Jeannette Walls

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.

Imagine living in a life where everything around you is different from reality. Imagine running from the police, living wherever one can find, and still taking care of one's family just at the age of 16. Jeannette Walls had to deal with all of this and more in her early childhood. In the book “The Glass Castle”, the author uses the characters, Jeannette and Rex Walls, to emphasize the importance of family bonds.

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

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

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.

Different circumstances shape people into who they will become. This is relevant in both books, John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath and Jeannette Walls’ The Glass Castle. Both the Joad and Walls families faced adversities but made it through them stronger. The two families move from place to place and greatly struggled financially. The value of family and lessons that can be learned from them is prevalent in both novels. The attributes that enabled both the Joad and Walls families to endure in the face of adversities are perseverance, faith, and their devotion to each other.

My grandparents were separated, but never divorced. Clara moved to Chicago and JC sold and squandered the money he received for selling the family’s farms.

In the memoir, The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls the author depicts her poverty-stricken past along with her eccentric morals, and dysfunctional parents as they traveled around the country avoiding debt-collectors, while handling unruly situations. The author lives with her three siblings: Brian, Lori, and Maureen Walls; and her two parents: Rex, and Mary Walls. The mother a struggling artist, and the father a jack-of-all-trades with an alcohol addiction. Together they move from town to town, and state to state avoiding the clutches of the ‘FBI’ a nickname Jeannette 's father gave to the debt collectors that were constantly chasing after them. Along the way they struggle with cases of sexual harassment, bullying, and

In the memoir, The Glass Castle, Jeanette Walls, the main character, grows up in a dysfunctional family that travels from place to place like nomads. Her father is an alcoholic, who is verbally abusive and destructive when drunk; however, when sober, he is charismatic and knowledgeable. Her mother is an artist who does not want to take on the responsibility of raising a family. Walls and her three siblings live out of the ordinary and in the worst possible environments and circumstances. Despite all the troubles and hardships she has been through, she remains indefatigable. Although Walls had a traumatic and atypical childhood, she demonstrates her strength and ability to overcome the past through the use of tone, imagery, and pathos.

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.

The majority of people in the United States are lucky enough to have a place they can return to every night and call their home. Unfortunately, for the Joad and Walls families, this is not the case. The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck, tells the story of the Joads, a poor family of tenant farmers forced off their farm in Oklahoma due a bank foreclosure. Because of the circumstances they suffered, including being trapped in the Dust Bowl and economic hardship, the Joads set out for California in search for a better life. The Glass Castle, a memoir by Jeanette Walls, tells the story of her family moving from place to place during modern day poverty. Both novels clearly illustrate the daily struggles of living without a permanent home. Each family has unique qualities that assist them in dealing with issues. Although they had different ways of making the best of their situations, they both had the same mindset and shared the goal of having a happy life.

In the story “Neighbors”, a man and a woman’s true nature is revealed when nobody is watching. Bill and Arlene Miller are introduced as a normal, “happy,” middle class married couple, but they feel less important than their friends Harriet and Jim Stone, who live in the apartment across the hall. The Miller’s perceive the Stone’s to have a better and more eventful life. The Stones get to travel often because o Jim’s job, leaving their ca and plants n the care of the Millers. When the Stones leave on their vacation, the two families seem like good friends, but the depth of the Miller’s jealousy is revealed as a kind of obsession with the Stones’ everyday life.

Early in their lives, two young sisters, Ruth and Lucille, experience loss and abandonment from the men in the family. Their grandfather had died in a train derailment into Lake Fingerbone before they were born, and their father leaves them while they are very young. Then their mother commits suicide, but not before dropping the girls off on their grandmother’s porch. Moreover, then, “she sailed in Bernice’s Ford from the top of a cliff named Whiskey Rock into the blackest depth of the lake (23), again into Lake Fingerbone. After only a few months their grandmother dies leaving the girls to the remainder of the family, a collection of eccentric females. The girls deal with all of this by relying on each other. Soon, their great Aunt’s,

Throughout Jeanette Walls’s memoir The Glass Castle, she uses her resources to survive a family situation that is fundamentally unstable and often unsafe. When she is young, Jeanette creates her own fun by playing with fire, forming rock collections, and exploring in the absence of typical toys or games. When her family moves to Welch, West Virginia, she scrounges for supplies, works hard, and tries to confront her father in an effort to create some stability for herself and her family. As an adult in New York City, Jeanette’s main resource is her intellect. Finally able to make a life based off her education and work ethic, she finds balance. Jeanette is resourceful her whole life when it comes to finding stability for herself and her family.

It’s March 22, 1756 and I’m spending my day around town with my younger sister Emily. It’s hot but I don’t mind. I’m just glad I don’t have to have the rest of my huge family with me. There’s my mom, my dad, my eight year old sister Emily, my two younger brothers, Jack, who is six, and henry, who is five, there’s also a baby who is a year and a half old, her name is penny and she is the only reason I don’t lose my mind living with a loud, chaotic, messy family of seven. You might think being a fourteen year old girl living in 1756 with four younger siblings would have it’s perks, and it does, I can leave the house whenever I want to. That is pretty much the only perk, except I can’t leave before six in the morning, I need to be back by seven at night, and I have to come home for lunch. Even my little sliver of freedom has it’s downs. It could be worse though, There’s a family that sometimes hangs around town named the Barkers. They don’t have any money and they often go without food. Their clothes are rags and they don’t have shoes. Everyone helps them out as much as we can but there’s only so much you can do. It’s not really possible to just buy them a house or all the necessities they need, especially because they’re a family of eight. It makes me sad that they once had a house and everything they needed to stay healthy and happy and then one day that was all taken away from them.