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 Walls has always been moving from place to place. Her father, Rex Walls, is a raging alcoholic who is constantly running from the police in order to keep his kids. They have lived in houses, their van, even outside. Imagine sleeping outside because the police are looking for the children of the parents who haven’t paid a
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.
Writer, Jeannette Walls, in her memoir, The Glass Castle, provides an insight into the fanciful and shocking life of growing up poor and nomadic with faux-grandiose parents in America. With her memoir, Wall's purpose was to acknowledge and overcome the difficulties that came with her unusual upbringing. Her nostalgic but bitter tone leaves the reader with an odd taste in their mouth. In some memories, the author invites her audience to look back on with fondness; others are viewed through bulletproof glass and outrage.
In the novel The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls, the uncertain future of the Walls’ children was questionable from the start. From a drunk father, to never having a steady home, the author tells of her idiosyncratic youth to describe the bitterness and longing for an ordinary childhood.
Colson Whitehead once said, “Let the broken glass be broken glass, let it splinter into smaller pieces and dust and scatter. Let the cracks between things widen until they are no longer cracks but the new places for things”. In the memoir “The Glass Castle,” author Jeannette Walls faces despair and turmoil as a result of her impoverished and dysfunctional upbringing. As Jeannette grows up, she watches her father Rex fail to reach his full potential and his dream to build a Glass Castle shatter as his alcoholism takes control. Aware of the devastation her father was causing, she begins to slowly lose faith in him but doesn’t fail to escape her destructive household and pursue her dreams of becoming a journalist. Due to her parent’s lack of parenting and being forced to fend for herself, Jeannette developed a sense of responsibility to care for others and make amends to improve the family’s lifestyle. Despite the turbulence and destruction her parents had caused over the years, unlike her father, Jeannette was able to find the strength to overcome obstacles, developing characteristics that ultimately lead her to achieving her dream, thus illustrating that adversity has the power to shape one’s identity.
This book starts with Jeannette going to a party in New York. When she spots her mother rummaging through trash cans. Embarrassed, Jeannette goes home changing her mind about going to the party. I guess that was a place to start or a good place to wonder how she got to the point of embarrassment of her parents. The Walls family was always on the move. Rex Walls would depict these sudden moves as “the skedaddle.” In all actuality, once paranoia set in or Rex Walls’ job ended the family picked up and moved everything. The children had to learn that family stuck together no matter what. The family slept in cars and hotels for majority of the Walls children lives. Jeannette was the favorite of all the Walls children. Spending little time in many different places the Walls children could not rely on making friends. Brain Walls spent time exploring the dessert while on the move. Moving around was what Walls family did a good portion of Jeannette’s life.
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 Walls and her out of the ordinary family live their lives surrounded in pure craziness and poverty. Jeanette has been raised to be as independent as her age allows her. At age three she could make herself a hot dog and by the age of eighteen she had started a new life in New York away from the craziness that followed her parents throughout the kids nomadic childhood. Jeanette and her siblings Lori, Brian and Maureen live their childhoods with almost nothing. They were always wondering where their next meal would come from and where there parents had mysteriously disappeared to. Rex Walls, the father and husband was a severe alcoholic who spent most of his money on gambling or a beer from a local bar. Rose Mary Walls, the mother and wife was not better, never being to hold onto a job for long enough to get paid and support her family caused many problems for Rose Mary, Rex and most importantly… the kids. The kids all had the dream of escaping the prison their parents called home and heading to New York or California where they could feel endless happiness. The kids grow up with almost no parents, which forces them to become independent from the day they were born. In The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, Jeanette's parents teach her to only rely on herself and never get attached to something you can lose, forcing Jeanette to become strong and independent throughout her childhood.
The Glass Castle, written by Jeannette Walls, is a memoir detailing the childhood and family experiences of Jeannette which include the hardships she faced and the memories she has made. She documents her early life through the experiences of having to move constantly from the orders of her parents and living under poor conditions. She is eventually motivated to move away from her parents and away from the conditions to make a life and pursue a passion for herself. Although, she dealt with many inconveniences throughout her early life, she doesn’t seem angered by her parents for having to deal with those problems. This confliction in feelings resulting from experiences is why the tone of the memoir is also confliction.
The book The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls is a memoir about her struggles through life. She explains her struggles and how she worked to overcome all of them. Her family was constantly on the move, because they could never keep the house or the dad would lose his job. Her first memory was when she was burned from cooking hot dogs and her parents took her out of the hospital before it was time. They would constantly struggle with hunger and while the mom had a teaching license she never wanted to work, all she wanted to do was paint and write. They could never really afford much for christmas and all they really had was each other. While my struggles may seem like nothing compared to hers, I have had to overcome many things. Track and field has been my biggest success and my biggest failure all at the same time; I have had to overcome many
As frigid snow frosts the sun-licked ice, a glacial wind howls against the trees. As a child, one would sip hot chocolate and watch a movie with their family. However, Jeannette Walls would be sitting on a dirty floor, cold with no food. In The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, 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 destitution and endured anguish during her childhood, these obstacles formed her into a self-reliant woman who proves that just because she did not have as much money as other families, she can still achieve success in her life.
California, Nevada, Arizona, West Virginia, and New York were key places the Walls family visited. Although all were important, one extremely important setting the memoir took place in was in West Virginia. Jeannette’s grandmother Erma, Rex’s mother, lived in Welch, WV. They all lived in a very small house together. The unfortunately unforgettable incident of Jeannette's brother, Brian, being sexually abused by Erma took place there. Lori, the eldest sibling, mentioned that “You’d be weird, too, if Erma was your mom.” All the siblings saw Erma as strange, and since their father is out of the ordinary, Lori connects it to being the way that he was raised. Jeannette and her siblings were disgusted by what their grandmother had done to Brian. The children later become suspicious that the same thing happened to their father because of the way he reacted when he found out. “Dad wheeled around and gave Lori such a cold, angry look that I thought he might wallop her. "She was my mother, for God's sake," he said.” Erma did a horrible thing, but Rex still defended her. Deep down, Rex knows what happened was wrong. This makes the kids think because Erma could have possibly guilted Rex into defending her, especially if he were at one point in the same situation his son was. Another important setting was the setting of New York City. Both Jeannette and her eldest sister Lori moved to New York City. Lori moved first, shortly followed by
The Glass Castle, a memoir by Jeannette Walls reveals one look into a dysfunctional family. This personal memoir is full of lessons of redemption and reliance for all. Jeannette and her siblings thrived with parents whose beliefs and stubborn ways of life, changed their children’s’ lives forever. Though their parent’s dreadful actions, the children tried to fend for them. Rex, a very brilliant man, when sober and Rose Mary, an inspirational artist, when not a panhandler risked their own lives daily. Even though Rex and Rose Mary’s lives were unstable at times, they would instill lessons into their children. Their philophies in life I believe relied on one another, which taught their children some
Rex Walls and his wife didn’t live a normal lifestyle, hopping from town to town and having odd jobs to barely get by. Jeannette Walls recounts her father as having the essence of cigarettes, whisky, and hair tonic (Walls). Even so, The Glass Castle is filled with Jeannette’s prized memories with her father. In spite of the feeling of self-doubt, Jeannette still loves her father unconditionally. Rex always inspired the author, and made her feel special. He tries a few times to turn his life around by going sober, but it never lasts long. The characteristic of Rex Walls are developed throughout his childhood, which impacts how he thinks and acts.
In her memoir The Glass Castle, author Jeannette Walls uses situations involving fire for the purpose of illustrating the fundamental difference between her maturing self and her parents; Jeannette, unlike her parents, is able to understand the consequences of her actions, which contributes to her atypical relationship with her parents in comparison to society's expectations for the child-parent relationship. The story begins with three-year-old Jeannette suffering from severe burns after attempting to cook a hot dog for herself. After having called to her mother for help, she noted the peculiarity of her mother's reaction: "Mom, in an unnaturally calm voice, explained what had happened..." (9). At the young age of three, Jeannette had begun to question her mother's behavior, as evidenced by her description of her mother's voice as being "unnaturally calm."