Chapter 1 - Time Line

During her cab ride she sees a woman digging through trash only to realize it’s her mother picking through a dumpster. Her mother analyzes through items she finds, and smiles when something strikes her appeal. After watching for a while, Jeannette tells the driver to take her back to her apartment. The first section of Jeannette Walls' memoir establishes the theme of class differences and introduces two very important characters, her parents Rose Mary and Rex Walls. First, in the opening scene in which the author, Jeannette Walls spots her mother digging through a dumpster, the class distinctions between them are immediately apparent. Jeannette is sitting in a taxi, worrying about being overdressed for a party when outside the cab, her mother wears ragged clothes while digging through trash. Thus, this scene introduces the quandary Jeannette finds herself in when she skips the party and goes home: She has wealth and social privilege, which her mother does not, and Jeannette must come to terms with this disparity. This specific entry caught my attention, my mother always tells me i’ll do greater things her and my father ever did and when I read this in the beginning I felt if I were put in that situation I’d feel guilty to see my mother digging through

Jeannette is at the point in her life where she’s grown up enough to look back at her life and realize that some of the experiences she had as a child were actually scarring and dangerous and the severity of those situations were masked by her adoration for her father who she realized as she grew wasn’t everything that she thought. Still Jeannette could never hate her father as she illustrates in this quote, “As awful as he could be, I always knew he loved me in a way no one else ever had.” This quote also shows that Rex always making Jeanette feel special and always encouraging her had a profound effect on her. Jeannette definitely took notice of the way Rex held her self-worth in high regards to his own feeling of fulfillment. This exchange is especially important because there was no one else that Jeannette could have this closure with about her childhood because there was no one else that for her was at the heart of the chaos in

Second, there is a person vs. person conflict between Rex Walls and Rose Mary. Throughout the book, the couple argues about Rex’s alcoholism and Rose Mary’s poor financial decisions. These conflicts are usually screaming fights, which can sometimes lead to dangerous situations. In an argument about borrowing money from Rose Mary’s mom,

The family drove to their grandmother’s house near Fish Creek Canyon, Arizona. Rex and grandma have a colorful vocabulary, that Jeannette had caught onto. While in Arizona, Rex taught the kids how to use a pistol, bow, and a knife. The family later relocated to Las Vegas, where they settled for a month until their hotel burned down. Then they relocated to San Francisco. Finally they relocated to a place called “Battle Mountain” in Nevada. Rex gets a job there and the kids were sent to school at Mary S. Black Elementary. Rosemary gets a job as a teacher and leaves Maureen, who is two years old, with a baby

When Lori and Jeanette are growing older, they decide they want to move to New York City to start a new life, away from their parents. Lori and Jeanette get jobs and begin to earn money. They hide their earnings from their parents in a piggy bank they named Oz. One day Jeanette tries to find Oz to put her paycheck in. Instead she says to Lori “Someone has slashed him apart with a knife and stole all the money” (Walls 228). The kids knew right away who had stolen it. It was Dad. When Lori confronted Dad with the news about Oz, he started playing dumb, acting like he had not idea what was going on. But in fact he did steal the money. This action shows that Dad is very selfish and only cares about himself.

Jeannette is riddled with the family budget, with only $25 a week. Rex repeatedly asks Jeannette for money for alcohol and smoking, asking more and more each week. Jeannette has to get a job just to keep food on the table for Brian and Maureen. Jeannette finding it harder to comply says, “as if he knew I didn’t have it in me to say no. . . And I didn’t”

While her father’s dismisses his destructive nature, Jeannette becomes conscious of his actions which motivates her to make amends in hopes of leaving their desolate life. Instead of getting help for his childhood trauma, Rex immerses himself in alcohol causing him to become

Describe Jeannette’s childhood, specifically her socialization or the process by which she acquired family values, information about social expectations, and survival strategies.

Throughout her life, starting from childhood, Jeannette Walls suffered through multiple hardships that could lead her away from a successful adult life. Since she was young, her parents put her through things that a child should never be exposed to, which could lead her to make these same mistakes as she grew older. For example, her father was an alcoholic, and from this many problems sprouted. Furthermore, her mother never wanted to be tied down, and loathed the idea of family life, as she did not want the responsibility of raising a family. Rose Mary was depicted as self-centered in the novel, and did not think of her children, as she only thought of her own needs. This can be shown when she keeps the diamond ring her children found for herself.

The novel, The Glass Castle, exhibits the human tendency to be selfish. This is manifested in both Rex and Rose Mary. Rex is characterized as a selfish father throughout the novel, and his paternal image is consistently skewed because of his actions. His addiction to alcohol ruins countless family events. One year the family’s Christmas is ruined when Rex drinks a great deal of alcohol and burns their tree and presents. Jeanette remembers, “Dad sat on the sofa [...] telling mom he was doing her a favor [...] no one tried to wring dad’s neck [...] or even point out that he’d ruined the Christmas his family has spent weeks planning” (115). Jeanette and her family are always left cleaning up their father’s drunken mess. Even when Rex is sober he does not apologize for ruining sentimental family events and continues to put alcohol before his family. Selfishness can also be seen in Rex’s relationship with money. He takes Jeanette into a bar in order to get money from his friend, Robbie. When Robbie asks if he can take Jeanette upstairs, Jeanette recollects, “So, with Dad’s blessing, I went upstairs” (212). Rex is so self-absorbed that he allows his daughter to go into a strange man's apartment, fully knowing his intentions. During Jeanette and her siblings’ childhood, they experience dangerous situations with their parents’ knowledge and approval. While Rex’s selfish nature is typically derived from his addiction, Rose Mary’s selfishness is simply a reflection of her personality.

She has always felt a responsibility to take care of her siblings, earn money to help with finances, and control her father when he was drunk, even taking him home from the bar. Jeannette would try to bring food home for her siblings when she found any extra. At one point she says, “I felt like I was failing Maureen, like I wasn’t keeping my promise that I’d protect her.” (206) In reality, Jeannette should not be the one in charge of protecting her siblings and making sure they have enough food and necessities but she does because her parents don’t. She also feels the need to make extra money because her parents don’t have steady incomes. By the age of thirteen, she was the head of the household for the summer and had a job that paid forty dollars a week. (209, 215) She was making more money than either of her parents and she wasn’t even old enough by law to have a job. Another example of her maturity beyond her age is when Rose Mary makes Jeannette retrieve her father from the bar when he doesn’t come home after a couple of days. (181) This a job that Rose Mary should be doing herself but instead she sends Jeannette so she doesn’t have to deal with

Jeannette and her little brother Brian spent a long time digging this hole, therefore it must have been devastating to watch as it was used as a place to stow away the family’s garbage. Jeannette was starting to realize that her father was probably never going to build the Glass Castle. Rex still hoped that his daughter would believe him, that she would feed him the lies for a little while longer even though the idea of the Glass Castle was slowly slipping away.

Finally, Rosemary and Rex show the faults of parenting throughout Walls use of characterization .For example, When “Lori heard about a scholarship sponsored by a

Furthermore, a constant and disputed issue among the three is the inheritance they hope to receive when their father passes away. After the grandmother’s death in summer fifteen, their disputes gets worse than ever. Desperate to get their fathers money, embroidered pillows and ivory paperweights to secure their financial future, they are willing to do almost anything in their power to obtain them. Which unfortunately include neglecting both their children and their relationships. Gat says: ”Everyone’s always asking Harris.

So when the sister and the family friend got there they were tell her that her husband was in a tragic accident and his name was on top the list of missing people. She stormed off to her room and they were trying to get her out of the room because they are scared that she could die because of the heart problem that she has. She was look out