The Glass Castle By Jeanette Walls Analysis

In the memoir, The Glass Castle, Jeanette Walls, the author, was most influenced by her time in Phoenix, as indicated by how she describes the neighborhood, house, and experiences there. She had a stable household for quite a while. Although Jeanette and the family faced their struggles, the experience of living there made the kids extremely happy. They all had their own bikes, and they went to a nice school with excellent education. Their father had a stable job, and even though he hated how organized it was, it still brought in money for the family. Rose Mary also got to make her own studio. Jeanette saw her whole family improving from this area, which certainly had the most significant impact on her life.
As the reader, I can tell that she is extremely happy when she said, “when we pulled up in front of the house on North Third Street, I could not believe we were actually going to live there” (94). She had never even been close to a house of this size. The neighborhood wasn’t all that
amazing with people drinking everywhere, but Jeanette didn’t mind; she was in her own oasis. She was amazed by the things that were inherited to her mother such as the antique silver serving sets and the bone china. All of these things influenced Jeanette’s life for the better and definitely made her much happier in their often atrocious journeys.
Something else that stood out to me as certainly affecting her life in Phoenix was their neighborhood.
As mentioned before, it wasn't all that good. There were drunks and perverts and a clan of Gypsies down the street. Although all of these things were totally unacceptable for children to be living near, they all did their best to cope. One night, when Jeanette was sleeping, she was woken up in the middle of the night to a child molester in her bedroom touching her. She screamed, and when Brian ran in with his hatchet, the hunt began. Although unsuccessful, they believed they had won. Jeanette wrote, “We decided we had been Pervert Hunting, which was just like Demon Hunting, except the enemy was real and dangerous instead of being the product of a kid’s overactive imagination” (103). Although throughout this section of the book, Jeanette didn’t show much emotion towards the incident, she was definitely affected by it or she wouldn’t have gone hunting for this man with
Brian.
Living in Phoenix was definitely a risk, and the family did have some minor problems, but overall this was much better. They had shelter, food, money, and education. Not all of these things were easy for them to get, but they managed to attain everything they needed and more. Later in the section of the book, Jeanette was molested, but this didn’t bring her down as much as many people would think. Instead, this brought her and Brian a little closer together when they went Pervert Hunting. This awful experience was surprisingly rather mild which still makes the whole living situation in Phoenix much better than places such as Battle Mountain with Billy who did actually do more than the pervert did to Jeanette.