The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls is a memoir of the author’s life and how she grew up with an alcoholic father and a free willed mother. The book opens with Jeannette in a taxicab and through the window she sees her parents digging the trash for food. She felt ashamed and quickly hid her self from her encounter with them. The memoir of her childhood kicks on from there on as she describes her evolution in the Walls’ family. It begins with her at 3 years of age as she burns herself while cooking a hot dog for herself. She is admitted to hospital and the nurses seem to love her. Jeannette is really amused by getting frequent meals and a gum from one of the nurses. Her father couldn’t leave with her being away from home. From their on we are …show more content…
They moved from town to town depending on how long her father held his job. They finally settled at Battle Mountain for a while where Jeannette and her brother Brain spent most of their time exploring the desert. Her free willed mother spent most of her time with her artwork but one evening changed everything for the Walls’ family. After having a minor altercation with the law where the Walls’ kids fired guns at Billy who seemed to have bothered Jeannette. Like usual, they skedaddled and left for Phoenix where they inherited one of grandmother’s house. In phoenix, everything looks stable for the time being. They had a huge house with multiple rooms. Her mother used some of the rooms for her artwork and Rex-the dad got a job as an electrician. Rex’s drinking becomes the focal point of the section. For her birthday, Jeannette asked her dad to quit drinking and he stops for a while until one night he broke wild and grabbles with his wife and breaks down. The family full of adventure, then decided to go to Welch, West Virginia where Rex grew up and the mother thought his drinking would diminish in the company of his
THe scars she gets from this she will have all her life. Jeannette Walls was born April 21, 1960. Her family members are Rex Walls her father, Rose Mary Walls her mother, Lori and Maureen Walls her sisters, and Brian
[“I lived in a world that at any moment could erupt into fire. It was the sort of knowledge that kept you on your toes.” In the Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls she writes about her life growing up as a kid.] From moving around her whole childhood and not ever having enough food, to growing up to being a successful writer. They somehow make it through, proving that money can't buy happiness…but it can pay the rent and buy clothes and food, which helps.
The Glass Castle is a 2005 memoir. It was written by Jeannette Walls, an American writer and journalist widely known as a former gossip columnist for MSNBC.The Glass Castle is about the story of Jeannette Walls and her family, who is often short on cash and food. It sets place on many different places since the family skedaddles around the country constantly. Some of those places include West Virginia, NYC and Arizona.
All proved to be quite the weight on Jeannette as she from a very young age knew she could not live the rest of her life like that. Jumping from broken home to broken home in different city every other week with barely any money to eat. She began to develop new mindset, that one of survival and wanting to succeed. Get a new life with a real family that really cared for her. Justice to her was being able to sleep with a heater during the winter.
Her father had been diagnosed with tuberculosis and eventually passed away from a heart attack. Jeannette grew apart from her mother after her father’s death. Although Jeannette grew up in a very bad environment, she lived a very successful life because of her hard-working personality and her dreams.
Often in literary works the minor characters’ characteristics or traits highlight the major character’s traits to emphasize and illuminate the meaning of the work. In Jeannette Walls’s The Glass Castle loyalty in family is strongly emphasized. The parents’, Rex and Rose, selfishness highlights Jeannette’s loyalty to them even when they are not being great parents. Throughout the book, Jeannette is her parents’ backbone and ride or die; she displays unconditional love to them.
They left, even though she still medically needed help and care to make sure her burns did not get infected. “He told me we were going to check out, Rex Walls-style”. Rex Walls-style was how her dad did everything, illegally. Walls never was given things easy in life, and she had to fight tooth and nail, sometimes literally, for the things she wanted and the dreams she wanted to
Throughout the memoir the Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls, the struggles and trials the family endures are akin to the struggle of the Joshua tree that RoseMary admires in the Desert. They swim in places like the Desert and New York, where there is a balance of adventure and anchoring, and sink in places like Welch, where the balance between adventure and anchoring is weak to nonexistent. If there is a means of support and a solid rule system, the tree grows straight, and the family swims, with a normal life. But when they are left to the elements, or, in the family’s case, their own devices, the family sinks, and the tree grows gnarled and twisted, especially in Welch.
Jeannette had an alcoholic father and a self-intrigued mother who
Rex constantly is running into difficulties throughout Jeannette’s memoir. Whether it be finding employment or taking care of his children he consistently falls short. For example, Jeannette had asked her father for her tenth birthday to stop drinking. In a response to his daughters wish he
In the memoir, Rex Walls’ internal conflict, Jeannette Walls’ conflict with Rose Mary, and Jeannette’s conflict with society push her to become the person she is today. Therefore, Jeannette Walls’ owes her success to the hardships she had as a child. To begin, Rex Walls’ internal conflict comes from his inability to provide for his family. Being a father, Rex Walls has an obligation to look after his family and to make sure everyone is looked after.
Nicholas Sparks once said, “I don’t know that love changes. People change. Circumstances change.” In the memoir, The Glass Castle author Jeannette Walls shows how her father Rex Walls changes with everything thrown at him as a father or four. In the beginning of being a parent Rex shares his intelligence with his children.
The Walls were in situations that the needed help, and no one was able to do anything about it. The places that they resided in for an ample amount of time such as Arizona and West Virginia should have been able to implement change in their lives much earlier on. However, the system failed and they continued to live their lives in desolate conditions. Finally, once Lori was able to make a life for herself they were able to lean on one other to change the children’s lives. Yet, there is something to be said that Maureen was put in jail.
Jeanette’s childhood was shameful due to her parents careless way of living. Throughout The Glass Castle Jeannette hides her childhood just like she from her mother because she is ashamed of what people might think. Jeannette Walls lived a tough childhood because of her parents. They were always moving around trying to find a place to build a glass castle. They never gave any of their children a set home while they were growing up.
At first, Jeannette accuses her mother of being weak and always giving in to her