The Glass Castle Summary

Maureen is often forgotten throughout the entire story of The Glass Castle written by Jeannette Walls. We are very tragically reminded of Maureen’s presence when she stabs her own mother while living in New York. Reflecting back to the beginning of the story, we can see why Maureen has a mental breakdown. She is born into a world of violence, her parents fail to care for her, and she lives her entire childhood in neglect.

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.

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.

Throughout the memoir The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls all psychological premises of parenting paradigms are shown but the most fitted paradigm would be the permissive parenting paradigm because Rosemary and Rex Walls acted more as friends than parents, left their kids to self-regulate, and did not require mature behavior. Permissive parenting includes that the parent “act more as a friend than a parent” (Cherry, “The Four Styles of Parenting”) and throughout The Glass Castle there is many evidence that indicates this. In one scene Jeanette is describing the relationship with her dad and neighboring children, “Kids from the Tracks came knocking at the door, and when I answered, they asked, ‘can your dad come out and play?’” (59). This is a prime example of permissive

“Have I ever let you down?” (Walls). Rex Walls asks his children this question numerous times throughout the book. It shows how he is denying all the times he acts out and damages his family. In the children’s opinion, Rex is destroying the family piece by piece by being selfish with his intimidating threats. Leaving the children scared gives him more power and control over the family. Although well intentioned, Rex, from The Glass Castle written by Jeannette Walls, is self-absorbed, and thus impacts his children in a negative way.

“I’m thankful for my struggles because without it I wouldn’t have stumbled across my strength.” Through the eyes of Alex Elle you first must struggle in order to find your true strengths. An obstacle that most of us deal with throughout our lives. Some, more extreme than the other, regardless having the power to lift us as humans or tear us down. These crossroads are formed at different points and for different reasons in each person's life, nevertheless morphing them into the people they will soon become. Along with struggle comes forgiveness. Allowing yourself to let go of the things that cause you the pain and struggle in order to move on. Giving yourself the opportunity to wipe your slate clean and start fresh. Throughout Flight,

“Life with your father was never boring.” – Rose Mary Walls. Rose Mary Walls, Jeannette Walls’s mother and Rex Walls’s spouse, reminisces life with Rex, which included migrating frequently, refusing to conform, and advocating self-sufficiency. Despite Rose Mary finding Rex disdainful at times, she still believes that being with Rex was an adventure. In Jeannette Walls’s The Glass Castle, Walls reveals that there are turbulence and order in life, the influence of family, and how she develops as she grows up through Walls’s recollection of her life, from living in a nomadic household, where her parents neglect their children, to living in a squalid hovel with no plumbing, and finally living in New York City, where she is employed as a journalist.

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.

In this both heart wrenching and slightly humorous memoir, successful journalist Jeannette Walls tells the bittersweet story of her rather dysfunctional and poverty stricken upbringing. Walls grows up in a family trailed by the ubiquitous presence of hunger and broken down homes. Throughout the memoir she recounts memories of moving from one dilapidated neighborhood to another with her three other siblings, insanely "free sprinted" mother, and incredibly intelligent yet alcoholic father. The author focuses on her unconventional childhood with somewhat unfit parents much too lazy and self-absorbed to even obtain decent jobs. Although Walls's childhood gushes with heartbreaking tales of searching through dumpsters for food, she remains as

The Glass Castle was a symbol of hope for all of the children, they counted on it for their future; when it was forgotten about by their dad, the hope of a better future faded away along with the hope they had in their father.

Many children are affected by child abuse or neglect across the globe. The book The Glass Castle written by Jeannette Walls is about herself and the time set is in her childhood. In the book Jeannette talks about all the hardships that she and her siblings had to face while growing up with a very poor family and always being on the move. In the book it's very evident that Jeannette and her siblings face many types of abuse and neglect from many events that take place inside The Glass Castle. The Walls children should have been taken away from child protective services.

Reading a book that is similar to The Glass Castle by Jeannette wall can help build a student’s resilience especially if that student is in a tough moment in his/her life. The article The Importance Of Resilience has some what similar problems like The Glass Castle. In the article the author discussed, about a man named Quashone. When Quashone was younger he lived in a bad neighborhood, from living there it lead to some bad decisions that he made. After telling his mom, those bad decisions they moved to a different neighborhood (Gorman, et al). Just by that one change in his life, it turned upside down from getting into trouble to graduating from college and having a family of his own. From reading books that are like The Glass Castle it can teach people, especially students, on how to build resilience accepting support, drive, and hard work.

Undeniable Love Jeannette Walls, an American writer and journalist, recounts her most loved childhood memories she went through with her father, Rex Walls, in the novel The Glass Castle. Jeannette Walls, comes to adore her father even after all his recklessness and comes to realize that these are portions of the best times in her life. In spite of many occurrences in which her father neglects to ensure his kids, declined to assume liability for them, and even stole from them, Jeannette still adores him until his diminishing days for two reasons: his consistent capacity to make her feel special and his ceaseless source of motivation. Walls purpose is to express the atmosphere she experienced childhood in and demonstrates that a harsh adolescence,

The whole story is a flashback because she’s older and she’s writing about her troubled childhood.

Throughout this memoir Walls discloses countless episodes of how she survived her childhood. Her parents did not have a stable income to support four children. Thus, this made Walls and her other siblings undergo unpleasant predicaments when it came to surviving their youth. Their living situation was not stable for any individual to live. To emphasize, there was no indoor plumbing, no hot water, and no electricity. It was hard for them to function at times. They had to live in these conditions because their parents did not have a steady income and this living situation was the only thing they could afford.