Charisse Kaleolani Kinilau Interview

Jeannette always admired her parents despite the way that they chose to live. Even though both parents were both intelligently capable, they chose to live homeless. They both chose their own welfare over their children. With parents like hers, Jeannette took what good she could from her

As the narrator, Claire creates an emotional and compassionate tone throughout the story. Her dialogue constantly consists of words such as “honey”, “mommy”, “love”, which constitutes to the overall mood of the text (Carver 363). Additionally, she is constantly catering to her husband and child by cooking, cleaning, and performing tasks of the typical “stay-at-home” mom. Her affectionate personality, want for control, and mother-like performance plays a role in Carver’s explanation of the stereotypical mother and wife.

Think back to your own childhood. Could you imagine being a child, and not having a care in the world, but then, as quick as the snap of a finger, that all changes because of a thoughtless mistake made by your parents? In The Glass Castle it is revealed that as Jeannette grew up, she endured hardships inflicted upon her by her own parents. However, if Jeannette had not gone through these things, she never would have gained the characteristics that she values present day. Although Jeannette Walls faced hardships and endured suffering during her childhood, these obstacles formed her into a self-reliant woman who proves that just because you do not have as much money as other families, you can still achieve success in your life.

Her dad carried her away from the hospital without payment, and then her mom permitted her to cook again, moreover she said, “ Getting right back into the saddle” ( Glass Castle 47). Jeanette was not angry at such young age and soon the family had to pack their belongings into bags and “do the skedaddle” as her parents always said. The parents were fleeing from bill collectors. Although Jeanette's father was an alcoholic, he could get work almost anywhere, often in small towns. The family was moving because of these things, she never complained when they did not have enough food. Jeanette always forgave her parents, she understood what they were going through.

Her Mother seemed to be more put together than her father at times, even getting a job at one point helping the family out. Though her mother was a hedonist and did not contain the motherly love and sacrifice for her kids, this job helped Jeanette’s future. She helped grade papers which increased her knowledge of the outside world and “...the world was making a little more sense” as she read the papers and projects of her mother’s students (Walls 205). Her parents had such an opposition to the outside world that she hadn’t gotten every aspect of

The author experiences childhood in a useless and destitute environment where her parent is struggling with mental and addiction issues and too lazy to acquire employment to accommodate her children need. For example, at the age of three Jeannette had to prepare her own meal while her mother was busy working on one of her unsuccessful paintings. She was innocent but at the same time demonstrated independence and she had to provide for herself, even if it was going to hurt her. “at that moment, I was wearing the dress to cook hot dogs, watching them swell and bob in the boiling water as the late-morning sunlight filtered in through the trailers small kitchenette window. I could hear mom in the next room singing while she worked on one of her paintings. I felt a blaze of heat on my right side. I turned to see where it was coming from and realized my dress was on fire” (p. 9). Jeannette regards her father when she was young. She trusts her dad. One of her father favorite stories to tell his children is about The Glass Castle (This is where the title comes from). He was planning to build a home for his family when he finds some gold and strikesc rich. This is one of the many reasons, why Jeannette hold her father to a high esteem because he always told her those fantasy story that will never be realistic. She always buys into her father’s dreaming never realizing he is a selfish man with, perhaps, mental issues. The hardship that we encounter each day it will either break us or make us a better person.

Imagine being born into a family that has no love and doesn’t care much for their children. That's how it was for Jeanette Walls and her siblings. Her parents did love her but didn’t show it much. They were not very helpful and were not great parents. Her father Rex and mother Rosemary didn’t have a great parenting style, but their children still grew up to be good people.

But in the winter of her eighth year, to Marie-Laure’s surprise, she begins to get it right” (Doerr 36, 40). The love that Marie-Laure’s father displays is what drives her every move.   At first, she is unable to accomplish her goal of getting home, however every single day, her father forces her to keep pushing, just one more step.

When Douglas was 15 years old, his mother died. He was forced to leave school in order to take care of his brother. He quit his job at the bank and got a higher paying job working for a housing contractor. This began a very busy three years helping to build houses all around the Los Angeles area. He didn’t completely give up on his schooling as he took correspondence courses in the architecture field. (Ann T. Keene, 2000)

As Francie was sprucing up for her date, she recalled how she saw girls doing the same while she was reading on the fire escape. When she looked out the window, she saw that history repeated itself and a girl like Francie, small and thin was reading with her bag of candy and watching her as she watched those older girls. Her name was Florry, but Francie saw an eleven year-old Francie. A great deal of things changed within those six years, and now she was actually going to college, something she had not even dreamed of a few years back. Francie was no longer lonely, she was going off on her date soon. Her mother was marrying again and she would no longer live at her third house, she was moving on to the fourth. There is a great deal of importance

Claudia expresses again and again how marginalized she and her sister perceived themselves to be, "Adults do not talk to us - they give us directions" (10). When Claudia thinks back to a childhood illness she suffered, she remembers her mother's irritation at finding her sick in bed. Claudia questions the reliability of her perceptions of pain and confusion, "But was it really like that? As painful as I remember? Only mildly. Love...eased up into that cracked window" (12). Claudia's mother's irritation is tempered with compassion; she coats Claudia's phlegmy chest with salve and "hands repinned the flannel, readjusted the

On her childhood street, Marceline had known the names of mothers scarcely older than herself. Their children smelled of sweat and urine, skin studded with red marks in the summer. Playgrounds were browning lawns with upturned plastic vehicles— When her feet found dry leaves, Marceline thought of the old newspapers that clogged the gritty sidewalks, but went on talking.

A scream escaped Rue’s lips, when she awoke from her dream, as her hollow gray eyes darted back and forth, confirming her surroundings. Her arms ached from a memory of excessive pain from being beaten by her father in the dark basement of her large home. She was beaten for being smart, silly, or kind with her friends she had made, years ago. She wanted to be an author, but her father thought otherwise, and gave much disapprobation towards her. He wanted her to become business woman. In fact, it was all she could remember from her childhood, and now as a 17-year-old girl, she lives with her mom who has the starting stages of alzheimer’s disease. Rue slipped out the habiliments of her bed, and made her way through the labyrinth of her home, to the bathroom. The wall was draped with red velvet arabesque tapestries, and the floors were always furnished. She went out to school that cold morning, tucking her dyed blue hair behind her ears.

As the rain pounded on the roof, Genevieve sat alone in the room that held her dead parents. It seemed impossible to live without her parents. She watched the wind blow and roar like a lion. The bottle that could end this nightmare right now stared her down from across the room. She glanced toward her mother's coffin “ I know she wouldn’t want that.” Genevieve's mother had always been a strong advocate for education and the a career of some type. Genevieve had decided on that night that she would no longer mope and mourn, and she would carry on her mother and father's legacy. She would keep the manor upright and stay in her schoolings.

I vividly recall being asked what my dream job was on a sunny day during our physical education class in third grade. The first thing that flashed through my mind was architecture as I observed my surroundings, feeling a sense of belonging and deficiency. I’ve always been keen towards drawing and painting. I have an incline to attribute my surroundings, the world, through a tale; a tale behind every landscape, edifice, and object. I don’t perceive a building as a background for a setting made of cold concrete and steel, instead, I see the marvelous architecture as a living character that provides the base of a story. A base that influenced my upbringing when I lived in my hometown Honduras and later the United States. Up to the present time when I lived in Honduras, the structure of our home was surrounded by nature; the everlasting scent of the flowers in the garden as birds flew by became habitual. Seating on the porch, I would draw on the white surface as my hands would rhythmically move to the symphonies my mom would play on the radio like Love’s Joy by Fritz Kreisler. In due time, it was time for us to leave everything behind in search of a new beginning. Our first residence in the United States drastically changed from what my child self was used to. We lived in a small apartment in Collins Ave where the structural space of the buildings seemed crowded. I felt foreign, missing the scent of home and natures’ labyrinth. Fritz Kreisler’s Love Joy soon became Love’s Sorrow as I took small steps to accommodate myself to our new surroundings, our new architectural landscape. Whenever I felt alone or defeated I would sit by our apartment’s window and listen to symphonies by Chopin, Vivaldi, and Paganini among others; they became a coping mechanism and inspiration to draw my surroundings inform of a lighthearted fantasy that made our new residence and neighborhood feel like home.