1. “…and when she looked up, I was overcome with panic that she’d see me and call out my name…and my secret would be out” (3).
Jeannette’s thoughts are revealed in this quote about being associated with her mother, who is homeless. While in a taxi on the way to an upscale party, she spots her mother digging through garbage on the streets of New York City. Her “secret” that she fears colleagues will find out about foreshadows the fact that she was once homeless and poverty-stricken, just like her parents are now, and had to work her way up from the bottom.
Jeannette is very insecure about her past life of poverty, and although she has now dug herself out of the rut of destitution, her parents’ continued homelessness is always a reminder of
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“I wondered if the fire had been out to get me. I wondered if all fire was related, like Dad said all humans were related…” (34).
Jeannette reflects on how fire has continually resurfaced in many events of her life so far. During this reflection, she is drinking a Shirley Temple inside a bar across the street from the hotel they were staying in, which had caught fire that night. Jeannette eventually concludes that all the times in her life involving fire are linked and affect one another, and that fire could suddenly appear anywhere, at any time.
Jeannette’s view on fire acts as a symbol for her family and life. Just like fire, Jeannette’s life is unpredictable, as well as the actions of her family. Fire can do good things or can be very harmful; its’ actions can be sudden, dangerous, or painful, and the path it decides to take can change Jeannette’s life in the blink of an eye. The behavior of the Walls family assimilates with that of fire, in the way of turmoil that both can bring, either to the Walls family itself or others around
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This fond memory of her childhood was a time when the Walls family was not starving or homeless, and Jeannette’s father had a true job that was providing food and shelter for their family. This period was one of the few times in Jeannette’s life during which the Walls family was at peace with one another. Education was the main way the family bonded, so the constant presence of literature and reading in this part of her life demonstrates that this could have been a time where the relationship between parents and children in the Walls family was at its strongest and
Jeannette Walls, Shows in the book The Glass Castle that there are a lot of situations that happen in life where people make countless mistakes, but it is very important to forgive her father and her mother for many mistakes. She has to cope with many obstacles without her parent's help. In the author's memoir, we become attracted with Jeannette constant struggle between protecting her family and the pleasure that her family is based on the same hopes and senseless falsehood with her unbelievable storytelling method. The feelings of forgiveness hold the Walls family together. Jeanette was able to describe her family's childhood, relationships with one another. The children of the Walls family are forced to begin the independent life at an
As a child, Jeannette’s sense of wonder and curiosity in the world undermine the need for money. During her young adult years, a new wave of insecurity associated with her poor past infects her. Finally, as an experienced and aged woman, Jeannette finds joy and nostalgia in cherishing her poverty- stricken past. It must be noted that no story goes without a couple twists and turns, especiallydefinitely not Jeannette Walls’. The fact of the matter is that growing up in poverty effectively craftsed, and transformsed her into the person she becomeshas become. While statistics and research show that living in poverty can be detrimental to a child’s self-esteem, Jeannette Walls encourages children living in poverty to have ownership over their temporary situation, and never to feel inferior because of past or present socio-economic
After Jeannette wakes up in the middle of the night with her two sibilings, Lori and Brian, asleep and her parents out of the hotel room she is awoken by an intense heat. As she discovers there is a fire on the curtains blazing she is “stuck.” In a sense that she doesn’t have the energy to yell or move to warn Lori and Brian. She is then “rescued” by her father who comes in yelling, which awakes Lori and Brian, wraps a blanket around Jeannette and carries her outside of the hotel room as he rushes Lori and Brian out. As they go across the street to a bar Jeannette begins to reevaluate all of her experiences with fire.
The lesson of independence, taught from swimming, taught Jeannette not to rely on her parents. Unlike Maureen who did not grasp the lesson, Jeannette knew not to rely on them and to instead go away from the trouble. She resulted in moving to New York, to follow her ambitions and not get entangled in her parent’s tide, as unfortunately, Maureen did get caught and therefore not become independent. Also, Jeannette used the advice to prevent her from taking in her homeless family when they asked for a lot. For example, Jeannette’s mom asks for a wholesome of money, for art purposes. However, since Jeannette learned independence, she denied her mom and that helped prevent Jeannette and her mom from wasting money. Jeannette had many applications of how to live independently, which helped her
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
At a young age, Jeannette’s experience with fire has showed her that the world is full of danger. She sees that the world “at any moment could erupt into fire.” Jeannette’s thought of “if the fire had been out to get me”, shows that she believes fire is a reoccurrence in her life. The element of fire serves as a symbol of how one misfortune event is connected to another in Jeannette’s childhood, like the way “all fire was related.” It also foreshadows that Peace for Jeannette only lasts momentarily. Throughout the story, Jeannette and her family encountered countless struggles. However, these struggles had trained Jeannette and her siblings to be strong individuals. It also required the children to take care of each other and appreciate what
Through this first incident, Jeanette’s mother, Rose Mary, encouragingly said, “Good for you. You‘ve got to get right back into the saddle. You can’t live in fear of something as basic as fire” (Walls 9). Soon then, Walls became “fascinated with it” (Walls 9) as she passed her finger through a candle flame, slowing her finger with each pass, watching the way it seemed to cut the flame in half.
In this both heart wrenching and slightly humorous memoir, journalist Jeannette Walls tells the bittersweet story of her rather dysfunctional and poverty stricken upbringing. Walls grows up in a family trailed by the ubiquitous presence of hunger and broken homes. Throughout the memoir she recounts memories of moving from one dilapidated neighborhood to another with her three other siblings, insanely "free sprinted" mother, and incredibly intelligent yet alcoholic father. The author focuses on her unconventional childhood with parents who were too lazy and self-absorbed to obtain decent jobs. Although Walls's childhood gushes with heartbreaking tales of searching through dumpsters for food, she remains as unbitter as possible and
In society, there is no “normal” but there is often a certain expectation from the member in it like holding down a job, raising children, and many other. Yet Jeannette's parents do none of these things, instead they consider it to be positive that they live outside of society. To begin with the opening of the novel Jeanette is all grown up and a full member society and a complete opposite of her younger self. Jeannette illustrates ,“ I was sitting in a taxi, wondering if I had overdressed for the evening when I looked out the window and saw Mom rooting through a dumpster” (1). This is the opener of the memoir and is setting up a large class difference between two characters. Jeanette may never have been supported in her childhood but she has made her way to a high place in society, unlike her mother who never changed in her ways. Here Walls is creating a vivid picture of what society deems as correct and incorrect drawing the reader in to find out the cause of two members of the same family being so far apart from each other in society. In the same way when Jeannette is young and, is explaining how she receives her education. Jeannette admits, “ We might enroll into school, but not always. Mom and Dad did most of our teaching” (20). Most children in society have an education from some sort of school, but since the Walls family exists outside of society in many ways. Including how they receive their education, early on in life, the children are not inside a school system. Instead they are taught how to live outside of society like their parents even if they do not want to live that way. Later on, Jeanette has moved away from her parents and has the proper schooling she is a full member of society which is everything her mother did not want. Her mother argues, ‘ Look at the way you live. You’ve sold out. Next thing I know you’ll be a Republican.’ She shook her head. ‘Where are the
“I had been counting on Mom and Dad to get us out, but I now knew I had to do it on my own” (p. 221). Jeannette’s realization demonstrates that now she has seen things that have been present the entire such as the harshness the Walls’ live in. That has been present since the beginning of the
Again the danger of parenting is depicted through walls’ use of symbolism. Jeannette being a child (three years old) and having to cook and take care of herself is substandard. Having to be surrounded by hardship and
From the initial start of story Jeanette choses to recant a memory that displays one of her deepest fears of her early adult life. Jeannette’s mother decided to be unemployed and live homeless, while Jeannette attends Barnard College and lives a more luxurious lifestyle. From the very first sentence, “I was sitting in a taxi, wondering if I had overdressed for the evening, when I looked out the window and saw Mom rooting through a Dumpster... It had been months since I laid my eyes on Mom, and when she looked, I was overcome with panic that she’d see me and call out my name, and that someone on the way to the same party would spot us together and Mom would introduce herself and my secret would be out” (Walls 3). The
Jeannette’s self-reliant behavior is frequently shown through her refusal of help from others. On one trip to retrieve her father from a bar, Jeannette’s father is so drunk that he can no longer walk. Another man offers to drive them home, and
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 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