The Glass Castle By Jeannette Walls: An Analysis

To begin with, Roger progressively transforms from a mysterious boy to a barbarian over the course of civilization to regression. Roger avoids social contact, initially, until refinement unravels among several boys, and he gets unruly--walking into the littluns’ sandcastle purposely--after relieving his signal fire duties. Afterwards, Roger continues bothering the kids, more particularly--Henry--as he “stoop[s], pick[s] up a stone, and thr[ows] it at Henry--threw it miss” (Golding 62). Roger gives in to the lack of civilization on the island by having the idea of harming a mere, young boy. However, civilization embeds a part of him, and it prevents him from hitting Henry literally. For example, he “pick[s] up a stone” (Golding 62) with the intent of using it to hurt a person since over time, the island gradually loses its authority and order. Consequently, these boys influence one another dramatically by their thirst to hunt or simple goal of survival. In this case, Jack, a power hungry tyrant, barbarically impacts Roger and his viewpoints. However, at home, society reminds Roger such actions are not acceptable, so he “threw it to

Imagine you’re driving down a road and arrive at a red light. As you glance to your right, you see a woman standing there with a sign that reads, “Without work, anything will help”. Do you stop and give the spare change in your purse? Do you look the other way? Poverty is a difficulty that affects numerous families not only in the United States, but around the world. Jeannette Walls shows in her memoir, The Glass Castle, which describes her hardships as a child, that some poverty-stricken families chose to remain silent, afraid of the embarrassment they feel they’d face, or in denial of their situation. Despite the various drawbacks that weighed down the families hopes of survival, it only lit a fire in Jeannette to become a strong woman who appreciates what she has, knowing it could all disappear in an instant.

American writer and journalist, Jeannette Walls, in her memoir, The Glass Castle(2005), narrates her personal history. She tells the good, bad, and ugly of her childhood. Walls’ purpose is to encourage her readers that anyone can overcome adversity and be great. She kept her positivity and humor even in the roughest of times and kept her family together even through all their movement from place to place. Walls’ pushed herself through her challenges and hardships to become prosperous and happy.

Rex never wanted his children to worry about their safety and where they were headed to next. “’Don’t worry,’ Dad said. ‘You leave that to me. Don’t I always take care of you?’” (Walls, 17). Rex may not have been the world’s greatest father, but he would never let an external force hurt his children. Secondly, Rose Mary placed her family being together on a pedestal above all other early things. “’We may not have insulation,’ Mom said as we all gathered around the stove, ‘but we have each other’” (Walls, 176).

"And I'll build the Glass Castle, I swear it. We'll all live in it together. It'll be a hell of a lot better than any apartment you'll ever find in New York City, I can guaran­goddamn­tee that." I found this interesting because Rex Walls and his wife is the reason that their family fell apart. The children grew up independent, foraging for food at school in garbage cans. The reason why they live like scavengers are because of their irresponsible parents who often do not bring home enough money to live on and impulsively splurges on unnecessary items such as alcohol. When Lori moves out, Jeannette follows her older sister’s lead, frustrated by her parents’ antics. Rex Walls brings out the blueprints of the Glass Castle to prevent the family from being broken even further. However, Rex often postponed the building when the children were younger because he used the excuse that he couldn’t perfect his inventions that would fund the building of the

A few of the characters regret what they have done since they have been on the island. As the others surround each other, Roger begins to lean on the rock that comes tumbling down and hits Piggy headfirst. (pg.200). Roger feels guilty that he killed Piggy because his intentions were to kill Ralph. Roger had nothing against Piggy but felt like Ralph should have died because Roger felt insulted. "See? See? That's what you'll get" says Jack. (pg.201). Jack threatens to kill Ralph as soon as he gets the chance. He feels guilty that two men that shouldn't have died did. He wants to kill the boy that he really cannot stand, which is none other than

When the boys first arrive on the island, Roger is described as being reclusive, shy and quiet with an inner intensity of avoidance and secrecy who tends to mutter. He begins to reveal his predilection for bullying when he purposefully destroys the younger kids sand castles. Roger and Maurice walk through the younger kids sandcastles, kicking them over and causing complete destruction. Roger also begins to reveal his physical aggressions when he feels the urge to be violently cruel to Henry and throws rocks at

Ralph barely escapes as an adult finds the boys. At seeing the adult, the boys are reminded of civility and the savagery they succumbed to; they start to cry. An authority figure is back in place, and the boys revert back to civility. Golding made a statement in this novel about man’s nature and his relationship with civility and savagery. He paints a beautifully horrifying experience in the novel as it calls into question why humans do what they do. Roger is a prime example of a man without principles, and the inevitable danger he/she can bring. As the antithesis of Roger, Simon is the prime example of a man with principles who meets his inevitable demise due to those like Roger. In conclusion, all societies struggle with savagery and civility. While some societies manage them both, some aren’t capable of it. Golding paints the consequences

Ralph believes he is the leader simply because he is chosen, but he fails in earning the boys’ respect and making them fear him because he does not exercise his authority over them. Conversely, Jack understands that in order to maintain control over the boys, he must manipulate their fear of the beast and use it to benefit him. When being asked why people are needed to defend the gate against people that want to sneak in, he replies, ‘They will. They’ll try to spoil things we do. So the watchers at the gate must be careful. And then-’ (177). When Jack realizes that his reasoning is weak, he goes straight to using the beast as a way to justify his decision to the boys: ‘-and then; the beast might try to come in. You remember how he crawled-’ (177). In this scene we see the control that the boys’ fear of the beast has over their decision-making and behaviour in the way their reaction is described: ‘The semicircle shuddered and muttered in agreement’ (177). Aside from their fear of the beast, Jack also develops an image of himself that is to be feared, and this is another one of the main tools that he uses to maintain his authoritative position. In Chapter 10, Robert tells Roger that Jack is going to beat a boy named Wilfred. When Roger asks what for, Robert tells him: ‘I don’t know. He didn’t say. He got angry and made us tie Wilfred up. He’s been… he’s been tied for hours,

When Ralph and Piggy go to retrieve the glasses at Castle Rock, Piggy brings the conch to resemble the little authority that is left. Roger stands on top of a ledge as the thought of civilzation (180). Ralph hastily scurries into the forest, while Jack sets the island on fire in order to burn Ralph to death. He soon comes across a naval officer and notices he is safe until the officer questions him and he realizes there is no words to describe what happened on that island. All of the boys cry for their loss of innocence and the death of their

The desire to squeeze and hurt was overmastering.” Ralph is a perfect example of how humans can be naturally bad. He is known as the good and civilized chief, however, he also depicted his evil side as they were pretending to pig hunt with roger as the target. He has this inner dark side of him that he, also, was not expecting. This shows that we can never tell when and how our bad side will prevail because it is inside all of us naturally even if we deny it.

“Your job as a parent is not to make your child's way smooth, but rather to help her develop inner resources so she can cope.” ― (Ellyn Satter, Child of Mine: Feeding with Love and Good Sense, Revised and Updated Edition). Both of these parents are both bad at parenting, but if I had to choose who is a better parent it would have to be Rex. His major flaws are that he is an alcoholic and a big time dreamer. If we took this two flaws out of the equation he could become a good parent. His main goal is to get his family a perfect life that they should deserve, but will never achieve it because of the problems he caused. “Mom gave me a startled look. I’d broken one of our unspoken rules: We were always supposed to pretend our life was one long

Roger has no been on the island long enough to completely disobey the rules he has from his childhood. At home Roger would have been oenelized for throwing rocks at Henry, so he avoided breaking the rules. The symbol of The Beast within Roger begins to be revealed as he starts to resort back to his primitive instincts to be savage. As the novel progresses, most of the characters, especially Roger, develop their inner savagery that is later unleashed. The throwing of the rocks is just the begining of the uncivilization that is shown within all of the boys.

This description is extremely significant in order to understand why the boys’ inner immorality is exposed over the course of the novel. Without grown-ups or government officials, there is no one to be their moral guide, and this essentially allows them to act however they would like. As the boys gradually progress into savagery, Roger’s innate evil germinates, peaking when he quickly joins Jack’s tribe and becomes the guardian of a killing contraption made with a large boulder. When Ralph and Piggy infiltrate Castle Rock, Roger loses control of his actions in favor of wickedness, and murders Piggy. This progression from Roger aiming to miss, to aiming to destroy reveals that with a lack of authoritative repercussions, like in the rampageous tribe Jack forms, the true evil in people will be revealed.

Castle Rock is a location in the novel in which Jack and is tribe of savages dwell. The place becomes a more prominent and significant place as savagery descends on the island. The events that transpire at Castle Rock symbolizes that the island is descending into savagery. As Ralph confronts Jack about returning Piggy’s glasses, Ralph “pushed up his hair and gazed at the green and black mask before him trying to remember what Jack looked like” (178). This demonstrates that civilization is slipping away and the boys are reverting to a more primitive nature. Earlier in the novel, rational thought is present and rules are established which are initially followed by everyone, including Jack. Ralph now finds it difficult to think of him as the boy he once knew. Now that