Analysis Of The Glass Castle By Jeannette Walls

In a passage from “The Glass Castle,” Jeannette Walls describes what life was like growing up with her broken family and how she felt about it. Jeannette writes about how she feels about her younger sister, Maureen, and how she believes that she is failing Maureen. Jeannette promised Maureen that she will protect her, but with her manipulative, alcoholic father and selfish, depressed mother, it is a challenge to maintain that promise made at Maureen’s birth. She also includes how she was made the head of the household because her dysfunctional family couldn’t maintain their lives properly. At 13 years old, Jeannette had to create a budget of $200 over the course of two months for her two younger siblings while her mom and older sister were

Well-known book writer, Jeannette Walls, in her book, The Glass Castle, describes the dramatic mood altering effects of her struggles through life. Jeannette’s purpose is to show the readers her struggles throughout her childhood. She creates a dramatic tone in order to convey to her readers that you can make your dreams come true. In The Glass Castle, Jeannette uses powerful diction, very descriptive imagery, and symbolism.

The Glass Castle, a memoir by Jeannette Walls reveals one look into a dysfunctional family. This personal memoir is full of lessons of redemption and reliance for all. Jeannette and her siblings thrived with parents whose beliefs and stubborn ways of life, changed their children’s’ lives forever. Though their parent’s dreadful actions, the children tried to fend for them. Rex, a very brilliant man, when sober and Rose Mary, an inspirational artist, when not a panhandler risked their own lives daily. Even though Rex and Rose Mary’s lives were unstable at times, they would instill lessons into their children. Their philophies in life I believe relied on one another, which taught their children some

Jeannette begins to rediscover her optimism right away, noting things such as “New Yorkers, I figured, just pretended to be unfriendly” (Walls 246) and “Our apartment was bigger than the entire house on Little Hobart Street, and way fancier” (Walls 247) about the apartment Lori and her rented. Jeannette was also able to chase her dreams of being a journalist and writer in NYC. “I’d never been happier in my life” (Walls 248) she said about her first journalism job, despite the fact that she was overworked and underpaid. Her life continues to get better as she attends Barnard College, moves on to bigger, better jobs, and moves in with her stable boyfriend on Park Avenue. When her parents move to NYC and visit her, she is once again able to use positively connotated words towards them, finding positives in her mother like “her face had a healthy pink glow, and her eyes were clear and bright” (Wells 278). She was also able to reflect on her relationship with her father, saying that she “could not imagine what my life would be […] without him. As awful as he could be, I always knew he loved me in a way no one else ever had” (Walls 279). In the end, the book jumps five years into the future with Jeannette inviting her family to spend Thanksgiving at her home; Thanksgiving, which was a light, happy reunion, ends with the family

Throughout the story of loss, frustration, and redemption, Jeannette had responsibilities at a very young age. She learned how to fight for herself and how to let go- a valuable trait that if not developed, can ruin a person's life. She nursed her work ethic to a standard some could only dream of reaching, knowing that no one else would do it for her. Most of these people learn very late in life, but Walls had gone through trials that she gained knowledge from.

In life, you will encounter many complex situations some of which you would hope to repeat and others you would rather never speak of again. Jeannette Walls wrote about the good, the bad, and the ugly in her memoir, The Glass Castle.

One some level the Walls children perceive that their mother and father weight them down. In order to be successful they cannot be kept under their thumb. Each of the Walls children left their home in Welch to make a new beginning and create new identities that would not be associated with impecunious or slovenly. Maureen and Jeannette differ from the rest of the children because both grew independent and remote from their family overtime because their parents continued to leech from advantages earned from the life they built for themselves. In other words, they are more concerned with constructing families and careers of their own rather than relishing in the past.

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.

This shows that she was raised to be independent and self-sufficient by her parents. The theme of forgiveness is shown in the novel as Walls continues to forgive her parents for all of the terrible choices they made that negatively affected her and her sibling’s lives. The novel is written in the first-person point of view of the protagonist Jeannette Walls. Walls, the middle child of Rex and Rose Mary Walls, is hard-working, smart, and courageous.

The main character Jeanette walls and her older sister Lori walls represent the decision making process the best between the other characters in the memoir. Both of them recognized that living in poverty is not what they wanted. They would have sleepless nights and go days without eating food. As time went on they identified alternatives to try and end their poverty. Their type of poverty was situational because it happened through a situation involving their parents not keeping a steady job. After identifying alternatives they evaluated the alternatives and realized that their father would never stop drinking and change his ways on finding a good job. They later selected and implemented an alternative making a big decision to save up money behind their parents back and to leave their parents to move to new york, and start a new and successful life after leaving. In New York City, Jeannette was able to quickly s as a reporter, which has always been her life time goal. She and Lori began eating very well and enjoyed the fact that they finally had a roof over their head. They eventually ask their siblings Brian and Maureen to move in with them.When they come to live with their sisters they enjoy having each others company and were

None of us kids got any allowances… Brian and I also collected scrap metal that we sold to the junk dealer for a penny a pound… There were so many rows and rows of delicious candies that we’d spend an hour trying to decide how to spend the ten cents we’d each made” (Walls 62). Since Walls and her younger sibling Brian never had any allowances, they could discover approaches to get what they need. Jeannette turned into a hard-working employee due to encounters like these on the grounds that it taught her that she could get what she needed on the off chance that she worked for

The Glass Castle is a touching memoir written by Jeanette Walls, a successful author. Though now Jeanette lives as a successful writer, she did not always see such luxury. She and her family were somewhat nomadic, moving from place to place they lived in extreme poverty. Their father was unable to hold a job and the mother was for the most part just to lazy to work. In the memoir The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, Rosemary and Rex disregard and neglect their children to the point that they are afraid to tell their parents when they are bullied and assaulted.

However this did not stop the Walls children’s determination at all, especially the 3 eldest children. Lori, Brian, and Jeannette had nothing but freedom growing up. This freedom allowed the children to find and do what they loved. As was stated above, many people believe that you can’t become successful if you have freedom. However, you do not need security to become successful and the proof lies within the Walls children. Due to their freedom the kids figured out what they would like to do by the time they were in high school. This then gave way to Lori’s and Jeannette’s “Escape Plan” to move to New York. Once in New York Lori and Jeannette both pursued their dreams to become an artist and a writer. Both of them reached their goals despite of their rough childhood. As Nelson Mandela once said, “ Money won't create success, the freedom to make it will.” Without the freedom that they had as children they would’ve never figured out what their dream jobs were and become successful and do what they

Author Jeannette Walls, in her memoir, The Glass Castle, revisits her childhood memories and relationships with her family. Walls’ purpose is to persuade people that you’re past doesn’t define who you are. To achieve her purpose, she uses a conversational tone with imagery, contrasting syntax, and anaphora in order to inspire readers to overcome their own problems.

The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls, is a reflection on her constant struggles and miserable living conditions. The strong connection to her innocence is the source for both her and her reader’s suffering. As St. Augustine of Hippo one said: “God had but one son on earth without sin, but never one without suffering.” This is a validation that everyone suffers and Walls is able to tap into that emotional state in both herself and her reader. Jeannette Walls evokes suffering in both the reader, due to the lack of innocence in Jeanette, and her past self, in the realization of the disaster she called her life, in The Glass Castle.