Analysis Of The Glass Castle By Jeannette Walls

Jeanette represents Rex as a reasonable and loving father through Christmas time during which he gave the presents stars to them. She describes the memory with admiration and love towards her father. Although Jeanette says “we had no money at all” her family showed no regret, she instead showed how they absolutely admire him, by capitalizing “Dad”. Rex has an ability to brave the cold times because ”the cold never bothered him” as he said ( Glass Castle 39). Jeanette holds onto her father when other people ignore him because he makes her feel unique, as it gives her one of the most important moments of her life. It's clearly obvious that Jeanette admiration is growing as she continues to describe the experience in positive terms. The final quotation at

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.

People often fall into some sticky situations, but how they deal with them is the thing that matters most. In The Glass Castle, a memoir by Jeannette Walls, she takes the readers through her life, starting at her earliest memory as a three-year-old, constantly living in a state of homelessness. Throughout the story, Walls experiences countless situations from her father being an alcoholic, to everyday school bullies. She uses a series of coping mechanisms to deal with, and sometimes terminate these issues. In fact, everyone of her siblings and parents uses various coping methods for these same situations. These methods may not always be the most effective, but people, including the Walls family, nevertheless use them to get by on their

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.

The Glass Castle is the story of Jeannette Walls, the main character and author, and her upbringing in a dysfunctional family ravaged by poverty. The book gives the readers insight to the life of the less fortunate in a chilling and capturing way. Throughout the book, they’re many underlying themes yet only one resonated throughout the text and captured the essence of what the glass castle is truly about: the importance of hope in burdensome situations. Through the struggle of the Wall’s family, the author is able to highlight hope as a significant factor in their survival even at a subconscious level. Be it through the mother, Rose Mary Walls, refusal to give up the farm land due to her long-held family beliefs; or the father's, Rex Walls,

Therefore Rex Walls is uninvolved in his children’s lives because of one example when Jeannette has been injured in the hospital for six weeks and her father comes to the room for the first time when she is supposed to stay in the hospital to rest and keep under supervision by the doctors. Most parents would stay at the hospital with their children but instead, Rex takes her out of the hospital. Jeannette is still hurt and is trying to heal, yet he comes in with the smell of alcohol on his breath and leaves without paying the doctors for the safekeeping of Jeannette. Jeannette’s father tells her to trust him when he hasn’t been there for her for what probably seemed like forever to Jeannette, when she needed him the most.

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.

“Things usually work out in the end." "What if they don't?" "That just means you haven't come to the end yet.” That small but powerful excerpt comes from the incredible biography “The Glass Castle” by Jeannette Walls. The Glass Castle is a 269 page Memoir about the unconventional, poverty-stricken, and dysfunctional life of Jeannette Walls and her three siblings.

Jeannette Walls, the author of The Glass Castle, integrates multiple themes to capture the conflict she experienced during her troubled childhood. It takes us along with Jeannette trying to overcome some of her most troubling childhood memories; memories such as her father teaching her how to swim, her mother condoning Jeanette’s uncle’s inappropriate treatment of her daughter, and Rex’s recurring outbursts, shapes Jeannette and her siblings. Jeannette focuses on themes such parents must be responsible and negligence leads to more problems, which we focused on in our trailer to accurately represent her memoir.

In our society, we tend to follow certain many moral principles and if not followed, there could be many negative consequences. Based on the novel, we can tell that Jeannette’s parents were very unethical; in the beginning of the memoir, Jeannette shares

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.

Jeannette’s personality shows the most with her independence and maturity at such a young age. An early example of this is when she tried to cook a hot dog on the stove and accidently burned herself when she was only three years old. As Jeannette ages, she begins to see the world in brand new perspectives because of her experiences with different lifestyles and environments, such as living in the desert with hot temperatures, to living in the poorest neighborhood of Welch, to finally living in the ever-moving city life of New York City.

In the book “The Glass Castle” by Jeannette Walls, Rex and Jeannette’s had a close relationship in the beginning of the book when she is young. As she ages older in the book that close relationship changes. Their relationship took a turn but Jeannette never gave up on her father. Seeing her parents and how they were, Jeanette didn’t want to be like her them and follow their horrendous steps. When Jeanette was young she and her father were close, but as she grows older it changes, but Jeanette always believed in Rex.

In Welch, after Rose Mary had left to a college in Charleston for the summer. When Rose Mary left she put Jeannette in charge, so Rex then began to start begging Jeannette for money and because of that Jeannette ended up giving Rex money. After that Jeannette was disappointed and said “for the first time, I had a clear idea of what Mom was up against. Being a strong woman was harder than I had thought” (Walls 214). Jeannette had told her Mom before that she had to be a strong woman to Rex and not let him get what he wants. At the time Jeannette had never had to do anything like that, so then when she was taking over her Mom’s spot she came across the same situation her Mom encounters which was Rex asking for money. After she gave the money to Rex she realized how difficult it was to say no to her father asking for money. Since Jeannette understood how hard it was to say no to her father she was able to understand why her mom was struggling to face him. The Walls family had not really understood each other until they had to do the same thing the others had to

After reading the first 28 pages of the The Glass Castle one question I have is, why was Jeannette’s family homeless because in the book it seemed like her father was very intelligent and could have a well paying job. The author stated in the book that her father was very good at math and electricity despite having never earned a college degree. Another question I have about the text is why did her father dislike hospitals so much and preferred the care of a “witch” doctor? Could it be religious beliefs or simply the cost of medical treatment. I have this question because in the text the author said how her father carried her out of the hospital after about six weeks and ran out the door. Prior to this, her father also had some arguments with