Jeannette Walls Poverty

After recounting the crime he had done in the past out of boredom, a component of strain theory, King explains the reasoning for poor people acting out and doing crime that keeps them in poverty, saying that, “Yes! Black subjects, stripped… degraded… deprived… demoralized… and psychotic-minded must attempt to prove their worth and their manhood, even at the expense of others” (2009, pp. 52-53). What King means by this is that it’s the environment that makes one do what one does, and the people to blame are those in power that perpetuate such conditions. The poor are not, for the most part, who they are just because they are ‘lazy and stupid,’ but more so because there is just nothing there for them. Believing in ‘survival of the fittest’ when working at a desk job may make you feel good about yourself, but there are others who want a chance at the same opportunity as you have had. These people are just like anyone else we know. There hard workers and want to provide for their families, but are held back by the society they live in to further progress, which is ironic in the face of the American

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

When discussing deviance and what most people classify as deviant, many won’t admit that they find people who are poor, and people who are ethically different as deviant. But when observing people’s actions, it is obvious that they do. We are all guilty of purposely avoiding walking near a homeless person, or avoiding eye contact with them at a stop light. These action and behaviors prove that we see these people as deviant. I agree with Goode, that poverty can take individuals and make them deviant or make them more deviant than they already were. “Shame is what the poverty-stricken individuals feel,” (Goode 85), which makes these individuals more likely to partake in illegal activities. They will partake in these activities as a sort of income, for example the using and selling drugs, or they will partake in these activities because they know they are already stigmatized, and there is no point in trying to prove otherwise. Which further proves that being poor may be deviant on its own but it also causes deviance. If middle and upper class Americans were more open and accepting to the poor, then I think they would be less likely to commit deviant acts. Poverty is a self-fulfilling prophecy because it is harder for these individuals to better themselves when they are already labeled as deviant.

“I’m fine. You’re the one who needs help. Your Values are all confused.” (pg. 5)

Jeanette Walls’ The Glass Castle influenced my ideas about poverty by showing me that poverty can yield positive results. Before reading The Glass Castle, I believed that all poverty was tragic and life ruining. I thought that nothing positive or advantageous could come of out poverty. Reading The Glass Castle changed my opinion. In The Glass Castle, Jeanette Walls and her siblings are resilient and brave. When the Walls family moves to Welch, West Virginia from Phoenix, Rex and Rose Mary Walls, Jeanette’s parents, travel back to Phoenix to pick up some of their old belongings and bring them to West Virginia. While Rex and Rose Mary are gone, Jeanette’s grandmother assaults Jeanette’s brother and banishes the children to the freezing basement. However, in the face of cruelty and cold, Jeanette and her siblings persevere and survive until their parents return. Poverty gives Jeanette and her siblings the ability to endure horrific circumstances. Because of their previous experiences with poverty, Jeanette and her siblings can withstand conditions and treatment that would have killed or crushed the spirit of a

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.

In the book “The Glass Castle” by Jeannette Walls poverty goes deeper than just low income. Even while Jeannette’s parents had money coming in, they struggled to support their family properly. They went hungry, had no electricity, or even indoor plumbing, so this proposes the question can poverty be caused by more than just low income? Do people actually want to live in poverty? For Jeannette’s parents it sure seems that way.

We create this society in which every individual starts off at different points in life due to these social categories based on race and ethnicity, which in turn affects education, social class and our overall lifestyle. After we create these categories and put people there unwillingly, we act as though it is there fault and not ours, so our society is reluctant to help; in this way it would be a “helping hand” rather than a dependency people often associate it with. “Education is a significant factor in poverty” (Wong, Chapter 6); like stated above, different individuals get different starting points in life, therefore affecting where one ends up in life. “A national survey conducted in 1975, found that those living in poverty attributed it to personal failures, such as having a poor work ethic, poor money management skills and low personal moral values” (Martin

Jeannette Walls lacks the ability to swim through the warm currents of water unlike her siblings, Lori and Brian. In order to teach Jeannette how to swim, Rex Walls decides the best method is to, sink or swim. Once they are standing in the sulfur spring water, Rex throws her in, catching her off-guard and allowing her to thrash restlessly in the water. Before she is able to completely sink, he grabs a strong hold of her, and drags her back only to throw her in once again. Through this method, she quickly learns how to swim away in order to escape the torture Rex is putting her in. I am able to visualize Jeannette panicking and swallowing some of the chlorine and panicking. Trying her best to reach to the surface, and being scared for her life and wondering, why would

Jeannette Walls, the second oldest child, was chosen to be interviewed next. Jeannette Walls is a tall, skinny, pale, orange haired thirteen year old girl with large scar across her body. Jeannette got this scar from an incident when she was three years old and living in trailer park in southern Arizona. During this time, Jeannette was left unattended and allowed to cook hot dogs and her dress caught on fire, leading to her to receive severe burns that required a skin graft (Walls 9-10). Jeannette Walls, being only three years old at the time, was far too young to be left unattended and allowed to use a stove, which results in her receiving severe burns. This blatant neglect from her parents shows their irresponsibility, due to the fact that they allowed they left a three year old child unattended and allowed her to get into an extremely dangerous situation that could have resulted in the death of the child.

The children had to grow up too quickly and most of the time had to fend for themselves. They taught themselves how to earn money for food when they were too young to get a job by selling bottles. Another way they got food was by raiding the trash cans or dumpsters if they got hungry enough. On the other hand, it was not just food the Walls’s children were needing, it was also certain things. Jeannette needed -- or at least felt she needed -- braces but her parents would not pay for them.

Nelson Mandela once said, “Poverty is not natural it 's man-made.” This quote states that a person can overcome poverty if one has the desire to live a better life. In a novel called Poor People written by William T. Vollmann, the author travels around different countries and places to learn about poor people and to get a global perspective view. While interviewing different kinds of people, Vollmann would ask them one question: why are you poor? Looking at people 's answers Vollmann noticed that some of the people gave quite interesting answers. Vollmann went through a lot of situations where he just couldn 't imagine what life would be if he was ever to live like that. Another novel that has a similar poverty situation is called Let The Water Hold Me Down, written by Michael Spurgeon. Hank, the main character of the novel, experiences a tragic moment in his life. Losing his wife and daughter while drowning, this tragedy left him feeling like it’s all due to his miscarrying about them. His life becomes full of sorrow, and the only way out it was to go to Mexico to his friend’s place and restart his life over. In a new country of Mexico, this story takes place. Even though he had money, a house, and friends’ support, he still experienced lots of pressure trying to survive in Mexico. Poverty has different meanings in everyone 's lives but by reading these two novels, there are three similarities that can be made about people living in poverty.

Jo Goodwin Parker believes poverty is a horrible thing and a difficult situation to escape in What Is Poverty, but she managed to provide for her family the best she could in order to survive. She recalls about her tragic situation and her meager salary of $22 a week for her three children. Being a single mother only made things more challenging. On the other hand, Stephen Moore and Peter Ferrara believe poverty is a choice, and the reason why people live in poverty is because they did not take enough risks or did not work hard enough in The Poverty of Equality. They believe it not to be fair for everyone to be equal due to the people with more money having worked harder and taken more risks. They state, “It is not fair to the strong to punish them by holding them down with excess weights” (Moore, Ferrara 2). They believe that if

This week in class the focus has been on generational poverty. There are a lot of key factors that lead to poverty. Poverty does not exist because people want it to. Poverty is a way of life for those who don’t know another way and feel that they don’t have a way out. Every day in society people turn their heads or frown up their nose at people who they see living in poverty because they think they are better than them and will not lift a hand to help them out. The big question is why do we do this? In most cases, the poverty line or clash of the classes are based on wealth and there is certainly a variation in the wealth among the population. But classism exists from the beginning of education to death.

Ronald Reagan once said, “We fought a war on poverty, and poverty won.” I read the book, Dancing in the dark by Morris Dickstein. This book was about the great depression, and the impacts it had on American life. The traditional thought of poverty, people dying of hunger and people lying in the roads, has been erased. America has abolished poverty by the traditional standards but the thought of poverty and what it is has changed. In America we consider poverty to be spending all your money on bills, so you have no money left for food to feed your family. We consider poverty to be just being poor. One-Third of our population makes less than $38,000. This is not enough to be able to be above the poverty line. Anything below this