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Jeannette Walls Thesis

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The Glass Castle, a memoir by Jeannette Walls, tells the story of Jeannette's upbringing and her road to adulthood. Jeannette, and her siblings, were raised by dysfunctional, poor, and sometimes homeless parents, Rose Mary and Rex Walls. The Walls children were pretty much abandoned by their parents and in some cases they were forced into making their own money, or stealing food just so they would not starve. Rose Mary and Rex Walls allowed the children to do anything they wanted, whenever they wanted to do it, but that did not stop Jeannette from being successful. She recognized that she did not want to live her life the same way her parents have lived their lives. In The Glass Castle Jeannette Walls believes that sometimes people are actually …show more content…

For example, at the beginning of the memoir Jeannette is in a taxi on her way to a party, in New York City, when she sees her mother digging through a dumpster, and asks the taxi-driver to take her home. In her apartment, Jeanette feels guilty for her mother's lifestyle, so she decides to call her mothers friend to leave a message for Rose Mary. A few days later Jeannette and her mother decided to get together at Rose Mary’s favorite Chinese restaurant. While at lunch, Jeannette asked her mother if she needed anything to better her life and Rose Mary then explained to Jeannette that she was the one who needed help, because her values were all confused (Walls 5). Every time Jeanette tried helping her parents make their lives better both Rex and Rose Mary insisted that the way they were living their lives was how they wanted it. On page 256, Jeanette tells about her political science professor asking the class what results in homelessness, and Jeanette responded by saying “I think maybe sometimes people get the lives they want.” Jeanette was implying that sometimes people who are homeless are actually living the lives they wanted because they do not make their lives revolve around money. When Rose Mary and Rex told Jeannette they were living the way they wanted to be living, it supported Jeannette’s decision in not defending herself when she was accused of not understanding the difficulties of being homeless after her political science professor asked her what she knew about the hardships and obstacles the underprivileged

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