Summary Of The Glass Castle By Richard Walls

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.

In the same fashion, dealing with Maureen Walls, the youngest child of the Walls family, had to rely on her friends and people she hardly knew to provide for her. This situation went as far as Maureen going to her friend’s house to eat meals and

At a young age, the Walls children may have enjoyed the freedom and the fun that Rex and Rose Mary Walls gave them, but when the time came they all realized the shortcomings of the life they were provided. Rex and Rose Mary were both loving parents yet their needs were far more important to them than their kids’ needs. They both had their skills and specialty which could’ve lifted up their lives but they fell short and didn’t work

#Jeanette and the rest of the Walls children had to be strong and patient to grow up in such rough housing, and they had to be even stronger to look on the bright side and find an adventure out of it. Instead of always getting upset and annoyed with the situation. The kids decided to entertain themselves and make bets on when they were going to move again. This taught them to keep their heads high and not to give up hope on what the future could

Elise Gomez Mr. Zimmerman Creative Writing, P. 04 November 09, 2015 The Glass Castle The Author and Her Times & Form, Structure, and Plot: The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls is a memoir written in first person and length in chapters that illustrates Jeanette's life in her own words and experiences. Born in Phoenix, Arizona on April 21, 1960 by her parents Rex Walls and Rose Mary Walls.

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls is a memoir written in first person and length in chapters that illustrates Jeanette's life in her own words and experiences. Born in Phoenix, Arizona on April 21, 1960 by her parents Rex Walls and Rose Mary Walls. Jeannette has three siblings, Lori, Brian, and Maureen. She is currently married to John Taylor and has written a novel; Half Broke Horses: A True-Life Novel, and a memoir, The Glass Castle.

Hardships are terrible, but they are a normal part of everybody’s life. No matter the hardship, anybody can recover. In her memoir, The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls tells a true story of her unconventional childhood. She journeys the readers through her nomadic and dysfunctional family lifestyle. Her parents—the artistic, inattentive Rose Mary and the intelligent, alcoholic Rex—neglect their children and fail to provide for them adequately. Walls learns how to care for herself at an early age. Growing up in such a dysfunctional family, it would be no surprise if Walls would have turned out just as wrecked as her parents, but Walls was able to rise above and accomplish a successful life. It is through the sharing of her own personal success, that Wall’s demonstrates you don’t have to be a product of your circumstances you can shape your own future.

Walls did not have the most typical childhood imaginable. Her family moved around frequently and her education

This nonfiction story entertains and informs the reader about the author’s life and her family. Jeannette Walls lives her childhood short on money and food, while constantly moving across the country finding a new home. The memoir conveys information through the narrator, Jeannette. In spite of narrative purpose and sentimental tone in the book The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls portrays the main point of determination.

The book “The Glass Castle” by Jeannette Walls is a memoir about the author’s life that spans from her early childhood to her adult years. As a child, Walls is carefree and hopeful despite her dysfunctional family. Walls goes through her childhood appreciating what she has because she can not fully comprehend how deplorable her living conditions are. She has no other frame of reference to compare her family to, so Walls is oblivious to her parent’s unusual parenting. Regardless of her abnormal situation, the author was a hopeful and jovial child. Walls’s attitude towards life creates an optimistic tone that engages the reader because positivity is the opposite of what one would expect from an individual in this situation.

There are various components of Walls’ traumatic autobiography that are significant. To begin with, throughout her narrative Walls uses the trauma she has gone through to show that she has learned to take nothing for granted and is appreciative of what she does have. This is a significant portion of Walls’ autobiography because it shows that a traumatic upbringing can either cause a person to fall into the same patterns that brought on the trauma, such as falling back into poverty, or the person can rise above the challenges in their lives and become determined to change their future. Another significant portion of her narrative includes different incidents when Walls and her siblings go to extreme measures to simply survive. A specific incident of this occurs when Walls describes how at lunch she would hide in the bathroom stall with her feet up and girls would come into

Rose Mary and Rex Walls did not have the future they had hoped they would. They had four beautiful and intelligent children: Lori, Jeannette, Brian, and Maureen, that they had the privilege of raising. However, that is not how they viewed them. Rose Mary is an aspiring artist who never wanted a family, and Rex is a very bright individual, but it is overshadowed by his alcohol addiction. Growing up their kids had to learn how to fend for themselves. However, this brought them closer together as siblings, and taught them how to fight together. “But we always fought back, usually as a team,” (165). The children learned how to protect each other against offenders, even when it came to their parents. To illustrate, it became very evident that they have to provide for themselves when the children find their own mother hiding chocolate from them. “She told us we should forgive her the same way we always forgave Dad for his drinking. None of us said a thing,”(Walls 174). She didn’t think about feeding the whole family when they were going hungry, she only thought about herself. The family was not very financially stable because their father enjoyed spending their money instantaneously, instead of saving it, so hiding something even small like chocolate from her kids is a big deal. This is what Jeannette’s whole childhood consisted

The novel The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls demonstrates about a young girl, Jeannette Walls’, childhood. This book is memoir of the author, Jeannette Walls. Jeannette grew up in a family that had little to no money at times and has to move to different cities in deserts numerous times. Although many events in the novel were depressing the family still managed to keep humor and hope, especially when going through having to move constantly and being broke.An example as to why the family was always short on money because Janette’s father was an alcoholic and he would use up the family's money to purchase liquor. However, when the family was in need of food and money he would go out and a job. In the end the Walls children were moved out of

They hated having to pay for taxes and did not respect police officers. The minute they felt as if someone was watching them, ready to take their money or a police officer was coming for them they ran to the next city. “The next day he announced that Blythe had become a little too hot and we were hitting the road again.” (Walls, pg.48). Instead of dealing with the problems they had they just ran away from them. He taught his children that it was okay to have a lifestyle of not paying taxes and running away from the law enforcement. Their father was the only person that made the decision to move every single time. He referred to tax collectors as the “gestapo” or “nazi” to make his children fear them. He gave his innocent children the wrong impression and made them ignorant to the situation because they did not know the truth behind the