Everyone that has ever lived has a past. We all know this. Whether if it was filled with drug addiction, alcoholism, or abuse. Or if it was filled with supporting families, prosperous parents, or a happy childhood. Our outlook onto the world is most typically formed on what we have experienced in the past. But we cannot let this define us. In the glass castle, there are many examples of how a person’s childhood or past does not define who they become in the future. Although I agree that someone’s past can affect them, I do not agree that their past defines them as a person. Jeanette Walls, the main character and the narrator in the Glass Castle, lived through a remarkable account of resilience and redemption. In Jeanette’s childhood she was …show more content…
Her dad, who was rarely sober and disappeared for days on end, used their already inadequate money on booze and cigarettes. Because of this Jeannette and her siblings would go be forced to go hungry and resulted to eating food out of her school’s garbage. Her mother, who was a failed artist, rarely brought anything to the table either. An example of her ignorance was when Jeanette and Brian found a diamond ring outside on of their homes in Welch, West Virginia. The kids showed their mother what they discovered and begged her to sell it so they could put some food on the table that day. Rose Mary Walls then proceeded to keep the ring to replace her wedding ring and to boost her self-esteem. Jeanette’s mom was also a licensed teacher and was occasionally forced to take a teaching job when the family did not even have a penny to their name. Reluctant to take any job, Rose Mary Walls saw it as a betrayal of her true calling of being an artist. Because of this reluctance she did not keep a steady job throughout the book, which made matters even worse for the Walls family. To make the circumstances even worse for Jeanette, her childhood was jammed full of bullies. “She pushed me in the chest, and I fell backward. I tried to get up, but all three girls started …show more content…
This is when Jeanette really started becoming successful. She wrote many articles for the magazine and became a popular editor. “I loved my new job even more than I loved my Park Avenue address. I was invited to dozens of parties a week: art-gallery openings, benefit balls, movie premiers, book parties, and private dinners in marble-floored dining rooms. I met real estate developers, agents, heiresses, fund managers, lawyers, clothing designers, professional basketball players, photographers, movie producers, and television correspondents. I met people who owned entire collections of houses and spent more on one restaurant meal than my family had paid for 93 Little Hobart Street (Their Home in Welch, West Virginia).” (Glass Castle 270) As you can see by the vast number of high class people that Jeanette was associated with, she was obviously very successful. Jeanette could have become a slave to her past, and simply just fell into the tornado of her parents’
It still holds true that man is most uniquely human when he turns obstacles into opportunities. This is evident in Jeannette Walls’ memoir, The Glass Castle, which reiterates the story of Jeannette who is raised within a family that is both deeply dysfunctional and distinctively vibrant. Jeannette is faced with numerous barriers throughout her life. Despite the many obstacles set forth by her parents during her childhood, Jeannette develops into a successful adult later in life. One of these obstacles is the lack of a stable home base moulds her into the woman she grows up to be. Throughout her life, Jeannette must cope with the carelessness of her
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
In Jeannette Walls’ The Glass Castle, there are many important themes that pop throughout the book. Although there are many themes, the most essential one is how a hard past forces people to learn to rely on themselves to make their life better by pushing through their struggles, this changes how a person thinks and acts ultimately defining their identity. This theme is the most prominent throughout the book.
Survival of the fittest has never been about physical strength, mental hardiness and intellectual prowess has always been paramount to an individual’s success in difficult situations. In The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, a family of six nomads travel the country in search of adventure and despite crippling debt, neglectful parenting, and tough living situations three of the children eventually find stability and a more permanent home. In this riveting bildungsroman several life lessons and themes are revealed through Jeannette’s intense life experiences. Through the anecdotes in The Glass Castle the reader learns that necessity is the mother of invention and how the Walls’s mentality of mind over matter helps them overcome discomfort that
In the novel The Glass Castle I would say we was most influenced by her time in Phoenix Arizona. She is starting to figure out who she is and what she is capable of such as confronting her father about being an alcoholic. Her father did not really enjoy living in Phoenix. Rex wasn’t the kind of guy who likes living in a city. The city was bad for rex but good for Jeanette.
A. Jeannette Walls, in her memoir The Glass Castle, demonstrates Erikson’s eight stages of development. Through the carefully recounted stories of her childhood and adolescence, we are able to trace her development from one stage to the next. While Walls struggles through some of the early developmental stages, she inevitably succeeds and has positive outcomes through adulthood. The memoir itself is not only the proof that she is successful and productive in middle adulthood, but the memoir may also have been part of her healing process. Writing is often a release and in writing her memoir and remembering her history, she may have been able to come to terms with her sad past. The memoir embodies both the proof
American journalist, writer, and magazine editor David Remnick once said, “The world is a crazy, beautiful, ugly complicated place, and it keeps moving on from crisis to strangeness to beauty to weirdness to tragedy.” In the memoir, The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls the main character and author of the book tells of her crazy and adventurous life she experienced with her not so ordinary family. This quote relates to The Glass Castle, because like it states, life is full of both tragedies and beauty which is exactly what Jeannette experienced growing up with her free spirited and non-conformative parents. Walls is able to express her main purpose of the book that life is a mix of good and bad times through imagery, tone, and pathos.
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.
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.
THE GLASS CASTLE: TWO MAJOR TURNING POINT Development is one of the biggest factors in the Autobiography The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls about Jeannette Walls. Many characters throughout the book go thru some kind of change whether it be major or very minor such as Jeannette and Lori finally escaping the filth family once and for all, or Dinitia bullying Jeannette to being her friend because she helps her with homework; wow, what a genuine friendship that must be.
Earlier this year, I read Jeanette Walls’ memoir The Glass Castle. The Glass Castle tells the story of Walls and her siblings as they experience and attempt to escape the poverty-stricken lives of their parents. In her descriptions of her life and the lives of her family members, Walls influenced my ideas about poverty, homelessness, and escaping hard lives.
Throughout her life, starting from childhood, Jeannette Walls suffered through multiple hardships that could lead her away from a successful adult life. Since she was young, her parents put her through things that a child should never be exposed to, which could lead her to make these same mistakes as she grew older. For example, her father was an alcoholic, and from this many problems sprouted. Furthermore, her mother never wanted to be tied down, and loathed the idea of family life, as she did not want the responsibility of raising a family. Rose Mary was depicted as self-centered in the novel, and did not think of her children, as she only thought of her own needs. This can be shown when she keeps the diamond ring her children found for herself.
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.
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.
The Glass Menagerie is an autobiographical story. All the characters have some relation in the real-life family of Tennessee Williams. The author of The Glass Menagerie tries to tell us the story throughout one of the characters memory. The scenes of The Glass Menagerie do not function nor try to give us a traditional plot but instead they give us a piece of line or timeline that the author once lived through.