Glass Castle Compare/Contrast

Compare/Contrast Essay The Glass Castle written by Jeannette Walls as well as October Sky by Homer H. Hickam, Jr. both resemble the hardships faced by children living in poverty. The Glass Castle is the story of Jeannette Walls and how her siblings have learned to take care of themselves in their dysfunctional family. Jeannette walls is a willful and independent individual who dreams of leaving her haunted past behind. October Sky tells the story of Sonny and his three school friends with the same dream of launching rockets in an attempt to leave the mining town of Coalwood, West Virginia. Sonny is smart and determined, and serves as the leader of the group. Sonny Hickam and Jeannette Walls are similar, because both characters live in a life of poverty, both of their fathers display selfish qualities, and both have dreams of making a name for themselves. It is evident throughout both novels that the characters live in a life of poverty. Growing up Jeannette and her family were very poor and often found themselves jumping from place to place. “Later that night, Dad stopped the car out in the middle of the desert, and we slept under the stars. We had no pillows…”(Walls 18). This shows the poverty stricken life that the family lives, and the sacrifices that they have to make. Similarly, Sonny Hickam also finds himself living in a poverty filled mine town. “All around me, Coalwood was always busily playing its industrial symphony of rumbling coal cars, spouting locomotives, the tromping of the miners going to and from the mine. How could that ever end”(Hickam, Jr. 46)? This shows how mining has impacted the town and consumed the lives of everyone in it. It is clear that poverty is a reoccurring theme in both of these novels. Both of the father figures display selfish qualities throughout these novels. A good example of this is when Jeannette’s mother gets a job as a schoolteacher, and her father insists on taking the money that she earns. “…he saw himself