An Impeccable Memoir
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
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and internal conflict of constantly being held responsible for everybody's issue and mistakes. The incredible character development, disturbing truth behind the multiple settings, and themes throughout the whole novel made it all the worthwhile. This memoir focuses on the development and growing maturity of Jeannette and her parents, Rex, and Rose Mary Walls.
As an intelligent and dynamic protagonist, Jeannette shows the reader her opinions on her impoverished life style. The novel begins when she is only three years old and continues into her adulthood, providing insight into her mind. As a child, Jeannette is adventurous, wild-hearted, and Rex's favorite child because of her forgiving nature and willingness to trust in him, despite his destructive nature. In the beginning of the novel Walls states, "He told me I was his favorite child, but he made me promise not to tell Lori or Brian or Maureen. It was our secret. 'I swear, honey, there are times when I think you're the only one around who still has faith in me,' he said. 'I don't know what I'd do if you ever lost it.' I told him that I would never lose faith in him. And I promised myself I never would" (78-79). Jeannette, chooses to be optimistic and positive even though it is clear her family is far from being well off. Throughout her early childhood, she ignores her father's drunken escapades, and thinks of him as a loving father and excellent teacher of the wild. It isn't until her junior year of high school that she realizes the indisputable flaws her father has. She begins to resent his constant drinking and empty promises, the most important being the Glass Castle, he promised to build. Yet Rex never openly admits to it or allows his flaws to be discussed. …show more content…
Jeannette also begins to resent her mother, whom she’s never been close to. Some cause of her resentment includes her mom’s refusal to hold down a job long enough to provide her kids with a stable food supply, especially since Rex won’t be providing anything. This resentment eventually motivates her to move away from her parents. Jeannette is a natural forgiver, but this doesn’t stop her from being haunted by her past and with her transition from poverty into the upper-middle class. Towards the end of the novel, in regarding to her emotions to her parents, Walls wrote, “Things usually work out in the end.” “What if they don’t?” “that just means you haven’t come to the end yet" (259). By the end of the novel, Jeannette grows to be a symbol of the resilience and perseverance of humanity. One could begin to say that Rose Mary and Rex have become the antagonist of the novel. But the reader cannot forget the struggles both parents faced growing up. It can be assumed that the reason Rex drinks because his own childhood was surrounded by drugs in a town he couldn’t escape. He was also abused and molested by his mother. Although he has a brilliant mind and is an expert engineer, Rex cannot help but drink and gamble his emotion and income away. Overall, Rex grows to represent the downfall of humanity without a sense of discipline. As a self proclaimed “excitement addict,” Rose Mary is a free spirit who enjoys art and dislikes a life filled with rules, therefore valuing self-sufficiency. She resents her children because she sees them as standing between her and her dream life of an artist, but she sees them as a blessing because they are her companions. She does not lead a good example of her own values. Rose Mary is a symbol of the debilitating nature of selfishness and greed. Throughout the novel, these three main characters develop to become independent individuals who constantly interfere and disrupt each others’ lives. Throughout the novel there were nine major settings, all of which had a disturbing truth hidden behind them.
The first of which, is Tucson, Arizona, Jeannette’s birthplace. It was only until Jeannette was engulfed by fire at the age of three when the family decided to break her out of the hospital after two months and decides to move to Las Vegas, Nevada. Here, the family lives in a hotel. While living in Vegas, Rex develops a winning method for blackjack as a form of the family’s income. With the amount of money he continuously wins, Rex is able to afford luxury items. Eventually Rex's gambling method is finally discovered by casino staff, causing the family to perform “the skedaddle” and get out of town fast. After leaving Vegas, Rose Mary decides she wants to move to San Francisco. They stay in a hotel that is also a whorehouse, which causes Rose Mary and Rex to argue more than usual. During their time there Jeanette is fascinated with fire and starts to play with it in the bathroom. Ironically, a few nights later the hotel catches fire. Everyone escapes, but after the fire, the family has nowhere to go, so they decided to live in the car on the beach until asked to leave by the police. The parents decide they are fed up with civilization and want to move back to the desert. They then begin to head south towards Midland, California. In this small remote town, in the heart of the desert, Jeannette is fascinated way the way of life, from how the water comes by in a train
twice a day, to the little vegetation that surrounds her. In a conversation with Laurie, Walls says, 'We could live like this forever,' I said. 'I think we're going to,' she said” (18).This where Rex tells Jeannette, that if she shows no fear nothing can harm her. She carries these words throughout the rest of the novel. After only a couple months the family goes on the move to Blythe, California. In Blythe, the family lives in an apartment, and Jeanette goes to school for the first time. She is one of the smartest kids in the class and always raises her hand quickly when the teacher asks a question, leading her to be a favorite student. But out of jealousy, the other students call her a teacher's pet and pick on her because she is tall and skinny. Soon the family is on the move again and they end up in Battle Mountain. The Walls move into a former depot station that has no furniture, where children sleep in refrigerator boxes and the family uses spools that hold industrial cables as tables and chairs due to the lack of money. The neighborhood is full low income families and creeps, including a kid named Billy who tries to rape Jeannette. This event scarred Jeannette for the rest of her life because it is a reminder of the dangerous situations she was constantly placed in. Later, the family moves to Phoenix, the first place where the family leads an almost normal life. The house the family stays in used to be Jeanette's grandmother’s. It has fourteen rooms and trees in the yard, and french doors that Jeannette just loves. The children go to school and are all put into gifted reading groups. Rex gets a job as an electrician and has enough money for extra expenses, such as buying the children bicycles. Nonetheless there are still problems for the Walls. The house is infested with roaches, and termites and the neighborhood in is filled with a family of Gypsies and of perverts. Once the house is no longer manageable Rose Mary decides she wants to moves to Welch Virginia Rex’s home town, which he was less than happy about. The town is supposedly covered in coal mining dust and has limited sunlight, which makes living conditions hard. The family decides to go immediately to Rex's family home. The Walls children meet their grandparents and Uncle Stanley. Their grandmother, a stern obese woman, insists on being called Erma. Erma attempts to molest Brian while Rex and Rose Mary are in Phoenix collecting their belongings, which cause a mix of bad blood in the family. Once their parents return, the family moves out of the house and gets a place of their own. It is an old, run-down house at the top of a hill. To brighten the mood inside the house, Jeannette and Brian built the foundation to the Glass Castle, but it ended sadly, when Walls writes, “…and as Brian and I watched, the hole for the Glass Castle’s foundation slowly filled with garbage.” (155). The children begin to despise Welch and everything it has to offer, especially since Rose Mary becomes more selfish than ever and Rex’s drinking problem gets out of hand. Little by little the family is broken up as each individual moves to New York City for a better life away. The rest of the memoir carries out in New York, including Jeannette’s education, both marriages, and Rex’s death. One can conclude that the reason the family had to move so often was because of the little income they received and the risky situations each town provided.
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls is a memoir told from the perspective of a young girl (the author) who goes through an extremely hard childhood. Jeannette writes about the foodless days and homeless nights, however Jeannette uses determination, positivity, sets goals, and saves money, because of this she overcame her struggles. One of the ways Jeannette survived her tough childhood was her ability to stay positive. Throughout The Glass Castle, Jeannette was put in deplorable houses, and at each one she tries to improve it. “A layer of yellow paint, I realized would completely transform, our dingy gray house,” (Walls 180).
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.
She went off to seek the person she was meant to be. She had a purpose now, and this gave her a quest. She never gave up because she wrote the memoir from New York City and even saw her homeless mother as she passed by in a taxi on her way to her city apartment (Walls 9). Jeannette was determined on her quest and persevered through it all to become the person she is today. By utilizing symbolic, character, and situational archetypes such as fire, a hero, and a quest, Walls effectively conveys her theme of perseverance in her memoir, The Glass Castle.
Jeanette Walls’ memoir The Glass Castle and Marshall Bruce Mathers’ “Mockingbird” both contextually illustrate the undying love and compassion between a father figure and his offspring. In the memoir The Glass Castle, Jeannette anxiously believes that there is a monster under her bed. This results in her father, Rex Walls, taking her with him to try and find the monster under her bed so that they could face such a frightening beast together. They then check all over the house and end up going outside and Rex is bravely yelling and calling out this monster and Jeannette ends up joining him too. Eventually, after a lengthy period of time yelling at the monster, they ultimately decide that the monster is just a figment of Jeanette’s imagination. By calling out the monsters name, it is blandly obvious that Rex wanted to show Jeannette how to face her fears and confront them. Rex and Jeanette sit down and Rex explains to her “That [is] the thing to remember about all the monsters, Dad said: They love to frighten people, but the minute you stare them down, they turn tail and run. All you have to do, Mountain Goat, is show old Demon that you’re not afraid” (Walls 36). This quotation emphasizes the fact that the monsters that Jeanette perceives and the fear that she experiences, while lying in bed, is only a delusion created in the confines of her mind. In doing this, Rex Walls demonstrates the characteristics of an excellent father by demonstrating the compassion and love that he has for his child. Rex establishes this notion by teaching her life lessons, such as facing her fears, which prove to be helpful later on in the novel, as they assist Jeanette when she is in an anxiety provoking situations. The persona of a great father figure ...
Being more engaged in his drinking, and less engaged in his word was one thing Rex Walls was good at. After neglecting this promise Jeannette, his favorite daughter, who always believed in him, eventually sees how awful alcohol makes him. Leading her to draw a end with believing in her father's word saying, “you will never build the glass castle” (238). Which then causes Rex to go into an even bigger depression.
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.
...d to share their deepest and most private moments with their audience members, and this in turn will create a genuine, quality story. When asked if Jeannette Walls has fulfilled the duty given to her by William Faulkner, one should not even come close to hesitating with their response. In The Glass Castle, Walls shares some of the most personal and emotion-evoking moments of her life, and they clearly include the essential characteristics of writing as defined by Faulkner. With the expert use of Walls rhetorical strategy, she makes the reader see, hear, feel, and sense the emotion as if it is occurring firsthand. So, to conclude, Jeannette Walls has most definitely fulfilled Faulkner’s expectations of a writer by crafting a memoir stuffed with superb rhetorical strategies that thoroughly translates the events in Walls’ life to the readers in a very detailed manner.
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.
Jeannette and her father Rex have a hopeful beginning to their relationship which consists of its own heroic moments filled with many learning experiences, moments of trust, and source of comfort, which letter on took a disappointing end filled with, hypocrisy, lack of trust, lack of protection, alcohol addictions, and death.
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. .
...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.