinion, Rose Mary is being nonsense and contractive in her criticism, because of Rose Mary’s resistances to work and to accept welfare, it often causes a severe food shortage within the family that all four little children have to find food from trash cans or move on with hunger, which could lead to a state of insufficient diet. More importantly, having welfare as a way to solve food shortage, it can certainly improve those young Walls children’s poor nutrition and maintain their healthy diet, but Rose Mary turns it down because she thinks it is a shame to accept welfare despite their children are suffering from starvation. Another example will be when Rose Mary abandons all of her school work for no reason. “One morning toward the end of the school year, Mom had a complete meltdown. She was supposed to write up evaluations of her students’ progress, but she’d spent every free minute painting, and now the deadline was on her and the evaluations were unwritten” (207). This is one of the moments when Rose Mary shifts all of her attentio...
...life living with yet loving parents and siblings just to stay alive. Rosemary and Rex Walls had great intelligence, but did not use it very wisely. 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. Showing that it does not matter what life throws at us we can take it. Rosemary and Rex Walls may not have been the number one parents in the world however they were capable in turning their children into well-educated adults.
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.