Analysis Of Jeannette Walls's The Glass Castle

She frequently contrasts the characters in Ellen’s life with the African-Americans she meets. A few notable examples of the people in Ellen’s life are her alcoholic and abusive father, her spiteful grandmother, and her insensitive and stubborn Aunt Nadine, who calls her a liar and tells her to, “…find herself evil little self some hole for to crawl in” on Christmas day. On the other hand, Starletta’s family, although poor and “colored”, loves each other deeply and makes sacrifices for each other, like the expensive presents her family bought her for Christmas. Also, the colored families who live in the houses that Ellen repeatedly spies on seem to be content and happy with what little they have, while Ellen rich grandmother is hateful with her treasures. Gradually over time, Ellen begins to realize that the colored people she regarded as inferior are really better people than she

In Jeannette Walls’ Memoir “the Glass Castle,” she writes about her struggle being raised in poverty and discusses her relationship with her father. In “The Glass Castle,” Jeannette constantly writes about her relationship with her father and the significant impact he has on her. Jeannette shows us both the ugly and pretty in her father but that has never stopped her from admitting how inspirational her father was to her. One can only agree that Rex Walls was everything but a negative impact on Jeannette Walls live. In many instances he has managed to make her feel unique, beautiful, smart, and independent. Jeannette’s eagerness to quickly forgive her father is already a reason to why Rex Wall’s plays such a positive impact on her

Author Jeanette Walls is an example of someone who has preserved and made something of herself despite the fact that she has a less-than-normal childhood. Her parents Rose Mary and Rex Walls struggled at time to parent efficiently, as shown in Jeannette Walls’ memoir of her childhood The Glass Castle. In the recalling of her unique and sometimes disturbing childhood, Walls paints a picture of inadequate parenting, dangerous techniques used on her siblings and herself, and events that may have inflicted permanent damage on the Walls children. Not only Jeannette, but her other siblings Brian, Lori, and Maureen Walls were also negatively affected by the way they were raised and the things that happened to them under their parent’s watch. Rose

Early in the memoir, Jeannette is old enough to recognize the difference between the rich and poor. However, seeing herself on the shorter side of the stick doesn’t bother her when she condemns a wealthy lifestyle while star-gazing with Rex, saying, “Rich city folks,... lived in fancy apartments, but their air was so polluted they couldn’t even see the stars. We’d have to be out of our minds to want to trade places with any of them” (Walls 39). Jeannette effectively compares her poor lifestyle to a luxurious, rich one and surprisingly dismisses it. Doing so illustrates and proves the fact that at this point in her life she is satisfied with her socio-economic status, because otherwise, she would desire a rich life out of envy. Since this is true, Jeannette must not be self-conscious about her wealth, and therefore her poor lifestyle has no effect on her self-esteem. Clearly, her self-esteem is healthy enough to decline a rich lifestyle that most people crave. Similarly, while stargazing, it is revealed that Jeannette has no remorse with being poor when she mocks other children’s materialistic Christmas presents, “We laughed about all the kids who believed in the Santa myth and got nothing for Christmas but a bunch

Writer, Jeannette Walls, in her memoir, The Glass Castle, provides an insight into the fanciful and shocking life of growing up poor and nomadic with faux-grandiose parents in America. With her memoir, Wall's purpose was to acknowledge and overcome the difficulties that came with her unusual upbringing. Her nostalgic but bitter tone leaves the reader with an odd taste in their mouth. In some memories, the author invites her audience to look back on with fondness; others are viewed through bulletproof glass and outrage.

At one point in the memoir, Jeannette’s mother, Rose Mary Walls, told Jeannette to expect a check in the mail, but her father, Rex Walls, got to it before she did and denied the fact that he had the check. This money was for the food that they were desperately trying to buy. Instead of Jeannette saying a word to her dad, she knew that saying something would not get the money back, so she took initiative while her mother was gone and did her best to find a job and make up the “lost”

People often fall into some sticky situations, but how they deal with them is the thing that matters most. In The Glass Castle, a memoir by Jeannette Walls, she takes the readers through her life, starting at her earliest memory as a three-year-old, constantly living in a state of homelessness. Throughout the story, Walls experiences countless situations from her father being an alcoholic, to everyday school bullies. She uses a series of coping mechanisms to deal with, and sometimes terminate these issues. In fact, everyone of her siblings and parents uses various coping methods for these same situations. These methods may not always be the most effective, but people, including the Walls family, nevertheless use them to get by on their

As flames engulfed her dress, they burned down her stomach as she screamed for help. This was the first memory Jeannette Walls had in The Glass Castle . The plot of the story reveals her childhood of poverty as she moved around the country with her delusional family. Her alcoholic father and mentally ill mother created a very different lifestyle for their children, and raised them like no other. The unique plot, strong characters, and many settings make the novel successful. In this autobiography, she perseveres through tough times and leads the reader down the path she took to adulthood.

The human experience of an outcast is illustrated by Jeannette Walls in The Glass Castle by the element of chaos expressed throughout the book, the parents’ refusal to conform to social standards, and the poverty that shaped her childhood.

Jeannette Walls is an American writer in journalist who found success in New York City, most notably writing a gossip column for MSNBC in which she details the effects of gossip in politics. She published her memoir, The Glass Castle, in 2005. The book spent 261 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list. In it, Walls recounts her childhood while growing up in an unstable family with her father and mother, Rex and Rose Mary Walls, her older sister Lori, and her younger brother and sister, Brian and Maureen. Rex and Rose Mary could not settle down and constantly uprooted their family of six to different locations in the southwest region of America. Neither parent could keep a job and struggled to feed and put a roof over their heads. In the novel, Walls views her parents as irresponsible because it rarely seems as though Rex and Rose Mary genuinely want to work and make money to support the family. They thrive off their sense of adventure, as they drive all over the country in a rundown car, looking for their latest shack to pile their family into, usually without running water, heat, or indoor plumbing. Walls will tell the story of her childhood through a series of pivotal moments that ultimately shape her opinion of her parents and lead her to a successful career in New York City.

She did not let her condition or circumstances weigh her down. Instead, she channeled her shame of being a forager as motivation to leave Welch. While living in Welch, Walls becomes conscious of opinions of others. “We can’t keep dumping garbage out there... what are people going to think?” (pg 157)

In the memoir, The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls is fond of her parents who have decided to live in a unwealthy lifestyle. Looking back into Jeannette Walls’ memoir, she came across a woman who offer her a ride after her car breaks down in the middle of the highway. During the ride home, Jeanette is put off by the woman’s constant use of the word poor. She tells the stranger “We’re

Jeannette’s childhood, along with her siblings’ and even parents’ lives, are long battles for inclusion since they are much alike the rejected individuals of society that Vanier heartfully defends. Jeannette Walls is raised in a series of undeniably improper circumstances, which causes her to begin experiencing exclusion and rejection from a very young age. The Walls family is one of the lowest classes in society, which furthers Jeannette and her siblings’ exclusion since they are viewed by others as less important. On more than one occasion, Jeannette realizes that lower-class citizens are treated with less respect and inclusion than higher-class citizens, which makes her want to strive to belong with the latter group. In The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, the continuous exclusion that Jeannette faces throughout her childhood leads her to believe that happiness is created with money, status, and normality, and this ideology prevents her from being able to feel as though she truly

However, Ellen hates her, she describes her as a miserly, and cruel old lady, who has barely ever spoken to her. At her grandmother’s house, Ellen is completely miserable. Her grandmother makes Ellen work in her farm fields in the awful burning sun. Ellen’s grandmother blames her for her mother’s death, and she says that Ellen is just like her disgusting father.

Though she is not exactly able to act like a fourteen year old girl at this point, she is able to escape from the harshness that her grandmother had been forcing upon her for so long. Whitewashing the stairs, for Eréndira was a relief from the exhausting work that she had been slaving over to pay back her grandmother. Yet, she still “found herself […] under the