Argumentative Essay On The Glass Castle

Earlier this year, I read Jeannette Walls’ memoir The Glass Castle. The Glass Castle tells the story of Walls and her siblings as they experience an impoverished childhood and attempt to escape the poverty-stricken lives of their parents. In her descriptions of her life and the lives of her family members, Walls influenced my ideas about poverty, homelessness, and escaping hard lives.

It still holds true that man is most uniquely human when he turns obstacles into opportunities. This is evident in Jeannette Walls’ memoir, The Glass Castle, which reiterates the story of Jeannette who is raised within a family that is both deeply dysfunctional and distinctively vibrant. Jeannette is faced with numerous barriers throughout her life. Despite the many obstacles set forth by her parents during her childhood, Jeannette develops into a successful adult later in life. One of these obstacles is the lack of a stable home base moulds her into the woman she grows up to be. Throughout her life, Jeannette must cope with the carelessness of her

The title of the book, The Glass Castle, is repeated throughout the book as a dream that her father had. The family knew that he would never actually build the castle, but her father still talked about it like he would actually do it, and Jeanette would believe him. Jeanette's father made her many promises, but he did not follow through with the promises. Whenever she questioned him about the promises he made to her he justs says, “Have I ever let you down?” Jeanette knows that he had let her down but she does not say it, and she had “heard that question at least two hundred times” (Walls 210). For example, for her birthday Jeanette asks her father to stop drinking. He promises her that he would do anything for her “if it’s humanly

Though Jeannette gave her all to support her family, she did the same for herself without anyone’s support. She understood what it was meant to be poverty at a very young age and realised that she could not have what others did. While Jeannette didn’t have money, she was smart and resourceful to achieve whatever she could for herself. When Jeannette was young, she had already decided that if she wanted to do something for herself, she was going to have to do it herself. An example of this was when she herself to have buckteeth, and promptly said, “I decided to make my own braces,” and she did (Wall 200). In spite of Jeannette being underprivilaged and with less money, she found ways time and time again to succeed.

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

“Children shouldn’t have to sacrifice so that you can have the life you want. You make sacrifices so that your children can have the life that they deserve.”- Unknown. In the book The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls readers are given a front row seat into a family that is constantly being destroyed by the parents. This book allows readers an inside look at having an alcoholic father and an absent mother. There’s no such thing as “normal”, but society often expects certain things from it’s citizens - things like holding down a job, responsibly raising children, and giving back in some way, but in The Glass Castle, Rex and Rose Mary Walls do none of these things. Rex and Rose Mary walls have trouble keeping their jobs, maybe it’s because

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.

Jeannette shows that wealth is subjective. Even when she's an adult and has nice things and money, but she is still not happy. She is not happy because she is worried about her parents and she feels guilty living in a nice apartment and having all these nice things when her parents are homeless. Jeannette tries to quench her guilt by offering them help to get a house and food but her parents don't want the help. After Rex received clothes for a gift he says "you must be mighty ashamed of your old man. You think I'm some sort of goddamn charity case" (Walls 263). Jeannette sees her parents struggling to survive homeless but her dad says "Don't you fret a bit have you ever known your old man to get himself in a situation he couldn't handle" (Walls 260)?

Earlier this year, I read Jeanette Walls’ memoir The Glass Castle. The Glass Castle tells the story of Walls and her siblings as they experience and attempt to escape the poverty-stricken lives of their parents. In her descriptions of her life and the lives of her family members, Walls influenced my ideas about poverty, homelessness, and escaping hard lives.

Appreciation for what one has can take that person a long way, especially if they do not have much to appreciate. Throughout the memoir, The Glass Castle, the reader learns that the novel is centralized around three base ideas. These three ideas follow the outline of how one should always make realistic promises, how the loss of innocence can affect the way one lives their lives, and how self-reliance and independence can take someone far in life. The memoir sets the themes out with intricate series of events that makes these themes inarguable, from fire fights in the street with the local thug, to lying about your age to get a job to ensure food stays on the table while your parents are away. In the end it all becomes relevant to the central

She feels embarrassed because other people who aren’t like her look at her and her family like they are poor and dirty. Although she loves her family a lot, she wishes things were different at times and that her childhood would have gone better. As Jeanette grows up, she realizes that she doesn’t want to live this way anymore. She wants to become successful so that she doesn’t have to live in poverty ever again. Jeanette beings to make plans to go to New York City.

Jeannette and her siblings had to help her mother get through the day because life was so stressful for them all. “At times I felt like I was failing Maureen, like I wasn’t keeping my promise that I’d protect her―the promise I’d made to her when I held her on the way home from the hospital after she’d been born. I couldn’t get her what she needed most―hot baths, a warm bed, a steaming bowl of Cream of Wheat before school in the morning―but I tried to do little things” (Walls 206). This is showing how as times get more tough, and the family is treated worse by society, the family members are unable to take care of each other the way they would want to. This shows how social injustice gets in

The book “The Glass Castle” by Jeannette Walls is a memoir about the author’s life that spans from her early childhood to her adult years. As a child, Walls is carefree and hopeful despite her dysfunctional family. Walls goes through her childhood appreciating what she has because she can not fully comprehend how deplorable her living conditions are. She has no other frame of reference to compare her family to, so Walls is oblivious to her parent’s unusual parenting. Regardless of her abnormal situation, the author was a hopeful and jovial child. Walls’s attitude towards life creates an optimistic tone that engages the reader because positivity is the opposite of what one would expect from an individual in this situation.

Her family has food, a home, and they have a stable income. These circumstances begin to diminish as the story continues. They experience one problem after another, constantly being knocked off their feet. Even when a luxury came their way, it seemed to disappear faster than it appeared. For example, when they moved into their house on Little Hobart street it seemed withstandable However, she explains, “During on particular fierce rainstorm that spring, the ceiling grew so fat it burst” (Walls 153). As the story proceeds, the determination to work to support their family that the parents once held deteriorates just as the house will continue to. As they sink deeper into poverty, Jeannette decides it’s up to her to mold the life she

The novel The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls demonstrates about a young girl, Jeannette Walls’, childhood. This book is memoir of the author, Jeannette Walls. Jeannette grew up in a family that had little to no money at times and has to move to different cities in deserts numerous times. Although many events in the novel were depressing the family still managed to keep humor and hope, especially when going through having to move constantly and being broke.An example as to why the family was always short on money because Janette’s father was an alcoholic and he would use up the family's money to purchase liquor. However, when the family was in need of food and money he would go out and a job. In the end the Walls children were moved out of