Analysis Of The Glass Castle By Jeannee Walls

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.

“Have I ever let you down?” (Walls). Rex Walls asks his children this question numerous times throughout the book. It shows how he is denying all the times he acts out and damages his family. In the children’s opinion, Rex is destroying the family piece by piece by being selfish with his intimidating threats. Leaving the children scared gives him more power and control over the family. Although well intentioned, Rex, from The Glass Castle written by Jeannette Walls, is self-absorbed, and thus impacts his children in a negative way.

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

In the same fashion, dealing with Maureen Walls, the youngest child of the Walls family, had to rely on her friends and people she hardly knew to provide for her. This situation went as far as Maureen going to her friend’s house to eat meals and

In her younger years, Jeannette was an smart and imaginative child. At first, she enjoyed moving around, and had a lot of faith in her father, which created a good relationship between them. “All we had to was find gold, once we’d struck it rich, he’d [Rex] start work on our Glass Castle” (Walls, 25). The tremendous faith that she has in Rex creates a strong bond because she is the only family member who trusts his ideas. Unfortunately, he is a raging alcoholic who can’t hold a job, so most of his promises are broken. As Jeannette gets older, he lets her down more and more. One time he brought her to a bar where she was then sexually violated. When the two had a talk after, he said “I knew you could handle yourself” (Walls, 213,) instead of defending her. It was upsetting to watch their relationship grow apart and to see how poorly he provided for his family, yet they still loved him.

A trauma narrative is a narrative that describes an experience or experiences that cause someone to be destressed and cannot be incorporated into their memory easily. Throughout her own traumatic narrative, Jeannette Wall’s describes different aspects of her everyday life that showcase various levels of significance. She is able to show how certain life events impact her plans for escaping her current socioeconomic status and her plans for the future. The text is also able to tell us about trauma, poverty, ourselves, and our society. Furthermore, the text demonstrates the impact that trauma and poverty can have and how they can have lasting effects. These concepts help us to think about our own life experiences and situations and they also show us how to be analytical about our society. Lastly, this narrative is able to reveal to us the different aspects of a traumatic childhood and how important and impactful this type of upbringing can be. Jeannette Walls uses her own traumatic autobiography to show that despite her adverse upbringing in poverty and passive and unattached parenting she was able to become successful. The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls, shows the benefits and the value that can come from having a traumatic narrative. This is significant because it shows that an experience can shape a person, but a person can also shape the experience.

Having parents that tried so hard to set themselves apart from society, all while struggling to earn money, had an impact on their children's lives, and it wasn't for the better. These children lived to struggle. With a bad home life, and parents that didn't seem to care for them enough, Jeannette, Brian, Maureen, and Lori Walls all eventually moved away from their careless parents, to New York. Although it took time for Lori and Jeannette Walls to save up what little money they had, due to the fact that the father continually stole it, they were able to move to New York successfully. Later in the memoir, their parents also decide to move there, except they don't try to better their lives like their

“Things usually work out in the end." "What if they don't?" "That just means you haven't come to the end yet.” That small but powerful excerpt comes from the incredible biography “The Glass Castle” by Jeannette Walls. The Glass Castle is a 269 page Memoir about the unconventional, poverty-stricken, and dysfunctional life of Jeannette Walls and her three siblings.

Living in Welch was a very life changing time for Jeannette Walls, author of The Glass Castle. In her book, she lives in many places but doesn't stay in the same place for long. Welch was the longest place her and her family lived. As Jeannette lived her life in Welch she kept running into unbearable situations which was due to her parents lack of ability to take care of them correctly. Unlike before Jeannette starts to realize these faults in her parents. Her mother had a job and was getting a steady income but on page 198, she says , ¨So even though she had a steady job, we were living pretty much like we had before.¨ Not only did Jeannette realize her mother could not handle money she also saw her unable to hold a job and her irresponsibility

The memoir, The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls, shows the constant battle between stability and chaos. Throughout the battle Jeannette shows a copious amount of maturity and placidity. One occurrence in her life proves this point.

In the memoir, The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls, the author, was most influenced by her time in Battle Mountain, as indicated by how she describes the way she felt there. The Walls children loved being free to roam the area and make up games to play. In the book Walls writes, “DAD GOT A JOB AS an electrician in a barite mine. He left early and came home early, and in the afternoons we all played games.” (Walls.54) Jeannette loved that her dad finally had a job and could buy her things. She said they even were able to go out to week a few times a week. This was a treat for the children since they were used to having to find their own food. She also loved how her dad would play games with them when he got home from work. It gave her a sense

Survival tactics have a big influence on self-sufficiency. For example in the book The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls, who wrote a memoir about herself growing up. The author explains throughout her writing, all the hardships that her and her family went through, about how she and her siblings basically raised themselves. Also how they had to fend for themselves when it came to basic necessities, such as food, and clothes. This book really paints a vivid picture of how the kids use self-sufficiency in order to survive. Self-sufficiency plays the biggest role in influencing the characters in the books we have read this year, because they use it as a survival tactic.

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls touched upon many topics including alcoholism, mental illness, and poverty. One specific topic that seemed to be particularly attention-grabbing was the possibility that her mom had bipolar disorder, or some other possible mental illness. There are so many people in the world who have some form of a mental illness, and many go undiagnosed. Some that are never diagnosed go through their life needing help or maybe even becoming a danger to others. Despite the bad reputation mental problems get, people are able to overcome their struggle and live normal lives with the proper medicine and help. The Glass Castle is one example of how mental illness is a part of many people’s lives.

In the memoir The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, the Walls children go on perilous adventures and are given independence from society’s rules and dicipline as a result of their parents’ beliefs. However, they are oftentimes wishing they had the security and comfort offered from a “normal” upbringing. Living a stable, sheltered life with parents that protect and disipline me and a fair chance to comfortably raise a family in the future, it is hard to even comprehend why someone would risk it at an attempt to escape the unwritten laws of civilization. In a world where freedom always comes at a heavy cost and the future of a child is never guaranteed, and in a world where children have easier access to knives and guns than to an opportunity to settle down after a safe and fruitiful life, it is difficult for me to see why a child would not be taught to follow society’s fail-proof blueprint for prosperity.

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.