The Glass Castle Fire Analysis

In 2003, possibly one of the worst wildfires in California’s history occurred. This fire, referred to as the Cedar Fire, spread across 273,246 acres.

The lightly glossed, oil painted canvas depicts a little girl dozing by the red railing of a fire escape above the city streets. The little girl is seen to be resting her head on her right hand, napping. Walter Williams contrasts the curves of the girl’s soft pink dress with the hard grid of the ironwork and straight lines of the window that reflects similar fire escapes across the street. A rooftop water tower is outlined against the haze of the evening sky, and a skylight punctures the roof below.

She was burned while cooking a hot dog for herself, while her mother was busy drawing. After she was released from the hospital, she continued to make hot dogs because she was hungry, but no one cooked for her, her mother was still busy painting, and she said, "You have to take back control of it." Can't live in fear of something so basic as fire" (Walls 17). The mother's perspective emphasizes the need to regain control to overcome fear and reflects the unconventional ways in which independence and resilience are cultivated in the family. Jeannette's insistence on boiling hot dogs was not only to satisfy hunger, but also to triumph over fear.

Imagine living in a life where everything around you is different from reality. Imagine running from the police, living wherever one can find, and still taking care of one's family just at the age of 16. Jeannette Walls had to deal with all of this and more in her early childhood. In the book “The Glass Castle”, the author uses the characters, Jeannette and Rex Walls, to emphasize the importance of family bonds.

Jeannette’s view on fire acts as a symbol for her family and life. Just like fire, Jeannette’s life is unpredictable, as well as the actions of her family. Fire can do good things or can be very harmful; its’ actions can be sudden, dangerous, or painful, and the path it decides to take can change Jeannette’s life in the blink of an eye. The behavior of the Walls family assimilates with that of fire, in the way of turmoil that both can bring, either to the Walls family itself or others around

Through this first incident, Jeanette’s mother, Rose Mary, encouragingly said, “Good for you. You‘ve got to get right back into the saddle. You can’t live in fear of something as basic as fire” (Walls 9). Soon then, Walls became “fascinated with it” (Walls 9) as she passed her finger through a candle flame, slowing her finger with each pass, watching the way it seemed to cut the flame in half.

In the inspiring memoir “The Glass Castle” Jeannette uses the element of fire to discover and comprehend the disfunction of her family and the harm that is caused do to it. Allowing her, to use fire to understand that she does not have to continue hurting herself even if that is what her heart and society tells her to do. Throughout the memoir the symbol is developed through her episodic stories and ties in with the overwhelming theme in the book which Jeannette must admit is true.

A common rhetorical technique that was found throughout The Glass Castle was imagery. Jeanette uses imagery to develop vivid settings and portray feelings. An example of a vivid setting is seen in the start of the novel, where Jeanette is cooking hot dogs and accidentally catches on fire. She describes with detail the dress she was wearing that made her look like a ballerina while cooking hot dogs (Walls 9). When she caught on fire she screamed for help and her mother came running in with one of those army surplus blankets that she hated because

Jonathan Kozol’s Fire in the Ashes is an honest depiction of the hardships and triumphs of families in the South Bronx, New York. In this book, Kozol introduces us to several Hispanic and Black families that he originally met in the Mott Haven/Martinique Hotel in the 1980’s and allows us to view their trajectory in the proceeding 25 years. By allowing the reader a look into the lives of these families, he provides us with a realistic depiction of the disadvantages families living in poverty encounter despite interventions from charity organizations and philanthropic donors. Kozol identifies that without “systematic justice and systematic equity in public education” (Kozol, 2013, pg 304) students in these impoverished neighborhoods will continue to lack the same economic opportunities that may potentially lead them out of the welfare system. Kozol emphasizes lack of stable housing, and unequal educational opportunities, as primarily conditions to perpetuating poverty. Despite the challenges that the families endure, Kozol is able to show that they are resilient.

Jeannette Walls earliest memory is burning herself cooking hot dogs. At age 3 she was so hungry she stood over the stove in a tutu to cook for her mom and herself, while her mom was busy painting. After catching on fire Jeannette was burned

In addition to mirroring life, the Sea of Flames sets the stage for Doerr’s most pervasive yet inconspicuous analogy. When asked what he wants readers to take away from his novel, Doerr replies “that war is more complicated than they [the readers] might have thought, that there were civilians on both sides making really complicated moral decisions, [...] [that] little miracles” sprouted in the least expected of places (Schulman 27). The Sea of Flames is a central messenger for this theme at individual points of the novel but also in its overarching structure. The reader is first introduced to the Sea of Flames when it is housed at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, marked only by “an iron door with a single keyhole,” a series ending with a “thirteenth [...] no bigger than a shoe.” (Doerr 19-20). All the Light We Cannot See is partitioned into fourteen fragments- but it is labeled zero through thirteen. Just as passing through each door brings one closer to the gem, Doerr seeks to guide his reader through the locked gates of compassion and conflict to arrive at his own gem, which is revealed after passing through the thirteenth gate, into the last chapter of the novel, as Marie-Laure contemplates all the invisible electromagnetic waves, “ten thousand I miss yous, fifty thousand I love yous” passing “over the scarred and ever-shifting landscapes.” Transient messages connecting ephemeral people who eventually fall away, like the Sea of Flames, and “rise again

‘A Wall of Fire’ by Edwidge Danticat is about a family who struggles with adversity, lack of relationship and death. Danticat depicts “Lili” as a strong woman whose has given all she has to give as a mother caring for and loving her son “Little Guy”. Remaining positive through their misfortunes “Lili” continues to provide as much as possible for her family. All the while her husband “Guy” constantly reminds her of the negativity of his life and what it could have been if only his father had put him on the list for employment. Would their lives be the same if only he had that breakthrough of hope given by his own father? “Lili” continues to remain optimistic about their lives in hopes of “Little Guy” having a positive future

Being a story from a short story novel title “Krik? Krak!” Written by Edwidge Danticat, “A Wall of Fire Rising” in brief is about Guy, Lili, and their son Little Guy, a Haitian family living in poverty, with Guy been an unemployed sugar cane worker that escape the misery of the quotidian life by stealing an air balloon from which he hurt himself, choosing a scaring death over the misery of life beneath (Abbott 11). In further, the story also drives our intention on Little Guy, especially about his role in a play as Haitian revolutionary Duty Boukman (who play a vast role in the abolition of slavery in Haiti that led to their Independence). Thus, to not forget his lines from the play, we see him reciting them throughout the story. Additionally, Danticat shows the characters, Lili and Guy have a conflict over their son Little Guy been on a sugar mill permanent hire list. Edwidge Danticat illustration of these events could be interpreted as a symbol of Slavery and Freedom, that connects the past historical time, in which Boukman live in, as well of the present one lived by Guy, Lili, and Little Guy in the story.

“Upon the Burning of Our House, July 10th, 1666” is one of Anne Bradstreet’s most effective poems. Part of that effectiveness comes from the poignant tension between her worldly concerns, as represented by her household furnishings and her spiritual aspirations.

The Ramsey Summer House remains abandoned during those ten years, decaying slowly, groaning and weeping as it remembers the tenants it once possessed and the movements they made “how once hands were busy with hooks and buttons; how once the looking-glass had held a face; had held a world hollowed out in which a figure turned, a hand flashed, the door opened, in came children rushing and tumbling; and went out again” (Woolf 1927, 339). The house bore witness to every breath and every argument; it absorbed fluttering eyelashes, clapped hands, and footsteps; drowned in laughter and in tears; the house was enraptured by the Ramsey’s and remembers them fondly as their images haunt its halls (Wisker 2011, 6).