How would you like it if you were always moving around from home to home and your parents didn’t take very good care of you? In the Glass Castle, Rex and Rose Mary Walls’ unconventional parenting style greatly affects how Jeannette and her siblings are brought up in the world. As the Walls family packs up and moves from place to place, subtle changes begin to take place in the tone of the book. While living out west, the Walls family is still living in poverty, but her parent’s personalities are more light-hearted. When the six of them pack up and make their final move as a whole family, the severity of their situation begins to take a negative toll on everyone. Living in poverty proves difficult for every member of the Walls family, and the …show more content…
Even though it is hard for them to make ends meet, they remain optimistic and somehow always find a way to work through their problems. Their parents’ unrealistic optimism, especially Rex’s, is what keeps the children hopeful for so long. From early on in her life, Jeannette is Rex’s favorite because he manages to keep her optimistic the longest out of anybody. “You are brave and ready for adventure, right?” (17) are Rex’s words to 3-year-old Jeannette, as they are about to move once again. When life throws them curveballs, they pack up what little they have, and start someplace new. Aside from being burned by the fire, some of Jeannette’s first memories are being loaded up in the car and driving to a new home, out west. Her dad was always sure that after they moved again, they would start building the glass castle and all of their problems would be gone. Even if Jeannette was given empty promises as a child, she remembers having hope, because “Dad started telling us about all the exciting things we were going to do and how we were going to get rich once we reached the new place we were going to live” (18). This quote reveals that while the Walls family lived out west, their parents (mostly her dad) somehow had the assurance that one day their lives would be …show more content…
After the family’s spontaneous move to Welch, their family dynamics and home life are altered forever. Because they are dirt poor, food is scarce and proper plumbing does not exist. As time goes on in Welch, Rex and Rose Mary Walls appear to lack their thirst for adventure and nonconformity. Rex spends his time gambling and drinking at bars, while Rose Mary sleeps the days away and comes up with every excuse to not go to work. As the tone continues to darken, life in Welch cannot continue on with Lori and Jeannette. 9 months into Lori’s plans to move to New York, Rex breaks into the savings fund and the book reaches its darkest tone. “I’ll never get out of here,” Lori kept saying. “I’ll never get out of here” (229). This quote reveals the sudden effect that the setting has on the tone; Lori feels so passionate about getting out of Welch because she knows that once a person moves to Welch, they almost never get
McDowell county has the lowest median household income of $22,000, and the highest number of teen births. Rocket Boys by Homer H. Hickman Jr., The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, and 50 Years Into the War on Poverty, Hardship Hits Back by Trip Gabriel are memoirs and articles describing life in McDowell County throughout half a century. Rocket Boys takes place in the 1950s and 1960s in Coalwood when the coal is getting harder to mine and people are losing jobs and leaving the company towns. The Glass Castle takes place a few decades later, during the 1970s and 1980s in Welch, when most mines have shut down and many people are unemployed. The last article, 50 Years Into the War on Poverty, Hardship Hits Back, describes life in McDowell County
The Glass Castle is a memoir that was written by Jeannette Walls, who explains how within her childhood grew up extremely poor and had an alcoholic father, a mother who took advice from no one, and had three siblings, Brian , Lori, and Maureen. Rex and Rose Mary Walls show signs of being permissive or uninvolved parents by having very few demands, neglect to the children's needs, and letting their children make their own decisions. Throughout her memoir, Jeannette had multiple occasions were herself or her siblings would have to fend for themselves, because Rex or Rose Mary refused to hold on to a job. For example “When we wanted money, we walked along the roadside picking up beer cans and bottles that we redeemed for two cents each.”
She always trusted in him whenever he talked greatly about building a “Glass Castle”, a home where they could have infinite rules. However, as time passed and there have been no signs of process building the castle, Jennette has started to lose trust in her father. “Life got even tougher when Jeannette was 10 and the family settled in hardscrabble Welch, W.Va., Rex's hometown. Rex's drinking was out of control, the kids went hungry for days in their rat-infested shack, and as the poorest of the poor...” (Hubbard).
In the beginning of the novel Jeannette Walls and her family were not doing good on cash and food and moved from place to place. Her dad and mom said they keep moving because the FBI is after them. During their moving Jeannette Walls and her other three siblings do not go to school. They are all homeschooled by their mom and learned some things from her dad. During Jeannette Walls childhood, Jeannette and her dad would talk about how they were gonna build a glass castle.
The book, The Glass Castle written by Jeannette Walls, was about her younger self along with her family explaining how they struggled through hard challenges such as relationships, financially, and mainly through life. Jeannette had to learn to survive on her own by growing up fast to an adult in order to take care of her siblings, when her parents wouldn’t, and had to fit into the normal world outside of their home. It was very hard for Jeannette and her siblings to attend school because they would always move to different locations and they didn’t have the clothes that everyone else had, or didn’t have enough food to make them look healthy, and it was difficult for them to make friends with other people, when people from each town viewed
Most parents consider their children to be their first priority, always. Rex and Rose Mary possessed this way of thinking, with a bit of a twist. The family, made up of Jeannette, her parents, her two sisters and her brother, was constantly moving around. From a young age, the Walls kids
He conveys that Jeanette can become triumphant over anything she puts her mind to; as long as she is confident, she can overcome any obstacle in life. In a similar way, when the Walls go to the Hot Pot to swim, although her siblings know how, Jeanette does not know how to swim. In an attempt to teach her, Rex heaves her into the middle by herself, only saving her when she starts to sink. He continues to throw her out into the water repeatedly, saying, “you can’t cling to the side your whole life; one lesson every parent needs to teach a child is ‘if you don’t want to sink, you better figure out how to swim’” (66). Using another metaphor for a life lesson, Rex ensures that Jeanette understands that no one will do everything for her in life, and if she does not learn how to take care of herself, she will never survive in the world by herself.
Since the Walls family is so poor and homeless it seems that Rex and Rosemary are not always there to give their children the support and comfort that kids need at a young age. Instead of giving love and comfort, they decide to teach their kids how to be tough and how to learn to do things themselves. Unlike most parents, who focus on supporting, caring for their children first, and then teaching them how to live on their own once they get much older. This attentive parenting method is not visible in the Walls’ family. For example, when Jeannette has her accident with fire and explained it to the nurses she gets rather surprised and
One 's perspective on an event can completely alter their way of life, and their levels of happiness. This in turn, will have a domino effect on their children, causing them to adapt the same way of looking at life. The power that lies within parents hands to shape their children is very important. In “Glass Castle” by Jeannette Walls and “Angela 's Ashes” by Frank McCourt, it is evident that the parents way of seeing the reality that is their poverty directly affects their children. In the memoirs, Jeanette and Frankie are both able to conquer previous struggles, but Jeanette is able to do so in a more happy manner since her parents are unable to face the reality of their poverty and therefore transform her life into one long adventure, ingrained
Max Lerner an American Journalist stated “the turning point in the process of growing up is when you discover the core of strength within you that survives all hurt.” Throughout The Glass Castle a memoir by Jeannette Walls, Jeannette and her siblings, Lori, Brian and Maureen are faced with an unpleasant upbringing that they are put through by their parents Rex and Rose Mary Walls. Due to the terrible living conditions and bad parenting they had to endure for many years, they had to teach themselves and each other to be strong and survive on the very little food and necessities that they were given. Throughout the memoir, it is seen that Jeannette has a special connection with her father unlike any of the other siblings, but despite Jeannette believing in him Rex struggles to raise her and the kids in the normal life that they deserve due to his battle with mental illness. Bipolar disorder “is a brain disorder that causes unusual shifts in mood, energy, activity levels, and the ability to carry out day-to-day tasks” (National).
Jeanette’s childhood was shameful due to her parents careless way of living. Throughout The Glass Castle Jeannette hides her childhood just like she from her mother because she is ashamed of what people might think. Jeannette Walls lived a tough childhood because of her parents. They were always moving around trying to find a place to build a glass castle. They never gave any of their children a set home while they were growing up.
Take a look at an apple tree, the tree lives in the perfect world, growing in a stable environment, compared to the struggling world that the Joshua tree undergoes. In the book “The Glass Castle” written by Jeannette Walls, the following quote took my interest and sparked great wisdom. “Mom frowned at me. “You’d be destroying what makes it special,” she said. “It’s the Joshua tree’s struggle that gives it its beauty.
Jeannette Walls’ Memoir, “The Glass Castle”, tells a story of a dysfunctional family who uses magic, fantasy, and life lessons to get through their hectic lives. Jeannette starts off her book with such a story about seeing her mother ramming through garbage in New York City. Jeannette feels a sense of shame about her Mom’s life and begins to reflect on her childhood and how her parents’ choices affected her. If you ask me I would say it was very dramatic, which grabs your attention knowing someone is telling about their own life intrigued me to keep reading.
As a child, Jeannette Walls moves around constantly with her family. The Walls family would move to different desert towns and settle as long as Mr. Walls can hold a job. When sober, Mr. Walls represents a charismatic father who loves his children and teaches them important life skills. He encourages imagination inside of the Walls kids and often captures their dream and creativity. Together, the family had planned to build a glass castle that contains all of the family’s hope and inspiration.
The Glass Castle is the life story of a girl, Jeannette Walls, and her siblings who grew up in poverty unnecessarily because of their parents’ irresponsibility. One of its themes is that strength and perseverance can significantly improve your chance at success and your future. The Walls children did not allow their childhood struggles prevent them from creating better and brighter futures for themselves. They all grew up impressively sane considering their living conditions.