Analysis Of The Glass Castle By Jeannette Walls

In the book The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls, Walls recalls her life and the significant experiences within it. She goes through the perils of being poor, not having a stable home, and having changing beliefs of the world around her. With an alcoholic and paranoid father, an irresponsible mother, and many nights with an empty stomach, Jeannette Walls grows up loving and supporting her parents as a young child only to realize the neglect that she and her siblings have gone through as she got older. The Glass Castle is a book full of life lessons, unique and baffling experiences, and eye opening scenes of the world and the many different people within it. This book shows the ups and downs of one’s life, showing dysfunction, misfortune, and how these impact someone over time.

In the two final parts of this book, the reader can see Jeannette grow into a self-sufficient adult female who appears to have found her place in life. When she travels to accompany Lori in New York City, Jeannette does not know what to expect but is overwhelmed with excitement. Several years after when Rex and Rose Mary move to N.Y.C, you see them basically fall back into their same routine of barely squeaking by living on the streets of the city. I fully support the decisions made by Jeannette to get out and away from her family and ticking time bomb of a mother. She was very wise to get a job and pay for her education as this will help her succeed in the latter part of her life. For Rex and Rose Mary, I do support how they chose to live

This method is very effective, as Jeannette gains a sense of fun out of it, and her and Brian bond a little bit. At this point in the memoir, the kids are basically on their own. Their mother has dedicated her entire time to her love, painting, and the children only see their father every few days because he spends his life going out drinking nights at a time. All Jeannette has are her siblings, so she has to make the best of it. Jeannette uses this mechanism, along with her siblings, to get by this tough point in her lifetime.

Jeannette elucidates Rex’s recent behavior after moving into their new house: “Dad had taken to disappearing for days at a time. When I asked him where he'd been, his explanations were either so vague or so improbable that I stopped asking” (Walls 171). When Jeannette first notices Rex’s absence, she displays a genuine concern for his wellbeing. She “asks him where he’d been,” indicating that despite his alcoholism and neglect, she still loves him. However, she gradually grows tired of Rex’s lies and “stop[s] asking.”

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,

They set the stage for the rest of the memoir; finding out really how Jeannette seems fond yet disappointed in them. “...he’d ruined the Christmas his family had spent weeks planning-the Christmas that was supposed to be the best we’d ever had” (115). This shows how far Rex became submerged himself into drinking, easily ruining a possibly good day at the Walls household. Unfortunately, Jeannette suffered from sexual abuse/harassment during her childhood. Her parents were unconcerned when finding out. “One night when I was almost ten, I was awakened by someone running his hands over my private parts. At first it was confusing…’I just want to play a game with you,’ a man’s voice said” (103). Jeannette asked her parents to close the doors and windows, but they would not consider it. It was essential that they refuse to surrender to fear. “I felt Stanley’s hand creeping onto my thigh...I looked down and saw that Uncle Stanley’s pants were unzipped and he was playing with himself” (183-184). Rose Mary showed no concern when Jeannette told her that Uncle Stanley touched her inappropriately. She felt bad for Uncle Stanley, knowing he is just lonely. Jeannette was most disappointed in her father when she and Brian began digging a foundation for the home that Rex designed for the family. The hole later became a garbage pit; perhaps not affording for the trash to

‘Are you saying you don’t have faith in your old man?’” This abrupt statement from Jeannette is so upfront and out of character for her, yet her father still replies in a manipulative way as per usual. Rex’s tries to guilt his children into thinking that he is this magnificent father that is better than all of the city folk, yet slowly they have grown to realize how it is all but an act. Whilst the children can’t tell at first, Jeannette makes it clear to the reader what he is doing with the point of view of which she writes about him. Soon after, Rex even says “And I’ll build the Glass Castle, I swear it.

Describe Jeannette’s childhood, specifically her socialization or the process by which she acquired family values, information about social expectations, and survival strategies.

Despite the fact that Rex Walls is sometimes depicted as an unemployed drunk with a vicious temper, there are many instances that a more educated Rex who teaches his kids a variety of important lessons. One of the lessons that Jeannette holds onto follows a moment of negligence, when she burns herself while cooking hot dogs later she would develop a fascination with fire and Rex later encourages her standing up to her fears. “ Dad also thought I should face down my enemy, and he showed me how to pass my finger through a candle flame… Dad [bellows] with a proud grin. ‘She already fought the fire once and won.’”( )showing Rex’s pride that Jeannette faced that which she was afraid of. Rex teaches Jeannette bravery and perseverance, following her very close call with fire by encouraging her to ‘face down her enemy’. There are multiple occurrences of this practice in the novel, including his ‘sink or swim’ method where he tells Jeannette “you can't cling to the side your whole life, that one lesson every parent needs to teach a child is. "If you don't want to sink, you better figure out how to swim."”() While his methods of doing this are not ideal, he for good or for bad teaches them to develop the bravery that allows them to push out of their impoverished lives and go to New York and against all odds succeed in New York. Through this lesson Rex teaches Jeanette to stand up to her fears including him and that was what in turn what lead to their future

A trauma narrative is a narrative that describes an experience or experiences that cause someone to be destressed and cannot be incorporated into their memory easily. Throughout her own traumatic narrative, Jeannette Wall’s describes different aspects of her everyday life that showcase various levels of significance. She is able to show how certain life events impact her plans for escaping her current socioeconomic status and her plans for the future. The text is also able to tell us about trauma, poverty, ourselves, and our society. Furthermore, the text demonstrates the impact that trauma and poverty can have and how they can have lasting effects. These concepts help us to think about our own life experiences and situations and they also show us how to be analytical about our society. Lastly, this narrative is able to reveal to us the different aspects of a traumatic childhood and how important and impactful this type of upbringing can be. Jeannette Walls uses her own traumatic autobiography to show that despite her adverse upbringing in poverty and passive and unattached parenting she was able to become successful. The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls, shows the benefits and the value that can come from having a traumatic narrative. This is significant because it shows that an experience can shape a person, but a person can also shape the experience.

The mood of the memoir is very troubling as she and her siblings are trying to survive. It is uplifting to see them triumph over all the obstacles and roadblocks her parents throw at them. “That was the thing about the hospital. You never had to worry about running out of stuff like food or ice cream or even chewing gum. I would be happy have been staying in that hospital forever,” Jeannette says (Walls 12). This scene shows that she is both young and wise by being able to reference her home life while not actually saying in particular what she meant. She is easily pleased with a stick of gum but old enough to realize that maybe gum was a normal thing that normal people had. The book is more effective because you can infer what the author wants you to feel and be more emotionally involved rather than in the movie because it is easy to skip over the

While her father’s dismisses his destructive nature, Jeannette becomes conscious of his actions which motivates her to make amends in hopes of leaving their desolate life. Instead of getting help for his childhood trauma, Rex immerses himself in alcohol causing him to become

After the fight, Jeannette realizes that she cannot change her parents and the path they are taking. Instead of changing her parents, Jeannette focuses on changing herself so that she can be successful. After a long period of hard work she finally moves to New York to start a different life. In New York she becomes a dedicated author and newspaper reporter with lots of potential. Her change to become a better person than her parents helped overcome her struggles of living in poverty while also become wiser in the

Towards the end of the memoir, Jeannette was in high school and was getting ready to graduate and get as far away from Welch and her broken family as possible. Jeannette decided to follow in her older sisters footsteps and move to New York. Jeannette is passionate about writing and believed New York was a perfect place to get her career started, along with college. Jeannette’s family was upset that she was leaving them, especially Rex. Rex felt as if he was losing

A few times in the book she would be inappropriately touched, or beaten up, and her father would do nothing to avenge or just protect his daughter. Brian came to her side a couple times and defended her against bullies, but Rex would never be empathetic. She had a little brother, but what she needed, was a preventive father. When Rex came home drunk most of the nights, he was violent and rude to his children. To try and make a difference for the whole family, and to get them to believe in Dad again, her birthday present she wished for was for her father to stop drinking. He lasted a couple months, but the disappointment and betrayal she felt of her father was immense and “...she couldn’t believe Dad had gone back to the booze” (Walls 123). She was the last to believe in him and with the overwhelming dishonesty and deception, at last, she had finally lost faith in her Dad.