Analysis Of The Glass Castle By Jeannette Walls

The Walls children are not only raised by parents that can’t hold down a job, but by parents who are also mentally unstable. In a recent study by Princeton University it was said that “ Long work hours, lack of autonomy, job insecurity, and a heavy workload are also associated with adult mental health problems.” (Princeton). No matter how bad of a “childhood” the Walls children had it’s worse because both parents can’t hold down a job. With both parents rarely working the children are left to fend for themselves, essentially raising themselves. The Walls children have a poor quality of life and a huge factor of their quality of life is because their parents can’t keep a job. For example if Rex Walls kept a job and didn't spend his money on booze the children would have food to eat. At one point in The Glass Castle it says “whenever Mom was too busy to make dinner or we were out of food, we’d go back to the dumpster to see if any new chocolate was waiting for us.” (Walls 125). Jeanette’s parents were so selfish that the children had to go to the dumpster to get a meal, and that problem could’ve been solved if either parent was dedicated to keeping a job and putting food on the table. The children also spent most of their childhood wearing the ripped and tattered clothes because their parents were unable to afford new clothes. Not only is this extremely sad, but if their parents had steady

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

Throughout the book, her nomadic family lived in extreme poverty where the children had to scramble for survival. Walls describes her family’s eating habits similar to those of cacti because “we ate irregularly, and when we did, we’d gorge ourselves” (22). Money would provide food for the Walls as rain would provide cacti their nutrients to survive. Jeannette assumed the responsibilities of head of the household when she was at the mere age of thirteen because her parents abandoned their roles as guardians. Looking from Wall’s perspective, money could solve several of the family’s problems such as their perilous living conditions and the constant need to feed their hunger. In addition, Walls’s mother Rose Mary was an artist. Every time the Walls received a paycheck, Rose Mary would sneak some of the funds to fuel her passion for arts. When Rose Mary received her inheritance from her deceased mother, she wanted to forget her responsibilities and spend the money to create more paintings. Abraham Lincoln said, “People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be.” Rose Mary could use money to bring her happiness indirectly by purchasing art supplies. Thus, if money can fuel their passion and needs, then it can indirectly bring the individual

With parents like these, succumbing to anger and revenge proves understandable, but instead the author bypasses all of this. Although her childhood is surrounded by less than inspiring figures her optimism allows her to make something of her life. Wall's even ends up maintaining excellent grades and

In the book, The Glass Castle, the Walls encounter many interior and exterior conflicts. The children learned how to fend for themselves because their parents were not suitable for that job. Jeannette and Brian, two of the Walls children, took responsibility for themselves and their siblings. Jeannette retold this true story from her point of view. The characters struggles did not end in one place. The Walls were constantly on the move because their living situations were always temporary. They switched from their car to a family house in Welch. Once the kids became older, some of them decided to move to New York City to skyrocket their careers. Weaved into all of this chaos, were a few underlying themes. The reader was taken on the children's journey and witnessed them blossom. They had to mature quickly because their parents stripped them from their childhood. This was difficult and a lot of pressure for these young kids. They had to persevere which in turn made them stronger individuals. The rich characters, surplus of settings, and easily comprehensible themes made this a successful novel.

Other than the three major issues mentioned above, there are various other problems existed in the Walls’ family and their living environment. Unemployment is one of the problems. Due to the alcoholism, the father cannot get a stable job; he can only take some odd jobs and earn some money by gambling. The mother in the family is the one who is not willing to take the job. Her dream is to be an artist, there is nothing wrong with pursuing her artist dream, but under the no income situation, the mother doesn’t want to

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

In the book The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls, Walls recalls her life and the significant experiences within it. She goes through the perils of being poor, not having a stable home, and having changing beliefs of the world around her. With an alcoholic and paranoid father, an irresponsible mother, and many nights with an empty stomach, Jeannette Walls grows up loving and supporting her parents as a young child only to realize the neglect that she and her siblings have gone through as she got older. The Glass Castle is a book full of life lessons, unique and baffling experiences, and eye opening scenes of the world and the many different people within it. This book shows the ups and downs of one’s life, showing dysfunction, misfortune, and how these impact someone over time.

The memoir The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, explicates the author’s dysfunctional childhood and how it resulted from poor parenting. Throughout the beginning of the book, Walls continues to be optimistic and grateful for the few objects she owns and what little parent support she receives. This contributes to the tone of how positivity can aid those in coping with problematic events. Although Walls is unable to escape her source of problems, as a child with irresponsible adults, her undying faith in her parents caused her to make injudicious decisions. This contributes to the tone of how false positivity can lead to oblivion.

The Glass Castle is a memoir written by Jeannette Walls’. The memoir is about a young girl named Jeannette, and her three siblings, and the trials and tribulations they face whilst growing up with an alcoholic father and a careless mother. The memoir recounts the unconventional and poverty-stricken upbringing of Jeanette and her siblings at the hands of their deeply maladjusted parents. Jeannette faces many hardships throughout her childhood, but she forges a better future in spite of her past. Jeannette Walls’ lifelong success is the result of her determination to overcome a dark and troubled past.

The memoir, The Glass Castle, by Jeanette Walls demonstrates the extreme level of poverty and inequality in First World America. Jeanette’s father, Rex Walls, stands in her way at every step in her life, consuming her childhood with alcoholism, “grabb[ing] Quixote (a childhood pet) by the scruff of the neck, and toss[ing] him out the window” (Wall Jeanette, 18), and allowing his children to feed from dumpsters. His harmful mannerisms are covered by his promise of a Glass Castle. The utopia he is working for his four children and wife, a promise he simply cannot keep. Jeanette grows from her father’s harsh environment and strives to be independent. She seeks out a career, a home, something different from what her parents give her. She becomes focused on not falling to the frailty of a glass utopia and sets her sights on not becoming her parents. The argument put forth by her memoir is that Jeanette would have never become a contributing individual without the adversity her life imposed upon her. This is evident through Jeanette’s passion to be different from her parent’s, escape her father’s fantasy, and to create her own environment.

In Jeannette Walls’s memoire, she goes through extreme poverty with her flawed parents. Her alcoholic father allows a man to molest her for money, and steals her money that she and her sister put together in a piggy bank to escape the horrible reality. Her

The three older siblings are able to band together and become closer than most families, although they were lacking parental relationships as they got older. They were able to raise money to send one of their siblings to New York, and slowly escape one by one, this closeness which started in their childhood is what made them to be resilient. They had each other to lean on when times were tough and they all kept each other headed down the right path. They matured earlier than many, they had experienced extreme feelings of hunger and pain, and had experienced first hand what lust does to a person. Many would cower from these experiences; instead, the Walls gang bound together and survived these conditions. Proof that this is the reason the three older Walls children’s relationships with each other was the reason for their survival is their youngest sister, Maureen. Maureen was too young to go adventuring with Jeannette and Brian, or too young to read with Lori. Instead she was stuck at home with Rosemary or Rex depending on if either of them was employed. She had no way to escape the situation she was in. She gave into the pain and hunger that they all endured and had a dealing with a drug addiction. She did not survive on her own, and eventually needed to lean on her siblings to overcome that addiction, to overcome that pain. The children did not even realize they had discovered the key to survival in the modern world, having someone to lean

The youngest member of the Walls family, Maureen, had many problems in her life and did not end up as successful as the other Walls children. While it is true that Maureen did not live up to the success the other Walls children had, no family is perfect and as we can obviously see, the Walls family is no exception. The Walls treated Maureen with as much love and care as they did for the other 3 children, but since the beginning she was always an outcast, escaping the family to enjoy time with her friends instead of strengthening family bonds. She never became close to any of the Walls children, even though they took it on themselves to care for her. Perhaps Maureen’s problems were genetic and came from her parent’s poor lifestyles and choices,

In addition to their father’s alcoholism, their mother exhibits severe signs of bipolar disorder, causing her to go through extreme manic and depressive episodes. Jeannette describes her mother's moods as being “happy for days on end, announcing that she decided to think only positive thoughts … But the positive thoughts would give way to negative thoughts … when that happened, Mom would refuse to get out of bed … she would lay wrapped up in blankets on the sofa bed, sobbing about how much she hated her life" (Walls 207). Because Rose Mary refuses help, her mental illness goes untreated, causing her to be a great threat to herself and her children. This undiagnosed affliction makes her vacillate between being kind and being completely disengaged from her children’s upbringing. Without either parent’s involvement, the Walls children have to fend for themselves and end up getting into extremely dangerous and traumatizing situations. Because the family is poverty-stricken and afflicted with mental illness, it is impossible to achieve the American Dream.