' The Glass Wall, By Jeannette Walls

1185 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Jeannette walls memoir the glass castle essay

Jeannette Walls The Glass Castle is split into 4 sections A Woman In the Street, The Desert, Welch Section, and New York City. Each section has its own individual sections and each of these sections the first few words is bolded. The book also contains pages for praise from critics, a picture of Jeannette Walls parents on their wedding day, a dedication, and an acknowledgements page.
Chapter Summaries
Section 1 The Woman On The Street: In this short section Jeannette Walls tells a story the recently happened to her rather than during her childhood. Jeannette Walls is taking a ride in a taxi on the way to a party in New York City. On the way she sees her mother, who is homeless, picking through the garbage. After a few moments of watching her mother, she asks the driver to take her home. Alone at home while her husband is at work she thinks about her mother's lifestyle and calls a friend who keeps in contact with her mother to setup a meeting with Rose Mary, her mother, at a chinese restaurant. At the restaurant Walls discusses her mother's lifestyle and asks what she can do to help because she is ashamed of Mary. Mary proceeds to tell Jeannette that being shameful is foolish and to accept her way of life.
Section 2 The Desert: A three-year-old walls is cooking hot dogs on a stove and tries to feed her dog when her dress catches on fire and badly burns her. Her mother wraps Jeannette in a blanket and carries her to a neighbors car which takes them to the hospital. At the hospital Jeannette has to get skin grafts from her thighs to replace to burned skin. The nurses are worried about her family's nomadic lifestyle, but says she is okay with it. Jeannettes dad pops in and says that they are “skedaddling” and leave the hospital wi...

... middle of paper ...

...s her that he raped her and the next day comes to her house shooting his BB gun at the house. In retaliation the kids shoot Rex’s gun. The police come to check out what happened and the family decides to leave for their grandma Smith’s house in Phoenix. They arrive in Phoenix only to find out that grandma Smith is dead and her house is inherited by her daughter Mary Rose. The house is 14-rooms, the front rooms converted to a studio by Jeanette's mother. Once again the kids are enrolled in school and have to take their eye and hearing exams. Everyone passes except Lori who has to get glasses and is surprised how clear she can see. Jeannettes parents like to leave the windows open and one day during the night a stranger came into Jeannette’s room touching her private areas. Brian, Jeannette, and her father try to look for him after chasing him off. Reading the paper

Show More
Related

  • Changes in Tone Throughout the Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

    646 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Archetypes In Jeannee Castle's The Glass Castle

    850 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Child And Childhood In Jeannee Castle's The Glass Castle

    1201 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Glass Castle is a memoir written by Jeannette Walls about her family. In this story she tells about her adventurous and dangerous childhood that shaped her to be the person she is today. Which is a strong, optimistic, responsible woman who knows how to roll with the burns and the punches literally. Brian, who is younger than Jeannette was her partner in crime in all her childhood memories. Maureen was the youngest she was not too close with the family and if I had one way to describe her it would be lost. Lori was oldest sibling and the total opposite. She was more reserved and very into her art. Which she took after their mother, RoseMary. RoseMary was a selfish woman, she would constantly put herself first. She was also, very weak and

    Read More

  • In the Fall, by Alistair Macleod

    1297 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...e on her part. Throughout the story, the Mother is portrayed as the dominant figure, which resembled the amount of say that the father and children had on matters. Together, the Father, James, and David strived to maintain equality by helping with the chickens and taking care of Scott; however, despite the effort that they had put in, the Mother refused to be persuaded that Scott was of any value and therefore she felt that selling him would be most beneficial. The Mother’s persona is unsympathetic as she lacks respect and a heart towards her family members. Since the Mother never showed equality, her character had unraveled into the creation of a negative atmosphere in which her family is now cemented in. For the Father, David and James, it is only now the memories of Scott that will hold their bond together.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Glass Castle By Jeanette Walls

    1001 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Examples Of Idealism In The Glass Castle By Jeannette Walls

    818 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Glass Castle By Jeannette Walls Analysis

    403 Words  | 1 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Social Issues Presented in Jeannette Wall's Memoir, The Glass Castle

    1075 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls

    768 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...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.

    Read More

  • The Glass Castle By Jeannette Walls: Literary Analysis

    817 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Homelessness in "The Glass Castle"

    1263 Words  | 3 Pages

    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. .

    Read More

  • The Negative Effects Of Homelessness In The Glass Castle

    1568 Words  | 4 Pages

    The author of the book The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls, lived an unbelievable childhood that no child should have to go through. Throughout her story she told, she overcame lots of difficult situations that her parents had put her and her siblings in. Throughout most of her life, her family did not live in one place for very long. She wanted to change this and have a place that she could actually call home. Her parents did not provide for the children to the best of their abilities and because of this, they suffered from many situations that some people could not even imagine. One of these was homelessness. In The Glass Castle, Jeannette and her siblings experience first hand homelessness when they move to New York

    Read More

  • The Importance Of Education In The Glass Castle

    1031 Words  | 3 Pages

    Jeannette and her siblings were left without a proper education due to the fact of their parents' weird way living. The Walls children were always moving from place to place because of Rex and Rosemary. Parent interaction in their children's educational learning has a big effect in the ending. If a parent is involved, asks about their child's schoolwork, how their day was, etc., the child will do better in school because their parent actually cares. On the other hand, if a parent rarely shows interest in their child's school studies, the child may believe that they do not have to try hard in their studies because the parent will no...

    Read More

  • Success in The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

    803 Words  | 2 Pages

    What is the source of your success? My own definition of success is about overcoming my obstacles and hardships. If I can’t overcome the obstacles and hardships along the way, then I will try again so that I am more prepared and have the right knowledge. I want to meet obstacles and hardships because I want to feel the pleasure of success when I overcome them. In order for me to overcome and embrace hardships, I need to find the missing link, have the right knowledge, and practice effective time management.

    Read More

  • The Roles of Parenting Style in The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

    1211 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

More about ' The Glass Wall, By Jeannette Walls

Open Document