The Glass Castle Reaction Paper

Jeannette and her little brother Brian spent a long time digging this hole, therefore it must have been devastating to watch as it was used as a place to stow away the family’s garbage. Jeannette was starting to realize that her father was probably never going to build the Glass Castle. Rex still hoped that his daughter would believe him, that she would feed him the lies for a little while longer even though the idea of the Glass Castle was slowly slipping away.

American journalist, writer, and magazine editor David Remnick once said, “The world is a crazy, beautiful, ugly complicated place, and it keeps moving on from crisis to strangeness to beauty to weirdness to tragedy.” In the memoir, The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls the main character and author of the book tells of her crazy and adventurous life she experienced with her not so ordinary family. This quote relates to The Glass Castle, because like it states, life is full of both tragedies and beauty which is exactly what Jeannette experienced growing up with her free spirited and non-conformative parents. Walls is able to express her main purpose of the book that life is a mix of good and bad times through imagery, tone, and pathos.

Everyone has some kind of hope for the future, something that they want to achieve or experience. “The Glass Castle” by Jeannette Walls, is the real life story of Jeannette growing up in poverty and her experiences as a child. Jeannette’s father was an alcoholic man, he was very irresponsible when it came to taking care of his children. Rex still managed to keep an emotional connection with his children, and this helped shape the Walls kids into who they became and kept their family together. Throughout Jeanette's childhood, she was always moving from place to place, and was constantly struggling to keep her family together. Throughout the book, “The Glass Castle” was mentioned a multitude of times. “The Glass Castle” was representative

Think back to your own childhood. Could you imagine being a child, and not having a care in the world, but then, as quick as the snap of a finger, that all changes because of a thoughtless mistake made by your parents? In The Glass Castle it is revealed that as Jeannette grew up, she endured hardships inflicted upon her by her own parents. However, if Jeannette had not gone through these things, she never would have gained the characteristics that she values present day. Although Jeannette Walls faced hardships and endured suffering during her childhood, these obstacles formed her into a self-reliant woman who proves that just because you do not have as much money as other families, you can still achieve success in your life.

Jeannette Walls, Shows in the book The Glass Castle that there are a lot of situations that happen in life where people make countless mistakes, but it is very important to forgive her father and her mother for many mistakes. She has to cope with many obstacles without her parent's help. In the author's memoir, we become attracted with Jeannette constant struggle between protecting her family and the pleasure that her family is based on the same hopes and senseless falsehood with her unbelievable storytelling method. The feelings of forgiveness hold the Walls family together. Jeanette was able to describe her family's childhood, relationships with one another. The children of the Walls family are forced to begin the independent life at an

The Glass Castle, a memoir written by Jeannette Walls, is a story that discusses the insights of a dysfunctional, yet vibrant family. The four Walls children have two parents, Rose Mary who was an unconventional artist, and Rex who was an alcoholic father. The family travels constantly across the country, with their parents using their imagination as a distraction from their poverty. Despite the hardships the Walls family has faced, Jeanette writes her truth in order to reconcile with her past. She expresses through her story of how she has reflected upon her childhood, and how it has shaped her character in the present (The glass castle: Jeanette Walls, 2016). The majority of readers may believe that Rex Walls is an irresponsible, neglectful parent. However, Rex’s viewpoint of how he cares for Jeanette and her siblings can be portrayed as supportive, intelligent, and sensible.

While Jeanette is preparing to leave for New York and her father, Rex, attempts to talk her out of it by showing her the updated plans for the Glass Castle, Walls, through Jeanette, uses an implied metaphor to show how all her father’s promises are a Glass Castle without the use of like or as. Walls uses this to illuminate how her father’s promises are broken easily like how a Glass Castle can be broken easily as it is made of glass, which is fragile. Walls also highlights how throughout the memoir her father promised to protect her, not only by building her a home like the Glass Castle, but also by protecting her from men who force themselves upon her as seen when the father states, “Anyone who… laid a finger on… Rex Walls's children was going to get their butts kicked,” (Walls, 24), but the father later goes on to allow her to be inappropriately touched by Robbie just to make some money. This shows that the father makes promises he is unable to and often does not want to fulfill throughout the memoir, which leads to Jeanette having to face adversity as her father is not protecting her. As a result of her adversity, Jeanette reaches an epiphany and learns to look out for her own well-being as she understands that her father is no longer willing to do so. She also understands that her father will never build the Glass Castle and that all the promises that her father ever made to her are like the Glass Castle, easily broken. This ultimately to Jeanette developing from a character who depended solely on her father, to one that could make the decision to go to New York without her father’s permission after the 11th grade. Finally, by going to New York, Jeanette is able to provide for her own well-being by working at a job and renting an apartment and departs from the conventional means of wellbeing. Through the use of metaphor, Walls conveys the theme that often for one to persevere against adversity in his or her lives, he or she must learn to go against conventional means of well-being, like family, and find his or her individual means of well-being.

Jeannette, during her childhood, always looked forward to building "The Glass Castle". Her and her father would always talk about how it would be self sufficient in the desert with solar panels and made completely out of glass. This gave Jeannette hope for the future. When Jeannette is an adult, she loses sight of believing in her family and tries to push them out of her life causing her to be more unhappy. But, by the end she came to her senses and went and visited her father while he was sick.

A few times in the book she would be inappropriately touched, or beaten up, and her father would do nothing to avenge or just protect his daughter. Brian came to her side a couple times and defended her against bullies, but Rex would never be empathetic. She had a little brother, but what she needed, was a preventive father. When Rex came home drunk most of the nights, he was violent and rude to his children. To try and make a difference for the whole family, and to get them to believe in Dad again, her birthday present she wished for was for her father to stop drinking. He lasted a couple months, but the disappointment and betrayal she felt of her father was immense and “...she couldn’t believe Dad had gone back to the booze” (Walls 123). She was the last to believe in him and with the overwhelming dishonesty and deception, at last, she had finally lost faith in her Dad.

While her father’s dismisses his destructive nature, Jeannette becomes conscious of his actions which motivates her to make amends in hopes of leaving their desolate life. Instead of getting help for his childhood trauma, Rex immerses himself in alcohol causing him to become

The Glass Castle is a memoir written by Jeannette Walls, giving the public a look at her rough upbringing and her nomadic childhood. The memoir, however is written in a way of which the author is not seeking sympathy from the reader. She also wrote in such a way as to not induce anger in the reader, as that is not what she was searching for. Jeannette wrote in order to inform and inspire, and to tell a tale as crazy as it is. Jeannette grew up, one of four siblings. Her parents had alternate methods of parenting and different ideas of how children should be raised. They taught them to have similar morals to them, and similar values. Although, as the children age, they begin to realize how wrong their parents are, and how

In The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls tells the story of her childhood and describes her life in poverty. She had experienced what injustice was first hand. Her father, Rex, was an alcoholic that spent all of their money on booze. Because of this, they never had any money to spend on a house or food. They were always moving because they did not pay their bills and were running away from their problems. Her mother, Rose Mary, was irresponsible and only thought about herself. She refused to get a job and when she did, her kids had to drag her out of bed every morning. She did not watch her children and she let them do whatever they wanted. This caused the children to get into trouble with other kids and even adults. She spent money on useless commodities and could not afford to buy her starving children any food. Every day, the children had to rummage through the trash to find food to eat. When Jeannette finally realized she did not want to live with injustice anymore she left. It was very hard for her father to watch her go but she did not look back. She started focusing on the future and became a successful journalist. This was one of the many ways she gained her justice back. She offered to help her parents by buying them clothes and offering them money. She was trying to make everything just again by giving her parents what they never gave to her. Her parents never took any of her gifts because they saw it as charity and did not appreciate it. The injustice that happened to Jeannette made her who she is today. If she did not go through all of those injustices, she might not have realized that her passion in life was to write. It has made her a better person and she can now help others going through the same thing through her writings.

In her younger years, Jeannette was an smart and imaginative child. At first, she enjoyed moving around, and had a lot of faith in her father, which created a good relationship between them. “All we had to was find gold, once we’d struck it rich, he’d [Rex] start work on our Glass Castle” (Walls, 25). The tremendous faith that she has in Rex creates a strong bond because she is the only family member who trusts his ideas. Unfortunately, he is a raging alcoholic who can’t hold a job, so most of his promises are broken. As Jeannette gets older, he lets her down more and more. One time he brought her to a bar where she was then sexually violated. When the two had a talk after, he said “I knew you could handle yourself” (Walls, 213,) instead of defending her. It was upsetting to watch their relationship grow apart and to see how poorly he provided for his family, yet they still loved him.

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls is a perfect example of selfishness and neglect brought upon by the parents and how influences their children through life. The Glass Castle isn’t just a story, but it is someone’s actual life and how it was affected by selfish/neglectful her parents. This is a memoir of her life and all that she went through as a child with troubled parents and how it affected her life and the life of her siblings. Jeannette is the middle child out of four children. There is Lori who is the oldest sister, Brian who is Jeannette’s younger brother, a their

“He [Jeannette’s father, Rex] will not keep me out of harm’s way, he will put me in harm’s way and I have to find a way to remove myself from the situation.” (Diversity Connection). I feel like this quote, from Jeannette, came t directly from the situation where Rex took her out to the bar to help him earn money for alcohol, but yet she still doesn’t see herself as a victim. Even though Jeannette Walls was the victim of sexual abuse at a very young age, she tries to recreate the freedom from her childhood into her adult life, But in her younger years where she has no occupational activities, no nurturing, no money and no friends to turn to, it proves to be very hard to maintain.