In The Glass Castle Jeannette Walls faces harsh stuff through her childhood because of her parents. In the beginning of the book she finds her mother digging through trash. She feels embarrassed, so she turns around and goes home without saying hello. Jeanette then calls her mother and asks to have dinner with her. She offers her mother help because she feels guilty, but her mother rejects her help.
In the memoir The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls, her parent’s values are different from hers and her siblings. Specifically, Walls remembers a time where her and her brother found a ring and their mother took it from them: “She was keeping it… to replace the wedding ring her mother had given her, the one Dad had pawned shortly after they got married. “But Mom,” I said, “that ring could get us a lot of food.” “That’s true,” Mom said, “but it could also improve my self-esteem. And at times like these, self-esteem is even more vital than food.”” (186). Obviously, Walls’ mother would rather do things for herself than provide for her children’s needs.
Famous entrepreneur and animator, Walt Disney, once said and lived by the following: “I don’t believe in playing down to children. Life is composed of lights and shadows, and we would be untruthful, insincere, and saccharine if we tried to pretend there were no shadows.” Similarly, Jeannette Walls’ memoir, The Glass Castle, expresses how individuals face the world and such experiences on their own, gaining wisdom, despite their age and an apathetic support system. Facing multiple adverse conditions, Rex and Rose Walls kept their family from amassing happiness, substantial wealth-- wasted in alcoholism, and precious time--in attempts to achieve personal goals that put their children’s successes aside. Yet however, the Walls parents never “treated
A balance between a enriching intellectual environment and comfortable living conditions is what all families, especially parents want. This is a constant struggle in the Glass Castle because of the Walls poor living condition, but eagerness to explore and adventure the world. Rex and Rosemary Walls, parents of Lori, Jeannette, Brian, and Maureen, obviously take an exploratory and learning environment over a comforting living space. Although living in rough conditions, which leads to bullying, poverty, I believe that it was more important that the Walls created circumstances for most of the children to explore and enjoy learning. Jeannette Walls, the author and the narrator throughout the book, tells a story about her life from when she was
Jeannette’s Tone Change As a result of maturing and learning new things, perspectives on people usually change. This is what happened with Jeanette Walls in her novel, The Glass Castle. Her initial attitude towards her father, Rex Walls, is loving, supportive, and faithful. However, when she is able to process how many times her father has let her down, her tone in the book changes to being very critical and clinical. Jeanette’s tone at the beginning of The Glass Castle is positive, even though the situations she is going through are abusive and neglectful.
Character List The protagonist, narrator, and author of the memoir, The Glass Castle is Jeannette Walls. From a young age, she was very optimistic and outgoing. Her personality is shown through her fearless actions and her mindset of that everything will become better. Jeannette was independent and strong from the age of three, as shown when she got a terrible burn from cooking and when she was bullied. However as she grew up, she started to become less ignorant to the state of poverty she and her family were going through.
The quote “No matter how much falls on us, we keep plowing ahead. That’s the only way to keep the roads clear.”, which was said by Greg Kincaid, perfectly describes how human resilience, specifically that of Jeannette Walls, was portrayed in the book. There are many examples of this throughout the book, including at the very beginning when she lights herself on fire cooking hot dogs, her family constantly moving from town to town because of her father’s strange paranoias, her long suffering in the impoverished West Virginia town of Welch, and her move to New York in spite of all that she has
In the memoir, The Glass Castle, by Jeanette Walls, Jeanette and her family reference the building of the glass castle. In my opinion, the glass castle is a metaphor of hope for the Walls family that they will always be together when they plan their dream house. Even though Jeanette’s dad, Rex, knows he is not going to build the castle, he keeps referencing it to give the kids a reason to keep moving forward and to have something to be excited about in their different lives. One of the first mentions of the glass castle was on page 14 of the memoir. As Jeanette Walls claims, “When Dad wasn't telling us about all the amazing things he had already done, he was telling us about the wondrous things he was going to do.
Jeannette Walls shows that homeless people are marginalized as uneducated in The Glass Castle. “Dad would get a job as an electrician or engineer in a gypsum or copper mine. Mom liked to say that Dad could talk a blue streak, spinning tales of jobs he’d never had and college degrees he’d never earned” (Walls 19). For the most part, Jeannette’s dad, Rex Walls, was the money maker of the house. Wherever they moved to, he would find a job to do, but he could never keep his jobs for long periods of time.
Kai Sebastian English 10H Mrs. Denchfield 8/27/15 10H Summer Assignment: The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls 1.“‘We could live like this forever,’ I said. ‘I think we’re going to,’ she said.” (Walls 18) This is near the beginning of the books between the two siblings of the narrator (Jeannette Walls) and her older sister (Lori Walls) as they are lying underneath the stars on a clear night in the desert. The reason for these exchange of words was the fact they were on one of their dad’s (Rex) “adventures”. This begins to show the characterization of these two important characters, the optimistic little sister who finds her dad’s escapades not for what they really are and the cynical older sister who is already finding the truth behind the fantasies of their father and how age connects to this maturation. This also connects to the idea of foreshadowing as this idea is followed throughout the story.