The Glass Castle follows the story of Jeannette Wall’s life and experiences. One element of her life includes growing up with an alcoholic father. When he was sober, Rex Walls was a good man, he taught his children math and science and he entertained them with stories of how he would one day build them a house with glass walls, a glass staircase, and a glass ceiling. Unfortunately, when he was drunk, he was unpredictable, dishonest, and destructive. One Christmas, when Jeannette was younger, Rex flung his lighter and the Christmas tree went up in flames. Walls writes, “When dad went crazy, we all had our ways of shutting down and closing off, and that was what we did that night” (115). Children of alcoholics find ways to drown out the pain
Being more engaged in his drinking, and less engaged in his word was one thing Rex Walls was good at. After neglecting this promise Jeannette, his favorite daughter, who always believed in him, eventually sees how awful alcohol makes him. Leading her to draw a end with believing in her father's word saying, “you will never build the glass castle” (238). Which then causes Rex to go into an even bigger depression.
In fact, the glass castle, itself, is the true symbol of Jeannette and her father’s colluded idealism. The perfect fantasy, an escape from authority and responsibility, exists as the goal for Rex Walls and his daughter. When sleeping under the stars, Jeannette remarks, “We could live like this forever.” Clearly, her own childhood innocence has given her idealism a firm ground to be planted in. Later on, as she grows older, Jeannette’s illusions begin to fade, and reality takes root. No longer could she simply dream: she would have to take life seriously and recognize her desires, her obligations, and her own reality. Her idealism became first cracked after she was scolded for rightfully standing up to Erma; after which she said, “Situations like these, I realized, were what turned people into hypocrites.” Her hopeless ideals cannot stand up to the tough nature of reality and its merciless batter of the person. The foundation of the glass castle is turned into a trash dump just as her own dreams were discarded and transformed into more pragmatic plans. While her father still lived in a fantasy, Jeannette’s clouded vision was lifted by her own maturity and awareness. Ideas of being self-sufficient and living freely gave Jeannette a sense of hope to carry on, until her dreams, the glass castle, were
The Glass Castle is a memoir of the writer Jeannette Walls life. Her family consists of her father Rex Walls, her mother Rose Mary Walls, her older sister Lori Walls, her younger brother Brian Walls and her younger sister Maureen Walls. Jeannette Walls grew up with a lot of hardships with her dad being an alcoholic and they never seemed to have any money. Throughout Jeanette’s childhood, there are three things that symbolize something to Jeannette, they are fire, New York City and the Glass Castle, which shows that symbolism gives meanings to writing.
One in every twelve adults suffer from alcoholism in the United States, and it is the most commonly used addictive substance in the world. The World Health Organization has defined alcoholism as “an addiction to the consumption of alcoholic liquor or the mental illness and compulsive behavior resulting from alcohol dependency.” Reiterated themes encompassing Jeannette Walls’ father’s addiction to alcohol are found in her novel, The Glass Castle: a memoir, which displays instances of financial instability and abuse that hurt the Walls children for the rest of their lives. The Walls’, altogether, are emotionally, physically, and mentally affected by Rex’s alcoholism, which leads to consequences on the Walls children.
The novel The Glass Castle, written by Jeannette Walls, brings to the surface many of the the struggles and darker aspects of American life through the perspective of a growing girl who is raised in a family with difficulties financially and otherwise. This book is written as a memoir. Jeannette begins as what she remembers as her first memory and fills in important details of her life up to around the present time. She tells stories about her family life that at times can seem to be exaggerated but seemed normal enough to her at the time. Her parents are portrayed to have raised Jeannette and her three siblings in an unconventional manner. She touches on aspects of poverty, family dynamics, alcoholism, mental illness, and sexual abuse from
Everyone has to deal with struggles during their everyday life. Some people’s problems are more serious than others, and the way that people deal with their problems varies. Everybody has a coping mechanism, something they can use to make the struggle that they’re going through easier, but they’re usually different. Some people drink, some people smoke, some people pretend there is no problem. There are healthy and unhealthy coping mechanisms, and people will vary the one they use depending on the problem they’re facing. In The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, the author and her family deal with their struggles in multiple different ways as time goes on. However, the severity of her situation means that the methods she uses to deal with it are very important. That’s why it’s bad that Jeanette’s and her family have such unhealthy coping mechanisms, such
“When Dad went crazy, we all had our own ways of shutting down and closing off…” (Walls 115).In Jeannette Walls memoir, The Glass Castle, Walls enlightens the reader on what it’s like to grow up with a parent who is dependent on alcohol, Rex Walls, Jeannette’s father, was an alcoholic. Psychologically, having a parent who abuses alcohol is the worst thing for a child. The psychological state of these children can get of poorer quality as they grow up. Leaving the child with psychiatric disorders in the future and or being an alcoholic as well.
“Daddy! I want to buy this!” “Well, my dear, you have already had a lot of toys like this.” “I don’t care! I want you to buy this for me!” “Mommy! I don’t want to do the stupid housework!” “My dear, you need to learn how to do the housework.” “Why I have to do this? The appliances will do this!” Nowadays, it is so common that we hear this kind of dialogues between children and their parents. The dialogues are not funny; however, they provoke the worry of the public. With the development of our society, many children are having a relaxing and carefree lives. And because of that, the children are spoiled or they highly depend on their parents, which makes them lack of basic living skills. The worst result is that once they
The Glass Castle is a memoir written by Jeannette Walls. It not only describes the story about her strange and crazy childhood but also recounts memories of her father and mother in instances where they understood and loved each other. Throughout the novel, Jeannette Walls explains the hardships of her poverty filled childhood and the endless risk of not being able to find food. Raised by an alcoholic father and crazy mother, Walls describes her unique homeless life all through her childhood. When Jeannette's Dad wasn't drinking, he taught them many different subjects and how to live life without a fear in the world. But when he was drinking, he was untruthful and abusive. "When we tried to help him he cursed and lurched at us, swinging his fist," (Walls 289). Jeannette's Mom was a non-conformist who was against the idea of staying at home and didn't want the commitment that came with raising children. "Mom didn't like
As much as Walls loved her father, she realized he would “never build that Glass Castle. But we had fun planning it.” (279) Rex told them that special kids could have “those shining stars, he liked to point out, were one of the special treats for people like us who lived out in the wilderness.” (39) Walls really felt special when her mother said, “life’s too short to worry about what other people think. Anyway, they should accept us for who we are.” (157) This vicious cycle proves to the reader that Walls never had a way to escape from her parent’s cruel ways; she grew up thinking like her parents did. This cruel way of thinking made Rex feel good about himself while making Walls’ feel special. The idea of the Glass Castle gave Walls a sense of hope that her dad would stay true to his word, but the impracticable idea of a house of glass symbolizes just how unstable the Walls’ foundation was. Walls said, “As awful as he could be, I always knew he loved me in a way no one else ever had.” (279) Rex never had the stability to protect her and she knew he would endanger her. Walls’ father Rex had extraordinary power in convincing Walls that he only wanted the best for her, even while causing her to
Is self reliance beneficial to children's survival? Self reliance is beneficial to survival for many children around the world. In the memoir The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls the parenting style of Rex and Rosemary Walls taught the children to have self reliance which is beneficial to the children's survival.
There are several different social issues presented in Jeannette Wall’s memoir “The Glass Castle.” These issues include neglect – medical and education. unsanitary living conditions, homelessness, unemployment, alcohol abuse, domestic violence. violence, discrimination, mental health issues, physical and sexual abuse, hunger and poverty. Poverty was one of the major key issues addressed in this memoir.
The book The Glass Castle is written by Jeanette Walls, which details her unconventional childhood growing up with an alcoholic father and a mother who seems to not want the responsibility of raising a family. In The Glass Castle, published in 2005, Walls seems to reveals the intimate details of her upbringing within a dysfunctional yet loving family. Due to the fact that it is, a first-person point of view can effectively prove through storytelling and it can also have limitations to it. When a text is in first person point of view in general, certain opinions can be left out and may influence the reader's bias. A bias is a perspective/opinion. If The Glass Castle were told as an autobiography as opposed to a memoir, the story would have been more efficient in storytelling.
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls is a harrowing and heartbreaking yet an inspiring memoir of a young girl named Jeannette who was deprived of her childhood by her dysfunctional and unorthodox parents, Rex and Rose Mary Walls. Forced to grow up, Walls stumbled upon coping with of her impractical “free-spirited” mother and her intellectual but alcoholic father, which became her asylum from the real world, spinning her uncontrollably. Walls uses pathos, imagery, and narrative coherence to illustrate that sometimes one needs to go through the hardships of life in order to find the determination to become a better individual.
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls has taught me how to not give up on something so easily. From getting burned to having parents that go through alcoholism, she always stuck through the grind. I started soccer a very young age. Throughout my childhood, I grew to love it more and more. Around my 7th grade year is when I realized that I wanted to have to sport of soccer in my life. Playing on a travel team with the grade above me was fun. I knew I would play high school with them, so starting at a younger age helped us build friendships and chemistry. Having all these ups and downs throughout my soccer career gave me somewhat of an idea how Jeannette struggled through her childhood.