Jeanette's Broken House

Jeannette Walls has always been moving from place to place. Her father, Rex Walls, is a raging alcoholic who is constantly running from the police in order to keep his kids. They have lived in houses, their van, even outside. Imagine sleeping outside because the police are looking for the children of the parents who haven’t paid a

The Walls family had shown a great amount of memory in the story from a period of about 20 years. This is making a very highly unlikely situation that a good amount of this information may be false. Jeannette gave information in the story that gave detail so well. Most likely, from over the years, she may have obtained false information. “I was standing on a chair in front of the stove, wearing a pink dress that my grandmother had bought for me” (Walls 9). This shows some very well detail from her being age 3 in this scene. Maybe she wasn’t

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

Characteristics of the home: main level living with a dining area, kitchen, family room, two bedrooms, and a bathroom. The home has an unfinished basement that Dad has been slowly remodeling for the past five years. The neighborhood is a vast wooded area with few homes. The family’s geographic mobility consists of the upper northwest part of Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, where Mom’s family resides. The family is associated with the Lutheran church and transacts with community members at the church, local grocery store, and restaurants. The family’s social support network consists of their family and close friends.

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

Walls, as the main character, overlooked the severity of the actions her parents had performed, their inability to face the consequences, which led to their nomadic lifestyle. Nonetheless, there were other factors that contributed to the improbability of a child-friendly atmosphere within the household. Her father's abusive language and habits had always remained a threat to everyone in the family, including her mother. Whether it was the copious amounts of alcohol he consumed, the foul language he spoke, or the beatings he gave to his wife, Rex Walls was the paragon of recklessness and peril. Walls says "Dad stuck his head out the window as he drove, hollering at Mom, calling her a. "stupid whore" and a. "stinking cunt" and ordering her to get back into the car. Mom refused." (Walls 27) This proves that his aggressive language impacts the vocabulary of his children, which will inevitably affect their experiences and interactions with other

This book starts with Jeannette going to a party in New York. When she spots her mother rummaging through trash cans. Embarrassed, Jeannette goes home changing her mind about going to the party. I guess that was a place to start or a good place to wonder how she got to the point of embarrassment of her parents. The Walls family was always on the move. Rex Walls would depict these sudden moves as “the skedaddle.” In all actuality, once paranoia set in or Rex Walls’ job ended the family picked up and moved everything. The children had to learn that family stuck together no matter what. The family slept in cars and hotels for majority of the Walls children lives. Jeannette was the favorite of all the Walls children. Spending little time in many different places the Walls children could not rely on making friends. Brain Walls spent time exploring the dessert while on the move. Moving around was what Walls family did a good portion of Jeannette’s life.

However, she does not finish the job, indicating that the little house on Hobart street could not be a permanent home. Fortunately, at the end of the novel, Jeanette finally has a home of her own. Walls state's, “I showed Mom and Lori the house… the first house I’d ever owned. Mom and Lori admired the planked floorboards, the big fireplaces, and the ceiling beams made from locust posts, with gouge marks from the ax that had felled them” (Walls, 287). Walls uses imagery to show the warmth and homey feel of her new home which contrasts to the other homes she had lived in before and represents how, after her whole life of dreaming, she finally has a home of her own. The theme of possessions also played a role in Walls’ memoir. Living in a life of poverty means the Walls’ family do not have what middle class families have such as toys, transport, and food. Therefore, when the Walls’ children get a present, it is cherished. In the desert, Rex comes home with three new bikes for the children as a surprise. Jeanette describes, “We ran out the front

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

The boys are living in an apartment at the Henry Horner housing complex with their mother, LaJoe, their younger brother and sisters – the triplets, and a constant stream of people from their father Paul to their sister’s boyfriend’s brother staying on and off with them. Henry Horner is a housing

Have you ever heard of a family nowadays that are constantly on the move, frequently traveling throughout our country, stopping to live in one place for a couple months, then leaving for another place for a similar amount of time and doing that constantly? The Walls are a family that does do that. In the entertaining book The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, a young girl named Jeannette Walls learns how to become successful in life through constantly being on the move. She lived with her with her parents and her siblings. Her parents, Rex and Rose Mary would be in a huge fight one minute, then would be hugging each other the next, which made it hard for the kids to grow up. Throughout Jeannette’s unusual childhood, she learned to have acceptance

It is the summer of 1970 in Northern Ohio. The Hadley family is the wealthiest family out of all the families that populates the city of Toledo. They all live in a subdivision called Old Timbers Valley with mother, Lydia, father, George, and Peter and Wendy. The Darling family lives in a sky blue house on top of clouds, the Tremaine family lives in the old, enchanted house, and Old Man Geppetto lives in an Old-Italian village home. Unlike the others, the Hadley’s house is future realistic, full of technology. From lights turning on and off as one walks, stoves making food, sinks washing dishes, a nursey that illuminates the children’s imagination, and so many more laborless enhancements. The children’s nursey is called the Veldt, which can

Thesis statement: Rose Mary and Rex neglect Jeanette due to mental illnesses that lead them to make decisions a sane person could not make. This leads to Jeanette maturing much faster than any small child should.

Individuals can be seen responding to the circumstances they endure in a myriad of ways. The individuals may choose to take revenge on the people that caused them to suffer or they may choose to forgive the individuals that caused their hardships. However, when one chooses to forgive the wrongdoer, he or she chooses to release the burden and pain the wrongdoer has caused them. In The Glass Castle, a memoir by Jeanette Walls, Walls describes her parent’s shortcomings but does not condemn them in anyway.

apartment in which the Evans family live is roach infested and in disrepair; in other words, they