In Jeannette Walls’s memoir The Glass Castle she recounts her dream of build a glass castle for himself and his family to live in. Throughout the story her father goes as far as making blue prints and marking where it will the castle will be built, but he never actually gets around to doing it. The father is easily distracted by other things and never admits to it, he always has an excuse. This is exactly why the glass castle never came to be. Jeannette as a naive and hopeful child describes her father’s plan like this, “Dad... was telling us about the wondrous things he was going to do. Like build the Glass Castle. All of Dad’s engineering and mathematical genius were coming together in one special project: a great big house he was going to build for us in the desert.” (Walls 25). If I could build my own version of the glass castle I would have a house with three bedrooms and at least two and half bathrooms. There would be a study/library, a music room, an art studio, a home theater, kitchen and living, and a hot tub in the back accompanied with a beautiful garden that would have a small fountain. When choosing what to put in my house I thought of the of my favorite hobbies and things that I would love to have in my own house, after brainstorming I made sure to add a study/library, a music room, a home theater, an art room, and of course, a hot tub. I don’t have a specific favorite room, but my favorite is tied between the art room between and the study/library. The art room is a favorite of mine because in my vision of it I would have all the expensive pencils, paints, and tools. The study is also a favorite of mine because I love to read and write. I would most likely spend more than 75% of my time in their whenever I’m not a work. Since I was a little kid the amount of books I own has always been an inconvenience. I always run out of space on my bookshelf and I have to start stacking, which leads to books being in random places of my room and left around the house. I would have broad floor to ceiling bookcases, hopefully I’d never have to worry about running out of space again. I’ll most likely share my glass castle with a significant other and maybe later on with my own kids. Hopefully my
The novel is latent with metaphors, the biggest one being the title itself. The Glass Castle is an idea cooked up by her father, a luxurious structure in the desert that runs on solar panels. He carries around blueprints for it, and while living in Welch, Jeannette and her brother actually dig a large hole for the foundation. However, Jeannette is struck with the reality that the Glass Castle will never come to be when her father tells her to throw their accumulating garbage into the hole meant intended for it’s foundation, since he can’t afford the trash collection fee. As Jeanette nears adulthood and her plans to follow her sister to New York inch closer, she tells her father, “Go ahead and build the Glass Castle, but don’t do it for me” (Walls 238). This is a turning point for her, because she lets go of the Glass Castle, a symbol of her father’s empty promises and illusions, to move away and better herself.
“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.
Children these days have a variety of needs, often being surrounded by the ideas of freedom and security. While some people seek complete freedom from society’s rules, others seek the comforts of security that a normal life provides. Children’s preferences on freedom and security are reflected from their Mom and Dad’s parenting style. In The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls, the characters Brian, Lori, and Jeannette show that while growing they would rather have security over freedom because they repeatedly find themselves in a state of danger due to their parent’s lack of security. For example, if Jeannette’s parents were accountable while Jeanette was in proximity to fire she would not have been traumatized and severely burnt. Another
The Glass Castle is a work of nonfiction and memoir about the about the story of the successful journalist, Jeannette Walls. Despite a difficult upbringing, she perseveres through her adversity and becomes the successful journalist that she is today. Though this success has led her to a state of happiness, she still feels deeply for her parents due to them still struggling and being homeless, and communicates her feelings through this memoir.
The Glass Castle, a memoir by Jeannette Walls, tells the story of Jeannette's upbringing and her road to adulthood. Jeannette, and her siblings, were raised by dysfunctional, poor, and sometimes homeless parents, Rose Mary and Rex Walls. The Walls children were pretty much abandoned by their parents and in some cases they were forced into making their own money, or stealing food just so they would not starve. Rose Mary and Rex Walls allowed the children to do anything they wanted, whenever they wanted to do it, but that did not stop Jeannette from being successful. She recognized that she did not want to live her life the same way her parents have lived their lives. In The Glass Castle Jeannette Walls believes that sometimes people are actually
Survival tactics have a big influence on self-sufficiency. For example in the book The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls, who wrote a memoir about herself growing up. The author explains throughout her writing, all the hardships that her and her family went through, about how she and her siblings basically raised themselves. Also how they had to fend for themselves when it came to basic necessities, such as food, and clothes. This book really paints a vivid picture of how the kids use self-sufficiency in order to survive. Self-sufficiency plays the biggest role in influencing the characters in the books we have read this year, because they use it as a survival tactic.
The Glass Castle, is a memoir, written by Jeannette Walls about her life and her families uncommon way of living. From a young age Walls and her family were always moving around and stirring up a little trouble wherever they went. The family faces many problems because of the way they lived including keeping food on the table, an alcoholic father, and a stable living situation. Even though the family had all these problems, all of the Walls children grew up to do great things in the world. Although Walls’ tone changes as she grows older, Walls uses an underlying ironic and humorous tone through the whole book with the use of diction, detail, and dialogue.
“If you don’t want to sink, you better figure out how to swim” Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle. This School year our class read a limited amount of novels. Of those novels I would say, The Glass Castle was my favorite. This novel that influenced me was a backwards, up-beat Memoir concerning Jeannette Walls and her family of five, similar to mine. However, unlike my family, theirs were constantly on the move. This novel remained my favorite due to its continuous paced events, the hardships they attained, and the way that even I difficult times with people telling them they could not amount to success they achieved just that.
The Glass Castle is a touching memoir written by Jeanette Walls, a successful author. Though now Jeanette lives as a successful writer, she did not always see such luxury. She and her family were somewhat nomadic, moving from place to place they lived in extreme poverty. Their father was unable to hold a job and the mother was for the most part just to lazy to work. In the memoir The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, Rosemary and Rex disregard and neglect their children to the point that they are afraid to tell their parents when they are bullied and assaulted.
Jeannette Walls is the author of The Glass Castle: A Memoir. She wrote this novel based off her life and growing up in her unconventional family. As a young girl, her and her siblings, struggled to survive with her alcoholic father and bipolar mother, but her father also had a dream. A dream that they’ll live in a solar powered house made out of glass. That is why it is called the Glass Castle. Jeannette lived an adventurous life and she wrote The Glass Castle: A Memoir to share to the world her thought provoking life story.
The Glass Castle was written by Jeanette Walls and published in January 2006. The Glass Castle is a memoir of redemption and resilience of views on a family that was extremely dysfunctional. The book is based on the author's past of her life when growing up homeless. Jeannette Walls was not only ashamed of her past but she also learned great life lessons from the events that occurred to make her who she is today.
In Jeannette Walls’s memoir, she describes how her father, Rex, wants to build a glass castle for him and his family to live in. In the book, she writes, “...All of Dad’s engineering skills and mathematical genius were coming together in one special project: a great big house he was going to build for us in the desert” (Walls 25). Rex wanted to make this happen for his family but unfortunately, his plans weren’t so realistic. So if I could build a glass castle the location of my glass castle would be in Atlanta, GA. I chose this location because I have family down there and I always travel down south every year. I chose to have 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a kitchen, an attic, a living room, a dining room, patio, and a basement. I chose to have these things because if I’m going to have a dream
In the book, The Glass Castle, Jeanette Walls tells her life story growing up in the Walls family. She goes back to her earliest memory as a child, cooking hotdogs in a trailer park in small town southern Arizona. While she was cooking, she caught fire and was rushed to the hospital with severe burns. Once she started to recover, her father, Rex Walls, took her from her hospital bed and ran out of the hospital, bypassing all medical expenses. That is how the Walls family lived, off the radar, hopping from town to town when things got bad. They lived like this for years, making their way through Nevada, Arizona, and California with no money or place to call home. Walls’ father was an alcoholic, so any money he did earn went to sustaining his habit. Jeanette’s mother was a dreamer who refused to take responsibility for her kids. It becomes clear that Jeanette doesn’t want to live this hectic dysfunctional
“I was three years old...stirring the hot dogs,... Then the flames leaped up, reaching my face.” This scene represents that this incredibly young girl is willing to take risks and take the responsibility of cooking her own food into her own hands without parental supervision. Furthermore, Jeannette Wall’s earliest memory caused a lot of traumatization and at such a young age, she almost experienced a life-death situation. As readers, it's easy to grasp the idea that this incident evidently shows how dysfunctional this family is. The Glass Castle is written by Jeannette walls and it tells a story of the life of Jeannette and her family. In her memoir, the four Walls siblings learn to live life differently than most typical children while their “excitement addict” mother and alcoholic father manipulate them that they’re living the life of their dreams as a distraction to their financial crisis. To elaborate, the Walls are frequently short on cash to the point where the family has to “skedaddle” every so often around the country to escape from the bill collectors. Jeanette’s identify is influenced by her parents’ actions, performances, and decisions, which leads her to be a more intelligent, self-conscious, and independent individual.
In the beginning of “The Glass Castle” the narrator’s father seems harsh. He doesn’t want his kids growing up on myths and wants them to see the reality of life in general. As the memoir continues the narrator’s father seems to mellow out in the sense that he wants his kids to have childhood memories of Christmas and the receiving gifts, even though they do not have any money.