Movie Analysis: Glass Castle

A. The Walls family consists of five members; Rex Walls is the father and Rose Mary is the mother (47 years old). Lori, Jeannette, Brian, and Maureen are the children. Lori is the oldest, she is approximately 27 years old, Jeannette is 24 years old, Brian is 23 years old, and Maureen is 18 years old. As disclosed by Jeannette Walls in The Glass Castle, The Walls have a history of stressors within the five systems levels. More specifically, each member of the Walls has particular challenges they have overcome within the individual, immediate family, extended family, community, and larger society.

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.

When the class sang songs about happiness and games her lips barely moved.” Margot ignored the other children, the only time she participated was when an activity mentioned the sun. Margot keeps herself apart from the rest of the class while she talks about experiences with the sun, when that is what the kids want the most. Although Margot’s classmates hurt her because of their jealousy, Margot was also partly to blame for since she keeps mentioning something that her classmates has always wanted.

In the book, The Glass Castle, the Walls encounter many interior and exterior conflicts. The children learned how to fend for themselves because their parents were not suitable for that job. Jeannette and Brian, two of the Walls children, took responsibility for themselves and their siblings. Jeannette retold this true story from her point of view. The characters struggles did not end in one place. The Walls were constantly on the move because their living situations were always temporary. They switched from their car to a family house in Welch. Once the kids became older, some of them decided to move to New York City to skyrocket their careers. Weaved into all of this chaos, were a few underlying themes. The reader was taken on the children's journey and witnessed them blossom. They had to mature quickly because their parents stripped them from their childhood. This was difficult and a lot of pressure for these young kids. They had to persevere which in turn made them stronger individuals. The rich characters, surplus of settings, and easily comprehensible themes made this a successful novel.

One some level the Walls children perceive that their mother and father weight them down. In order to be successful they cannot be kept under their thumb. Each of the Walls children left their home in Welch to make a new beginning and create new identities that would not be associated with impecunious or slovenly. Maureen and Jeannette differ from the rest of the children because both grew independent and remote from their family overtime because their parents continued to leech from advantages earned from the life they built for themselves. In other words, they are more concerned with constructing families and careers of their own rather than relishing in the past.

Not having a safe car and many other things show the parents didn’t do much to support their children in anyway either. They barely got a roof over their heads, and recurrently weren’t able to feed them. To the point where “When other girls came in and threw away their lunch bags in the garbage…”, Jeannette would dig them out and eat anything that they didn’t (Walls 173). Feeling abandoned and scavenging for food shows many signs of an abusive family. The Walls children should not have had to go through as much as they did, just to

However this did not stop the Walls children’s determination at all, especially the 3 eldest children. Lori, Brian, and Jeannette had nothing but freedom growing up. This freedom allowed the children to find and do what they loved. As was stated above, many people believe that you can’t become successful if you have freedom. However, you do not need security to become successful and the proof lies within the Walls children. Due to their freedom the kids figured out what they would like to do by the time they were in high school. This then gave way to Lori’s and Jeannette’s “Escape Plan” to move to New York. Once in New York Lori and Jeannette both pursued their dreams to become an artist and a writer. Both of them reached their goals despite of their rough childhood. As Nelson Mandela once said, “ Money won't create success, the freedom to make it will.” Without the freedom that they had as children they would’ve never figured out what their dream jobs were and become successful and do what they

In The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls recounts her childhood by describing the turbulent, sometimes strenuous circumstances she experienced each time her family moved from town to town in search of a new life. At each new school, Jeanette and her siblings struggle to find peace with their judgmental classmates and become victims of bullying several times. With little help from their irresponsible parents, the Walls children turn to each other, and they resolve to support each other through their countless conflicts at home and at school. Jeannette’s parents, Rose Mary and Rex Walls, take pride in their children but often fail to properly raise them; even though Rex hopes to become wealthy and eventually build a beautiful castle made of glass,

Consequently, growing up simplistically taught the Walls children to find their own adventures wherever they moved; they grew up to be original and creative, since they did not have anything handed to them. Self-reliance was taught to them at a very young age, their parents were cognitively absent their whole lives. Rose Mary Walls was rarely maternal and focused mainly on her paintings and art career, while Rex Walls was off in a bar or a billiard, “doing research on the liver’s capacity to absorb alcohol”(Walls 76), as his wife described it;

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

With no limits or boundaries, Walls is thrown in a big body of water without knowing how to swim. Rex and Rosemary has a sense of doing it by yourself or not at all asserting “But the Hot Pot didn’t have any ehat edges like that swimming pool. There was nothing to cling to. I waded up in my shoulders. The water above my chest is warm and the rocks i was standing on felt so hot [...] Dad who watched me unsmiling[..] “you’re going to learn today”(65). Rex, in athrows Jeanette in water with no edges, knowing she can’t swim.He puts Jeannette in a live or die situation. Rex shows the faults of parenting because the parents have no regards on Jeannette’s safety or life and wall states”You’re going to learn today’ declaring “Dad pried my fingers from around his neck and pushed me away. My arms flailed around and i sank into the hot smelly water. Water surged in my nose and down my throat. My lungs burned[...] He pulled back and did it again” (65-66).Putting a child in a dangerous situation to show them a lesson shows bad parenting.Rex and Rosemary causes the reader to reflect on their lack of responsibility as being a parent so that they can understand from both sides of view of the poverty situation.

Fences is a drama film directed and starred by Denzel Washington, along with Academy Award Winner, Viola Davis as well as adapted from the play Fences by August Wilson. The movie Fences focuses with elements of distrust and change among a working-class African-American father Troy Maxson, works as a garbage collector during the 1950s in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Maxson’s dream was to become a professional baseball player, but he was considered too old when the league began recruiting black athletes. Sullen by the truth, Troy creates more problems in his family when he dismisses his son’s chance to play professional football. The director’s perception of African American experience during the time period is very fluent. The characters

Experiencing further unstable environments, these children are forced to move from one foster home to another. They rarely develop meaningful relationships and constantly endure lack of care and protection by adults. Sabreen, another gifted student, was able to excel in school despite her unstable environments. She, too, became a ward of the county battling to find a stable home, constantly being placed in unstable environments, environments that do not encourage any achievement. When her situation becomes untenable, she goes AWOL, like Olivia, refusing to return to county supervision. Corwin masterfully frames the problem that wards, like Olivia and Sabreen, face when they feel that going back into the system is not an option. The additional struggles can be seen through Olivia and Sabreen accepting jobs with long hours in order to make enough to pay their bills. The responsibility on taking care of themselves financially detracts from their studies, which quickly can become a vicious, never-ending cycle.

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

The major theme of the story was creating awareness in adolescents about what life has to offer. The nature of human beings of accepting the realities of life to such an extent that apathy and lethargy sets in, is what proves to be destructive for the social fabric of today’s world. In this stagnation, Mrs. Moore provides the impetus required for people to realize their god given right to something better. We are told that Mrs. Moore has a college degree, is well dressed most of the times, and has a good command on her language. She seems to be a kind of a person who has seen the world. She has experienced life, and wants to use that experience in providing the children with an opportunity to broaden