Reaction Paper On The Glass Castle

I instantly imagine everyone barefoot, no actual floors in the houses and take a long time to cook food. This young girl just wanted a simple education, and there could have been so many things to hold her down such as living in poverty, not having clean clothes, a place to shower but instead she fought through and still desired a basic education instead of letting all these things hold her down which I think is really inspirational because she kept going and even drank from a dirty puddle when she knew it would make her sick. She risked her mother getting in trouble and her own health just to get an

Sandra Cisneros evokes great sympathy for her characters, which added to my favor of the story. In a first few sentences, Sandra has already revealed to the reader the poor social status of the young girls and continues to do so throughout the tale. She particularly points out their pauper way of life by repeating the small amount of toys the young girls have. She mentions all the girls could afford was "one extra outfit apiece" then one paragraph later recalls again "our one outfit apiece". Also, Cisneros touches on the "sock dress" the girls made

Jeannette and her siblings adapt to self- sufficiency from a young age, from being emotionally and physically neglected by their parents. The children don’t expect anything so they learn to work with what they have and what opportunities come their way. Jeannette saw the suffering of the family and took this leadership for the family guiding her sibling in the correct path.

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

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.

A child can end up with a troubled future if they were neglected in the past. This can be seen in The Glass Castle and in multiple other cases today. Jeannette Walls’s youngest sibling Maureen is an exquisite example of what can happen if a child is neglected during childhood. When the Walls family had been living in New York, a disastrous event happened. Jeannette says, “Six months later, Maureen stabbed Mom. It happened after Mom decided it was time for Maureen to develop a little self-sufficiency by moving out and finding a place of her own” (Walls 274-275). Maureen stabbing her mother seems like the effect of drugs and alcohol at first, but it is indeed the product of neglect. Maureen always practically lived with different families during her childhood because her neighbors felt responsible to raise her correct because they knew her parents would not be able to. This led to Maureen becoming reliant on other people while the rest of the Walls family were learning how to be self sufficient. This self sufficiency immensely helped the other Walls kids when they moved to New York, but Maureen was under a lot of new found stress because she could not fend for herself in a city full of people that do not care about you. This stress led to her taking drugs, smoking cigarettes and ultimately stabbing her mother. Maureen is not the only case of this happening. In

Walls, “...lived in a world that at any moment could erupt into fire. It was...knowledge that kept you on your toes.” Often times, Jeannette, Lori, Brian, and Maureen were maltreated by Rex and Rose Mary Walls, their parents, through neglectful abuse. However, as the reader stands alongside Jeannette as she matures chapter by chapter the real conflict becomes clearer. In the beginning, as most children do, she tries to understand and accept the blatant lies or finds content in the absence of what she later begins to see as her deserved respect and need of care, but of course her father was her idol, hero, star. How could she bother to complain when he was obviously “onto something” bigger than them all? To be told “...I was his favorite child, but he made me promise not to tell Lori or Brian or Maureen. It was our secret…” then lose the same passion and faith in her father that she’d worked so hard to preserve? Unspeakable horror. This conflict with herself, distinct from Yousafzai’s person vs person conflict with the Taliban, is what she struggles with and avoids any real confrontation with through most of the memoir by distracting herself with the responsibility of improving the family’s

In the memoir, “The Glass Castle”, there were characters that desired freedom from the rules of society while the others however, wished for a normal life that had the happiness and security that they wanted. A normal life would be having a decent home, going to school everyday, parents with stable jobs, bills paid and at least three meals a day. The Walls Family didn’t have a normal life, in fact they always traveled from place to place because they couldn’t pay their bills, the children were home tutored by their parents (although later on they go to school) and worst of all, the Walls would starve going many days without food. For every child, it’s important that they have a sense of freedom by being able to do what they want while they’re still young. Then again, children should also feel like they’re secured, protected and safe from everything. Although if I were to choose which is more important for children, I would say security is more important .

The women of the story are not treated with the respect, which reflects their social standings. The first image of the women that the reader gets is a typical housewife. They are imaged as “wearing faded house dresses and

The Glass Castle is the story of Jeannette Walls, the main character and author, and her upbringing in a dysfunctional family ravaged by poverty. The book gives the readers insight to the life of the less fortunate in a chilling and capturing way. Throughout the book, they’re many underlying themes yet only one resonated throughout the text and captured the essence of what the glass castle is truly about: the importance of hope in burdensome situations. Through the struggle of the Wall’s family, the author is able to highlight hope as a significant factor in their survival even at a subconscious level. Be it through the mother, Rose Mary Walls, refusal to give up the farm land due to her long-held family beliefs; or the father's, Rex Walls,

Children do not always need loving and supportive parents in order to grow up successful. In The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, not every child needs loving and supportive parents. Although they do love their children, Rex and Mary use very basic parental decisions; the children are very independent and raise themselves for the most part. With the right mindset, motivation and knowledge this can lead to success in life even through the hardest of times.

The author shows a great example of the power these men had against these women in the village. In the time period this story took place, it was amazing to the author to witness that gender inequality was still a very big issue in some places. The author described how shocked she was when she found out that these women were not allowed to

Perhaps because they had “learned so much from life, from poverty, from their mothers and grandmothers” and because they had “been early awakened and made observant by coming at a tender age from an old country to a new” (Cather 127).  These girls show the readers how beneficial hard work and poverty can be to a person.  They were made strong because of the obstacles that they had overcome, and they were beautiful for this.  Jim is able to put their abstract pleasantness into words by equating them with poetry.  Somehow, the unique environment that these girls grew up under has made them into the poetry that they are.

Walls sets the tone of her memoir with the story of her earliest memory: being on fire. She uses this story to introduce the reader to the fact that from the start, her life did not fit the picture of the typical American dream. The first line of part two is, “I was on fire.” (9) and it is a quite a powerful one indeed. By using this eye-catching sentence, she uses the Pathos method of appealing to the readers emotions, namely, natural curiosity and empathy. As the story continues, the reader experiences the cool calmness of the hospital with Jeannette. Jeannette is not afraid during a hospital stay and enjoys the attention from the nurses. Walls uses simple childlike language to take the reader on a journey with her, from being placed in an ice bed with severe burns to chewing gum for the first time. By using this language, Walls gets the reader to sympathize her. The reader feels the loneliness that she feels while in the hospital and away from her family, but the reader also feels Jeannette’s excitement from being able to watch television all day and receiving three meals a day. From the start, Walls is incredibly tough and self sufficient. Through the tough lessons her parents teach her and the strong ties she has with her siblings, Jeannett becomes strong-willed and persistent.

The first thing learned is that poverty is a way of life for these children. Although they know they are poor, it doesn't bother them because everyone there is poor. It's okay to be without when there isn't any competition. An example of this is seen when the children talk of their study areas at home. Only one of them actually have a desk and paper, and the others think nothing of it. Instead they tell her to shut up about it. The children are proud of themselves and of their life.