Analysis Of The Glass Castle By Jeannette Walls

Jeannette Walls is walking the streets of New York City when she sees her homeless mother digging in the dumpster. Filled with shame, Jeannette rushes home and begins reflecting upon her childhood and how her parents’ choices have affected her. Throughout her childhood, Jeannette is determined to create for herself a successful life. In her memoir, The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls narrates the story of her triumphant success against all odds, and her unconditional love for her family despite their apparent flaws. Walls begins the reflection of her childhood by thinking back to her earliest memory; when she was severely burned and hospitalized after attempting to cook at the age of three. Not only was this her earliest memory of her childhood, but it was also the earliest memory of what her father called “the skedaddle.” After Jeannette had spent some time in the hospital, her father came and lifted her out of bed, performing the first “skedaddle,” leaving without paying the hospital bill. Thus, began a very long, drawn out childhood of “skedaddling” until the Walls family moved to West Virginia.

Much of Walls’ memories from the desert focus on “the skedaddle” and how the Walls family, which consisted of Mom, Dad, Lori, Jeannette, Brian, and eventually Maureen, moved to different desert towns. The family would stay in each town as long as Jeannette’s father could hold a job, or until they came into legal trouble and had to “skedaddle.” However, Jeannette’s mother, Rose Mary, had an extremely free spirit, and Jeannette’s father, Rex, was an alcoholic, and between the chaos, the family was doing “the skedaddle” quite