Memoir 'The Glass Castle'

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 vivid, personal memoir The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, she painstakingly recalls her “story” and how it affected and made her who she is today. She grew up in an environment that most children typically do not. Her father was an alcoholic, and her mother was a selfish woman who put herself first. You could say their way of parenting was not your average “cookie cutter” household. One main social issue in The Glass Castle, is the impact on child neglect in a family and how that affects the way the child turns out. Although, Jeannette Walls ended up as a successful writer along with her siblings Lori and Brian, her other sister Maureen took a route which many neglected children face. What set apart these siblings and how the

Rex Walls, a character in The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, is an abusive, manipulative parent. He exhibits many traits that are classified as neglective, abusive as well as endangering to the general well being of his children. This book tells the heartbreaking story of Jeannette Walls childhood into her adult life. As a child she was exposed to the worst and most sickening aspects of the world due to her parents incapabilities. It emphasizes the struggles of growing up in an underprivileged as well as dealing with her abusive and mentally ill parents. Tried in the court of law, Rex Walls would be charged guilty, due to the countless examples of evidence against him.

Jeannette Walls is an American writer in journalist who found success in New York City, most notably writing a gossip column for MSNBC in which she details the effects of gossip in politics. She published her memoir, The Glass Castle, in 2005. The book spent 261 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list. In it, Walls recounts her childhood while growing up in an unstable family with her father and mother, Rex and Rose Mary Walls, her older sister Lori, and her younger brother and sister, Brian and Maureen. Rex and Rose Mary could not settle down and constantly uprooted their family of six to different locations in the southwest region of America. Neither parent could keep a job and struggled to feed and put a roof over their heads. In the novel, Walls views her parents as irresponsible because it rarely seems as though Rex and Rose Mary genuinely want to work and make money to support the family. They thrive off their sense of adventure, as they drive all over the country in a rundown car, looking for their latest shack to pile their family into, usually without running water, heat, or indoor plumbing. Walls will tell the story of her childhood through a series of pivotal moments that ultimately shape her opinion of her parents and lead her to a successful career in New York City.

Author, Jeannette Walls, in her novel, The Glass Castle, from pages 226 to 230, exemplifies the themes of escapism and betrayal. In this chapter, Walls’s purpose is to identify the instability that her family is going through. Through her diction, Walls creates various tones in order to convey to her audience that despite obstacles, it is possible to escape from a dysfunctional family in hopes of a brighter future. Walls begins the chapter by recalling incidents of disappointment.

Jeannette Walls, the author of The Glass Castle, creates an overall universal message, or theme, that family is more important than money because family lasts forever; She does this by including the fact that the mom didn’t sell family owned land just for money. The Walls family lives a run-down life moving from place to place practically homeless. Towards the end of the memoir, a big secret is revealed: the mother, Rose Mary Walls, inherited land valued at about one million dollars, but instead of selling this land for money she decides to keep it and rent it out for a little extra money. A million dollars would be great to have and could provide Rose Mary’s children, Lori, Jeannette, Brian, and Maureen, with healthy food, a nice home, and

The book is told from Jeannette’s point of view; Jeannette is an adventurous child with high hopes. Her father Rex Walls is an alcoholic who would distract the kids from when they had to move house to house,

Poet Dylan Thomas once spoke, “Dark is a way and light is a place , Heaven that never was nor will be is always true”. One's life is not charted by how much money they make, or how big their house is, because in the blink of an eye, it can all be gone. I believe life is charted by the impact you have on others. Starting this book has reshaped how I think about the growing problem of homelessness. How I address the problem, and how I see and want to find ways to fix it more than ever.

Jeannette Walls graduated from Barnard College and was a journalist in New York ("Jeannette Walls Official Page"), who is now become a novelist and a gossip columnist for MSNBC.com (Hazlick). Walls at a young age start to become independent when she was the age of 3, she cooked herself some hot dog and got severely burn (Walls 9). As her parents began to move around the United States, to avoid bills, she become mature and self reliance. Walls independency, maturity, and wise knowledge led her through many obstacles she have faces. In her memoir, The Glass Castle, Walls reveals both positive and negative emotions that encourage her to become the person who she is today and that the truth is very powerful than the lie she try to hide.

The parenting paradigm from the article that most matches Rex and Rose Mary Walls from Jeanette Walls’ memoir The Glass Castle is uninvolved because of neglect, reject and lack of communication (Cherry, “The Four Styles of Parenting”). Jeanette’s brother Brian fell of the couch, “Brain’s head was wrapped in a dirty white bandage with dried bloodstains” (13). This shows that Rex Walls neglected the needs of his child and put his beliefs before the needs of his child (Cherry). Rosemary was unobservant to Jeanette when she was burned (Cherry). Jeanette’s recalls her first memory when she was three years old, “I could hear mom in the next room singing while she worked on one of her paintings” (3). Jeanette’s mom left her unattended at the age

The Glass Castle is a memoir told in the perspective of Jeanette Walls as she grows up. The memoir follows Jeanette and her family as they move from city to city in search of a better life, while also overcoming obstacles such as poverty and neglect. This memoir shows the everyday struggles of Jeanette and her siblings due to the poor decisions of their parents. In this memoir, while she is telling her story, Jeanette shows the importance of forgiveness and forgives her parents time and time again, even though they are the reason the Walls kids live such a chaotic life. In The Glass Castle, forgiveness is shown in one of the very first scenes of the memoir,

Jeannette Walls tells a very interesting story in The Glass Castle; few people get the chance to experience such a unique childhood. Jeannette’s father and mother are unlike traditional parents. Her father puts his children in harm’s way and justifies it by claiming that it’s a learning experience and her mother fails to provide comfort because she is preoccupied over her own goals. As an innocent child, Jeannette initially does not mind living such a childhood. In fact she admires her parents, especially her father, despite his frequent drunken outbursts. However, as Jeannette ages, she finds herself disapproving of her father’s way of

The story of Jeannette Walls begins one cold March evening when she comes across a homeless woman, which is then revealed to be her mother. It is there that her troubled past comes into light in, “The Glass Castle”. But through her disastrous childhood and dysfunctional family, she manages to turn it around and and by education, expectation, and most of all environment, Jeannette grew from her experiences and came out successful and stronger than ever.

I am a reader that enjoys historical or military ventures. This is true due to the fact that the first author I really enjoyed was Stephen Hunter, who has built this storyline with numerous of books about his fictional character Bob Lee Swagger. These types of sniper books have always intrigued me since I have become a reader.

In her memoir The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls composes her main theme targeting the influence of the past on the present, comparing her childhood to her current life situation. Walls childhood was filled with poverty and unstable living conditions which impacted her emotional and motivated her to be successful as an adult. As a child Walls never had a stable home. Her father Rex believed bad men were after him which caused him to relocate and move the whole family frequently. He called it the “skedaddle” and they would leave the house they were in and most of their belongings behind.