Summary Of Jeannette Walls By Jeannette Walls

Glass Imagery The ability for a writer to construct a piece that is easily relatable to the reader is something that requires time work. Imagery, engulfs the reader and carries him or her into the mind of the writer, enabling the reader to relive or experience that which the writer is trying to convey. Jeannette Walls relies greatly on this, in order to elaborately recreate her memories so that the reader may better understand her feelings toward her past. Her memoir recalls events in her life that shaped her into the woman she is today. As her family “moved around like nomads” which they did, she tells the story of her stubborn Father and unique Mother, her loyal brother and wise sister all intertwined into her own story as her family struggles
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In order to begin building the story, one must first erect a setting for everything to take place. Jeannette opens up every new memory with in this way with the use of imagery. For instance, “nothing about the town was grand except the big empty sky and, off in the distance, the stony purple Tuscarora Mountain running down the table-flat desert. The main street was wide—with sun bleached cars and pickups parked at an angle to the curb—but only a few blocks long”(51). The elaborate description of the setting allows one to understand how the place may affect the course of the narrative, as well as how each person with in the memoir may respond in relation with the environment. The environment does in fact steer each member of the Walls family to behave differently, since each new environment presents new situations for the Walls to handle. In the desert the Walls ‘’thrived’’ even enjoying “fierce sandstorms” when they hit but in contrast when “winter came hard” the Walls struggled to get through in one piece. The desert presented a carefree environment “….the overwhelming emptiness and severity of all that open land…” (21) to which the Walls family spent time relaxing, playing or spending time alone. However, the cold winters in Welch presented problems “It got so cold in the house that icicles hung from the kitchen ceiling, and water in the sink turned into a block of ice…” (176) to which the family resorted to scrounging for coal for warmth, and fighting to get any beneficial items or materials for each individual’s