The Glass Castle Analysis

On Writing Well by William Zinsser is an informative guide to writing nonfiction. Zinsser clearly explains every aspect that makes the nonfiction writing strong and impressive. After reading the book, The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, I saw that many of the ideas and themes mentioned in the guide were displayed in Walls writing very effectively. Not only Walls develop those ideas in the book but also uses many rhetorical strategies to get her points across through the reader.

After reading, The Glass Castle, it made me think about my life and the way I was brought up. I feel very lucky to have gotten the attention, schooling, and care I needed growing up. If I needed help with something, my parents were always right there and I could talk to them about anything. That’s not to say that Jeannette’s parents were not there for her. If anything her parents supported her in different ways. Jeanette’s parents took her siblings and her on adventures across the country and taught them that they did not have to have a lot in order to be happy.

Jeanette Walls memoir, the Glass Castle, illustrates Jeanette’s unusual childhood caused by constant poverty and chaos of her dysfunctional parents. This memoir teaches you to be thankful for what you have and to never give up no matter how hard things get.

The Glass Castle is a memoir written by Jeannette Walls. In this book, Jeannette recounts her unconventional upbringing along with her three siblings. Yet, despite of it all, she grew up to have an ordinary life as an adult with a professional career in journalism. Throughout childhood, Jeannette’s family lived like vagabonds, having no permanent residence, sometimes even not having an actual home but sleeping in the family station wagon. One day they lived in the middle of the desert by Joshua Tree, the next week they lived in Las Vegas, then following week it was Welch, West Virginia. Because of all the moving that the family did, the children sometimes found themselves homeschooled, and other times were enrolled in school. The parents, Rose Mary and Rex, though flighty parents, were intellectual, artistic, and visionaries. They instilled these values into their children. Coincidentally, the children tapped into having their own traits and talents. Lori is the artist, Jeannette is the journalist, while Brian is the mediator. Unfortunately, Maureen, the youngest, never learned resiliency nor did she find herself or come to her own. As the children grew older, one by one, they moved to New York to live an ordinary life and pursue their own individual passion. Lori became a fantasy illustrator, Brian became a police sergeant, and Jeannette became a TV correspondent. Maureen was the last one to move to New

“I was three years old...stirring the hot dogs,... Then the flames leaped up, reaching my face.” This scene represents that this incredibly young girl is willing to take risks and take the responsibility of cooking her own food into her own hands without parental supervision. Furthermore, Jeannette Wall’s earliest memory caused a lot of traumatization and at such a young age, she almost experienced a life-death situation. As readers, it's easy to grasp the idea that this incident evidently shows how dysfunctional this family is. The Glass Castle is written by Jeannette walls and it tells a story of the life of Jeannette and her family. In her memoir, the four Walls siblings learn to live life differently than most typical children while their “excitement addict” mother and alcoholic father manipulate them that they’re living the life of their dreams as a distraction to their financial crisis. To elaborate, the Walls are frequently short on cash to the point where the family has to “skedaddle” every so often around the country to escape from the bill collectors. Jeanette’s identify is influenced by her parents’ actions, performances, and decisions, which leads her to be a more intelligent, self-conscious, and independent individual.

The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls covers many sensitive topics throughout her memoir. This touching story is based on her and her other siblings surviving on their own, while dealing with their free-spirited, troublemaking parents. She experiences challenges that us as readers can relate to personally. Even though her parents weren’t perfect, she learned a valuable lesson that carried on throughout her life. Her father never gave her that glass castle, but he gave her hope for the future where as her mother provided optimism in her life. This memoir discusses her overcoming obstacles such as maturity, independence, love and poverty which had a huge impact on her successful path as a writer and a bestselling author.

After reading the Glass Castle, Jeannette and her sibling’s childhood consisted of poverty and confusion, with dysfunctional parents that were irresponsible, neglectful and very careless in the way they raised their kids. The obstacles the Walls children learned from an early age were to depend on each other; their parents were too much of their own interest. Jeannette’s father was a chronic alcoholic and her mother, Rose Mary was always painting, reading or writing.

Jeannette Walls and her out of the ordinary family live their lives surrounded in pure craziness and poverty. Jeannette has been raised to be more independent than her age would typically allow. At age three she could make herself a hot dog and by the age of eighteen she had started a new life in New York away from the craziness that followed her parents throughout their nomadic childhood. Jeannette and her siblings Lori, Brian and Maureen lived their childhoods with almost nothing. They were always wondering where their next meal would come from and where their parents had mysteriously disappeared to. Rex Walls, the father and husband was a severe alcoholic who spent most of his money on gambling or a beer from a local bar. Rose Mary Walls, the mother and wife was no better. She was never able to hold onto a job for long enough to get paid allowing her to support her family. This caused many problems for Rose Mary, Rex and most importantly… the children. The dysfunctional childhood had the siblings dreaming of escaping the prison their parents called home and heading to New York or California where they could feel endless happiness. Their parents offered little guidance so survival depended on becoming independent as quickly as possible. In The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, Jeannette's parents forced her to only rely on herself and never become attached to something you can lose. This forced Jeannette to become a strong and independent person.

“The Glass Castle” by Jeannette Walls is a story of how Jeannette grew up in an incredibly dysfunctional family. Her father, Rex was an alcoholic and came from a very poor family. Her mother, Rose Mary was a free spirit, who never really seemed to want the responsibility of having a family and being a mother. She was an artist and would always prefer to work on her paintings instead of taking care of her children. She came from a rich, highly structured family. Jeannette’s parents, especially her mom, have really strong ideas about how you should raise kids. This involves letting them get into trouble and making their own mistakes. However, they go way too far with this philosophy and their kids are always the ones who end up getting hurt.

The Glass Castle played with several different themes throughout the course of Jeannette Wall’s life. The novel touches frequently on the constant struggle of the socio economic underclasses, clashes with the economically prosperous majority. The heavy use of the depiction of poverty is also used in order to demonstrate the egregious struggle faced by the Walls family, yet often denied by the misguided maternal hubris of both Mr. and Mrs. Walls. Although rich with thematic elements, Walls never uses a singular plot point to encompass the entire theme of the narrative. Rather, she exercises the polymerization of several different major plot points in order to convey a resonating motif that is reinstated several times throughout the narrative. The story draws heavily on the polarizing effects that Jeannette’s parents had on her, throughout her life. Playing both hero and villain, both parents administered Jeanette's success while likewise being the cause of her strife and pain. Walls uses her parents inadequacies and struggles to great effect in order to explore the depth to which by birthright, fate has it’s grip on the mortal thread.

Henry Ward said, “We never know the love of our parents till we become parents ourselves”. The Glass Castle is a memoir written by a woman named Jeanette Walls. In the book, she described her childhood. She grew up in poverty and had to face many obstacles throughout her life. Jeanette’s parents aren't perfect parents, and they are known by many as unfit parents but they do provide good evidence of good parenting throughout the memoir and teach their children some valuable lessons that they will cherish forever.

Throughout Jeanette Walls’s memoir The Glass Castle, she uses her resources to survive a family situation that is fundamentally unstable and often unsafe. When she is young, Jeanette creates her own fun by playing with fire, forming rock collections, and exploring in the absence of typical toys or games. When her family moves to Welch, West Virginia, she scrounges for supplies, works hard, and tries to confront her father in an effort to create some stability for herself and her family. As an adult in New York City, Jeanette’s main resource is her intellect. Finally able to make a life based off her education and work ethic, she finds balance. Jeanette is resourceful her whole life when it comes to finding stability for herself and her family.

Many people do not know what it is like growing up in poverty or having real hardships. In the novel The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, Walls never knew how she would get her next meal. Whether it was actually bought by her parents or fished out of the trash, she always adapted , lived on and survived. Walls communicated through her book, the message strength is gained from overcoming the obstacles life puts in front of you using descriptions, symbolism, character’s actions and personification,

“The Glass Castle” by Jeannette Walls is a memoir about a little girl growing up with a dysfunctional and chaotic family. Jeannette’s family was no ordinary family you read in books or see movies, but it was one you would have dreaded to be part of. Jeannette and her siblings lived a tough life in constant poverty and confusion, but what always seemed to be a big problem in their lives were their parents. Their parents lacked the morals, and the ability to raise a child correctly, but despite the bad parenting they had positive aspects in their parenting styles which was part of the reason why their children turned out to be well respected adults.

Jeannette Walls wrote The Glass Castle in 2005. This book is a memoir of Walls’ childhood and also rarely flashes back to her in the future. Generally, when assessing blame to the failed raising of a child, the parents would get the first look. Whether it be abuse, compromising of safety, or neglect, the parent is always the person who takes the blame. When a child feels this type of neglect, it takes a special character trait or aspect of him/herself for the child to still unquestionably love this parent. Jeannette Walls is this child. Her and her siblings were neglected all throughout their childhoods and so many crazily unbelievable things happened to these young ones due to the constant refusal of the parents. Yet somehow, Walls found a way to make it seem like she was on a constant adventure when her father changed their scenery very often. Jeannette was always able to love him until he died (of irresponsibility believe it or not) for two simple reasons: he always made her feel special, and somehow he was a continuing source of inspiration despite his out-of-control life. Rex Walls was, in no way, “Father of the Year,” but what he lacked in basic common sense and parenting he made up for in his ability to make Jeannette feel especially inspired.