The Glass Castle Analysis

This fond memory of her childhood was a time when the Walls family was not starving or homeless, and Jeannette’s father had a true job that was providing food and shelter for their family. This period was one of the few times in Jeannette’s life during which the Walls family was at peace with one another. Education was the main way the family bonded, so the constant presence of literature and reading in this part of her life demonstrates that this could have been a time where the relationship between parents and children in the Walls family was at its strongest and

“By the time I was four, I was pretty good with dad’s pistol” (21). That is just a glance into young Jeannette Walls’s life; she tells her story in her memoir The Glass Castle. When Walls was growing up, her parent’s way of living was normal. Once exposed to life outside her parents, Walls was no longer content in their unfulfilling lifestyle. She had made the decision to leaver her parents behind and nothing would stop her from achieving her goal. Walls’s father’s determination to build this grand glass castle was set on unrealistic ambitions and expectations. The goals set by Walls herself, to leave Welch and make a better life for herself, gives a truer meaning to the word determination. Walls shows just how important determination can be.

The Glass Castle is about a very poor family that constantly moves from place to place just to seemingly stay alive. The book addresses the many social issues that we deal with every day. One of the most important social issues disputed on a daily basis are the kind of parents we want to be and what we want to teach our children for their future. In this memoir we are able to see how Rex and Rosemary Walls teach their children the values of everyday life. The parents try to teach their children that whatever life throws at you, you can handle it with resilience. The parents accomplished the goals for their children by telling them that they loved them and to never give up. The Walls children gained exceptional values that may not have been learned had these children grown up with different parents. Both parents in the Glass Castle ultimately help Jeannette and the rest of her family become the people they are today, and would not have been able to accomplish this without the parents.

Jeannette Wall’s memoir, The Glass Castle, displays Jeannette’s life growing up as a child living in an impoverished family. It is surprising to see that Jeannette is truly loving and caring towards her family despite how completely irresponsible and negligent both her parents were. Rose-Mary and Rex Walls are unfit parents to their children.

The Glass Castle was a symbol of hope for all of the children, they counted on it for their future; when it was forgotten about by their dad, the hope of a better future faded away along with the hope they had in their father.

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.

In the memoir “The Glass Castle,” by Jeannette Walls, the author describes the childhood she was apart of with her uninvolved parents was somewhat disparate from what other children would experience in their childhood involving their parents.

In her memoir The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls explains all the hardships she faced when growing up. Walls unfortunately had deleterious parents and this caused her to lose her childhood innocence quickly. Jeannette Walls, along with her siblings: Lori, Brian, and Maureen, all had to find ways to ultimately care and protect themselves.

Adversity and the struggles that we go through day to day are the moments that build us into the people that we become. Nobel Laureate Dennis Gabor wrote, “Humans are wonderful in adversity, weak in comfort, affluence and security.” Being weak in comfort, affluence, and security clearly points to people’s ability to remain stable. However, Gabor notes that the strength humans have is due to the ability to handle adversity. A well-used strength allows for these weaknesses to not be the downfall of the race. Adversity can be confused with neglect in rough family situations. Jeannette Walls is an author that can represent adversity and explains them through her memoir The Glass Castle in several passages and even references the boundaries of

In the memoir The Glass Castle there were many obstacles Walls had to get through. Walls’ family was complicated enough and, obvious enough, dysfunctional. Nevertheless she got through every single obstacle that was thrown at her by her family’s nomadic lifestyle. Not only did she went through psychological obstacles, financial barrier, and her unstable childhood.

The memoir The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, explicates the author’s dysfunctional childhood and how it resulted from poor parenting. Throughout the beginning of the book, Walls continues to be optimistic and grateful for the few objects she owns and what little parent support she receives. This contributes to the tone of how positivity can aid those in coping with problematic events. Although Walls is unable to escape her source of problems, as a child with irresponsible adults, her undying faith in her parents caused her to make injudicious decisions. This contributes to the tone of how false positivity can lead to oblivion.

Author and journalist, Jeannette Walls writes about her life story and upbringing in her memoir The Glass Castle. The book definitely lived up to the high expectations set by others and drew me in further as I kept reading. I wanted to read the book because I heard that is was exceptional from several people including friends and family. As I kept reading I began to learn more about Walls’ story, and I became intrigued to know what was to come. I believe that the author chose to share her story because it shows why she is who she is today. She uses her voice well in order to relate to others in a way that shows that when times become difficult not to lose hope because there can be a pleasant ending.

*The family seems to breakdown at times, but the children have really good lives when they are grown up, and the parents are still homeless.* “Life is a drama full of tragedy and comedy. You should learn to enjoy the comic episodes a little more.” - Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle.

Throughout this memoir Walls discloses countless episodes of how she survived her childhood. Her parents did not have a stable income to support four children. Thus, this made Walls and her other siblings undergo unpleasant predicaments when it came to surviving their youth. Their living situation was not stable for any individual to live. To emphasize, there was no indoor plumbing, no hot water, and no electricity. It was hard for them to function at times. They had to live in these conditions because their parents did not have a steady income and this living situation was the only thing they could afford.

In “A Poem On His Birthday” Dylan Thomas writes, “Dark is a way and light is a place, / Heaven that never was / Nor will be ever is always true. In Dylan’s poem I believe it is discussing how that you may be in a state of darkness right now, but that there is always a light at the end of the tunnel. I also believe this poem relates to the people below the poverty line. In America now there are 1.56 million people who are homeless and has been increasing since The Great Recession. In my essay I will be discussing about how this quote can be interpreted through different pop culture.