“The Glass Castle” by Jeanette Walls, is a novel about the hardships throughout her life and the several lives of her family and how they overcome those hardships. Within the novel, Jeanette goes into detail about some of the incidents that her parents made and how they each chose a different parenting style. Her father, Rex Walls, was very hands on with his parenting, while contrasting her mother Rose Mary was very relaxed in her parenting technique. In each of the tiny stories Jeanette told during the novel, they each revealed more about how her parents chose to raise her and her siblings. In order to be a successful parent it takes hard work and a lot of effort, but you have to achieve a balance between both hands- on and relaxed parenting.…
Jeannette Walls is an author of many books, one of which being her memoir The Glass Castle. After years keeping her story a secret, in 2005 Jeannette’s husband inspired her to write her sad story for the world to see. Through the 288 pages, Jeanette illustrates her story of a life as nomads constantly on the move, with a passive mother and a drunken father. The stories she shares show the side of an abusive childhood that we rarely have the opportunity to understand. The glass castle is shattered in the reader's face, and its pieces rebuild their broken perspective.…
Due to her family’s constant negatively impacted actions, Jeannette grows to mistrust them. One such action happens near the beginning of the book, when the kids are still trusting and loyal to their parents. It was in Battle Mountain while the weather was cold, and the dad figured that to warm up the family was going to go to a hot spot up north. So the family visits the waterhole and starts to swim in it. During that time Jeannette is the only one out of the three kids that could not swim, so Rex takes it upon himself to teach her. Unfortunately, Rex’s method of teaching was unorthodox as well as dangerous. The method involved dragging Jeannette to the middle of the water and prying her loose from him, allowing her to sink underneath while…
Throughout the book, Jeannette has gone through much adversity and has overcome almost impossible odds. However there was a price to much of what happened. The Walls children were neglected and beaten, and were raised by alcoholic and selfish parents. Yet, after all the strife and turmoil, Jeannette forgave them. She still doesn’t see them as parents now that she is older and can reflect more on her childhood in a more mature way. As they grew up, the horrors the children faced got worse. They faced racism, sexual, verbal, and physical abuse, neglect, and poverty.…
Jeannette Walls was the first to be interviewed out of the children and claims that the family has many problems with obtaining and keeping money. Over the summer she had been given two-hundred dollars, which should have been enough to support her father, brother, and herself, until her father started asking for money to buy alcohol. She ended up having to get a job to…
The book, Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls, is an unbelievable memoir about a dysfunctional family. The author, Jeannette Walls, is also the main character in the book. Jeannette and each of her unique and interesting family members differ from any other character in a book you can imagine. Jeannette’s father teaches and inspires her each and everyday with new and interesting things. But when Jeannette’s father was not helping them embrace life, he was drinking alcohol, leaving his children with no one to take care of them. “In my mind, Dad was perfect, although he did have what Mom called a bit of a drinking situation.” (page 23). This quote describes how much Jeannette cares for her father, but sometimes his drinking problem got in the way. Jeannette’s mother was a very nice, sweet, and caring woman, but the whole idea of responsibility and being a parent wasn’t her cup of tea. Jeannette and her brother and sister are left to take care of themselves. Throughout the story Jeannette and her family persevere greatly, and prove to each other how…
The memoir “Glass Castle” covers a variety of serious concerns that affect any modern society. One of these concerns is child abuse. Child abuse is defined as any deliberate action taking against a child by an adult. These actions may be be physical violence, emotional or verbal abuse, refusal to meet a child's basic needs and even sexual molestation. There is much debate as to what exactly could turn someone, particularly a parent, to cause harm to child. However, a general consensus is that a few basic factors can increase the risk. Among these are mental health issues, substance abuse, lack of support and socioeconomic stress. Of all of these, socioeconomic stress is the most prominent cause of child abuse. This stress is often seen in a…
Jeannette and her other two siblings are on their own for eight weeks while Rose Mary go away to renew her teaching certification and Rex know where to be found. “I worked up a budget and calculated that we could indeed squeak by if I made extra money babysitting (The Glass Castle pg209). Rose Mary only leaving two hundred dollars for food, leaves Jeannette stuck with budgeting and making sure her, Maureen and Brian eat. This indicates the struggles that she and the siblings had to go through while not having their parents around to guide them or be financially good. The walls siblings had to depend on each other for survival while her mom was away at school and the dad asking for money for beer and cigarettes.…
What would it be like to grow up in a family where your dad is a drunk and your mom has the desperate urge to have no kids? Well, after reading The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls, I can begin to comprehend. There are six members in the Walls family, Rex and Rosemary, parents, and Lori, Jeanette, Brain and Maureen, the children. Jeanette’s dad was an enormous player in the children’s childhood, when sober Rex was inspiring and charming, but when he drank he was very destructive. Therefore creating a terrible situation for the family to be in.…
In addition, The Glass Castle, “Poverty in America Is Mainstream”, and “Number Of Homeless Children In America Surges To All-Time High: Report” all have a similar author’s purpose. Jeannette Walls’s purpose of writing her memoir is to teach readers to achieve their dreams and not let their past hold them back. Especially, she describes her house as a compact residence that is located on a steep hillside. The front of the house includes a drooping porch, which is supported by spindly cinder-block pillars. It has been a long time since someone has painted it (Walls 150). Evidently, Jeannette Walls has had many obstacles while growing, but she does not let them stop her from prospering throughout her life. She decides she would like to move to…
The occurrence of many negative situations in Jeanette’s memoir, the Glass Castle, presents Jeanette and her family with many challenges which their actions, often times, results in a positive outcome. When Billy and Jeanette and her siblings get into a gunfight, it results in the Walls “family coming down to the courthouse the next morning and see the magistrate” (Walls 89). However, Jeanette’s father, Rex, makes them move that night, driving to “an older house, made of adobe, in downtown Phoenix” that Jeanette’s mom, Rose Mary, inherits from Jeanette’s Grandma Smith (Walls 92). This reveals that the negative situation was the gunfight, forcing the Walls family to dash at night to avoid going to the courthouse. Jeanette saw Battle Mountain…
Walls has grown up in poverty her whole entire life until she made the move to New York to start her life on her own life she experienced most of her child undernourished and hungry Walls mentions one of these instances where she is going through the trash at school and getting the leftover from others lunches, “I began smelling the bologna. It seemed to fill the whole room. I became terrified the other kids would smell it, too, and that they’d turn and see my over stuffed purse,”(Pg. 173). This is a difficult time for Walls because she was raised to not rely on others when she could probably tell one of her friends and they could give her some food with no problem. This eventually helped Walls later on in life, like when she moved to New York, she needed to be able to live on her own and she was pretty good at it because that’s how she lived her whole life.…
The Glass Castle, a memoir written by Jeannette Walls is an eye-opening look at the world of poverty that touches so many lives within in the United States. There are many reasons for poverty wheather they be out of consequence or one is simply born into it there are many reason for its occurance. The story of Jeannette Walls is not only inspiring but motivating as her climb from the depths poverty allow her to become the successful journalist and novelist she is today. Throughout her life there have been many struggles including her own father, Rex Walls, the finicial instability their family faces together, and the bullies Jeannette must face alone. She clearly outlines her own growth with her father throughout the novel and proves that with…
No two childhoods are exactly alike. Some children are lucky to be born into wealthy families, while other families struggle to make ends meet. In the memoir, The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls she described the events in her childhood which lead her to become independent at a very young age, made an effort to make the most of the education offered to her, and learned to appreciate what she had. Her unusual upbringing and lifestyle as a young child shaped her into the successful woman she is today.…
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 that she has successfully graduated through Erickson’s stages of development while also being the reason that she is able to do so.…