The Glass Castle Literary Analysis

Jeanette was thinking this to herself while in her apartment. She had just seen her mom rooting through trash on the street and had hurried home out of fear. This quote is important because it shows that Jeanette has passion for her parents but is too afraid to address them in a realistic manner. It shows that she doesn’t have extreme care for her parents, being embarrassed by them, and ashamed of them but not doing anything to really help them.

When Lori and Jeanette are growing older, they decide they want to move to New York City to start a new life, away from their parents. Lori and Jeanette get jobs and begin to earn money. They hide their earnings from their parents in a piggy bank they named Oz. One day Jeanette tries to find Oz to put her paycheck in. Instead she says to Lori “Someone has slashed him apart with a knife and stole all the money” (Walls 228). The kids knew right away who had stolen it. It was Dad. When Lori confronted Dad with the news about Oz, he started playing dumb, acting like he had not idea what was going on. But in fact he did steal the money. This action shows that Dad is very selfish and only cares about himself.

She was attacked, called names, scolded at, ect. Though all of these things happened she never left her father's side when it came to what she believed. She knew that she was in danger but didn’t care. When Jeanette's mother pushes her to give her money she finally stands up to her and tells her no which none of her siblings would ever be able to do, “Jeanette, I haven’t asked you for a lot of favors, but I’m asking you for one now. I wouldn’t if it wasn’t important...

Her dad carried her away from the hospital without payment, and then her mom permitted her to cook again, moreover she said, “ Getting right back into the saddle” ( Glass Castle 47). Jeanette was not angry at such young age and soon the family had to pack their belongings into bags and “do the skedaddle” as her parents always said. The parents were fleeing from bill collectors. Although Jeanette's father was an alcoholic, he could get work almost anywhere, often in small towns. The family was moving because of these things, she never complained when they did not have enough food. Jeanette always forgave her parents, she understood what they were going through.

Thematic Statement: Forgiving someone for their mistake can make yourself free of anger and bitterness.

While she is in the hospital, her mother does not stay with her. Instead she visits a few times and gives her oranges, seeming to be disappointed in the fact that it is an illness. At this point in the story, the reader can begin to feel sorry for young Jeanette. She is left all alone in the hospital while her mother is busy helping the church. Jeanette wants to be a missionary, just like in the stories her mom has read to her. In the beginning of the book, it appears that Jeanette’s mother does love her. However, it appears that she only loves her based on if she fulfills her expectations or not.

Her Mother seemed to be more put together than her father at times, even getting a job at one point helping the family out. Though her mother was a hedonist and did not contain the motherly love and sacrifice for her kids, this job helped Jeanette’s future. She helped grade papers which increased her knowledge of the outside world and “...the world was making a little more sense” as she read the papers and projects of her mother’s students (Walls 205). Her parents had such an opposition to the outside world that she hadn’t gotten every aspect of

One of the many themes for the Glass Castle is forgiveness. Jeanette and her siblings always forgave their dad and mom for their mistakes and always welcomed them back into their hearts. Forgiveness for Jeanette decreased her anger and made her more positive since things weren’t always good for her. She first starts to forgive her mom and dad when she is three years old, and she burns herself because her mom let her cook hotdogs. She ended up getting burned severely and had to be hospitalized for 6 days. As soon as she gets back home from the hospital, her mom is letting her cook again on the very thing that burned her and saying, “good for you, you have to get right back on the saddle” (The Glass Castle, pg.15). She also forgave her father when he

According to a 2017 study done by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, “More than 10 percent of U.S. children live with a parent with alcohol problems.” The author Jeannette Walls uses the book, The Glass Castle, to talk about her childhood struggles of growing up with an alcoholic father. The reason this book was appealing was because I grew up with an alcoholic father as well and I found it interesting to read about someone who had gone through similar situations. In the first 90 pages the author tells us about her chaotic family life. Her father, who is weary of civilization and authority, packs up the family camp often to roam around the desert. Due to their frequent moving her father is not able to keep a stable job,

One of the earliest memories she had that describes the way she grew up, was getting burns all over her body after trying to roast hot dogs over a fire, and getting sent to the hospital for it. Freedom was present in the family, discussing how the parents and children would go out and explore around in the middle of the night, look at the stars, and take drives or walks whenever they felt like it. Despite this, her family lived a very poor and unconventional childhood, which included events like her dad claiming the FBI was after them, living in a house with no sewer and fire system, or scraping maggots off of old food and still eating it. If they had a bloody cut from falling on the ground, normal parents would wrap them up in a bandage and tell them to stay home, but the Walls’s would wrap up the wound, and send them back outside to play again, which perfectly describes the philosophy her parents raised them up in. Rex promised his children he would build The Glass Castle if he struck it rich in the gold mine, which would be a building completely made out of glass and be ran on solar panels. Some of the most memorable memories included a point where a neighbor almost raped Jeanette and the time child services came and tried to take them away. Eventually, Jeanette along with her oldest sister, Lori, started working and

Jeanette initiates her first “date” with Melanie by offering, “Would you like a baked potato?” (85). Melanie accepts the offer, giving rise to her intimate relationship to God and Jeanette. Jeanette’s first love affair was initiated by her offering of a baked potato. In the beginning of the book, Jeanette says, “One of my earliest memories is me sitting on a sheep at Easter while she told me the story of the Sacrificial Lamb. We had it on Sundays with potato” (2). Jeanette is being taught by her mother at a young age about God, while Jeanette eats the potato. The potato here doesn’t pacify Jeanette so that she can bond with her mother over God, it pacifies Jeanette so that she can learn about God from her mother, furthering her relationship with God in the process. Jeanette maintains her relationship with God throughout the book, one of the strongest relationships in the story. When no one was there for Jeanette, she looked to God. This is unsurprising considering that her relationship with God was probably the earliest important relationship she pursued, striving to understand more of God while eating potatoes on the Sundays of her childhood. Jeanette states on her relationship with Elsie, “Elsie Norris and me ate an orange every day; half each. Elsie had no teeth so she sucked and champed. I dropped my pieces like oysters, far back into the throat” (29). Elsie visited

In The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, Jeannette finds herself caught between colliding ethnic cultures when she makes a new friend who is African American and her grandmother, Erma, does not approve. Jeannette is confronted with Erma’s opinion when she says, “Keep this up and people are going to think you’re a nigger lover” (143). This quote shows how Jeannette was caught between the approval of a family member and what she considered was the right thing. It is obvious Erma is very racist and this greatly bothers Jeannette, whose parents have taught her to see no difference, but regardless she is not swayed by anything Erma says. Jeannette later recalls, “That didn’t seem like Mom. She and Dad happily railed against anyone they disliked or

It’s because whenever the children let on that they are struggling or hungry, they either get ignored or scolded. When there was absolutely nothing left in the house, Lori and Jeannette were forced to eat margarine mixed with sugar. When Rose Mary found out, she was livid. Not because of the fact her children just ate straight margarine, but because in her eyes, they had no right to eat it. She ended up making excuses for her anger, talking about the what if’s; what if they bought bread, what if she made bread, or what if the gas miraculously get’s turned back on so they are able to make bread. “It was because of mine and Lori’s selfishness, she said, that if we had any bread, we’d have to eat it without butter” (Walls, 69). Because of Rex and Rose Mary’s laissez-faire attitude and unspoken “pretend that our life was one long and incredibly fun adventure” (Walls, 69) rule, Jeanette had to hide her true identity of a hurt, angry and lonely little girl and instead cover it up with a strong, almost bulletproof,

She has no sympathy that her daughter was just sexually assaulted by a family member, even though about 60% of children who are sexually abused are abused by the people the family trusts (“Darkness to Light End Child Sexual Abuse”). Rex and Rose Mary tell Jeanette that she will be fine and that she can handle herself. They are too busy trying to pretend that their financial situation is okay to truly care about Jeannette being sexually assaulted.

In the book The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, she talks about her family's dysfunctional ways of living. How they never stayed in a place for more than a few years. Her dad was a drunk and stole money from the family and her mom was a starving artist who didn’t want to get a job to provide for her family. Although her parents have some very poor qualities, they definitely have good qualities that balance it all out. Her dad Rex Walls; for example, was very caring and loving towards his family always trying to keep them together and make sure they had what they needed to survive. Jeannette’s mom Rose Mary was selfish to her family and though it seems like a bad trait it had taught her children to be self-sufficient. Them together were free-spirited never caring what other people thought and teaching their children to do the same.