The Glass Castle Analysis

1089 Words3 Pages

Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.” The Glass Castle written by Jeanette Walls is a memoir depicting the life of her unconventional family and her journey into adulthood. Throughout her life she has matured because of her life experiences. From surviving a fire to moving away from home and to the death of her father, these events have dramatically shaped her into who she is today.

A traumatic experience that she has carried throughout her life has led her to mature and become her present self. Jeanette was very young when she encountered her first fire. It left her bedridden with burns all over her body. …show more content…

It led her to reflect on how she was living her life, and reminded her of the aspirations she had coming to New York. In the months that followed, she was uneasy, Jeanette couldn’t seem to accept the passing of her father. “ I found myself always wanting to be somewhere other than where I was. It took me a while to realize that just being on the move wasn’t enough : that I needed to reconsider everything” (280). Her father meant so much to her, now that he was gone she was loss and did not know how to move on. As a result, Jeanette realized that life on Park Avenue was not for her and decided to leave her husband, Eric. She carefully planned out her actions and reconsidered all aspects of her life. “ He was a good man, but not the right one for me. And Park Avenue was not where I belonged ” ( 281). Her relationship with Eric was good, she had a stable job and lived in a beautiful apartment on Park Avenue. However, when her Dad had passed, she became more self-aware and began making major decisions regarding her lifestyle. As time went by, Jeanette met her new husband, John. They invited the whole family for a Thanksgiving dinner at their new home. It had been five years since the death of Dad and she was now able to move on and find a closure for herself. She was strong enough to see her family which deeply reminded her of Dad. In contrast, Jeanette was now able to think of Dad in happiness. “We raised our glasses. I could almost hear Dad chuckling at Mom’s comment in the way I always did when he was truly enjoying something” (288). At dinner with all her family, she expresses her memories of her Dad in happiness, in which demonstrates her transition from grief to acceptance. Jeanette’s journey to accepting the passing of her father guided her through major changes in her life and sparked her to realise that the way she living was not right for

Show More
Related

  • The Tough Childhood In The Glass Castle By Jeannette Walls

    351 Words  | 1 Pages

    The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls is a memoir told from the perspective of a young girl (the author) who goes through an extremely hard childhood. Jeannette writes about the foodless days and homeless nights, however Jeannette uses determination, positivity, sets goals, and saves money, because of this she overcame her struggles. One of the ways Jeannette survived her tough childhood was her ability to stay positive. Throughout The Glass Castle, Jeannette was put in deplorable houses, and at each one she tries to improve it. “A layer of yellow paint, I realized would completely transform, our dingy gray house,” (Walls 180).

    Read More

  • The Glass Castle By Jeannette Walls: Literary Analysis

    817 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Adversity In The Glass Castle

    897 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Struggle Of Building Adversity means difficulties or misfortune. When someone's dealing with things or a situation turns out to go against them, they face adversity. Adversity is something someone comes across in life, it's like being part of a person. Decisions and actions are influenced by a lot of things. Conflicts influence all kinds of actions and decisions, depending on the person.

    Read More

  • The Glass Castle Stereotypes

    1391 Words  | 3 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls

    768 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...d to share their deepest and most private moments with their audience members, and this in turn will create a genuine, quality story. When asked if Jeannette Walls has fulfilled the duty given to her by William Faulkner, one should not even come close to hesitating with their response. In The Glass Castle, Walls shares some of the most personal and emotion-evoking moments of her life, and they clearly include the essential characteristics of writing as defined by Faulkner. With the expert use of Walls rhetorical strategy, she makes the reader see, hear, feel, and sense the emotion as if it is occurring firsthand. So, to conclude, Jeannette Walls has most definitely fulfilled Faulkner’s expectations of a writer by crafting a memoir stuffed with superb rhetorical strategies that thoroughly translates the events in Walls’ life to the readers in a very detailed manner.

    Read More

  • The Glass Castle Quotes

    578 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Glass Castle is a novel that follows the life of a dysfunctional family from the perspective of Jeannette Walls, the third child of the Walls family. Throughout the stories, the readers see all the hardships the children face, as their lunatic parents do what they think is right. After reading the book, it seems to agree the quote “Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person's character lies in their own hands” by Anne Frank.

    Read More

  • The Glass Castle

    1712 Words  | 4 Pages

    Could the dysfunction of the Walls family have fostered the extraordinary resilience and strength of the three older siblings through a collaborative set of rites of passage? One could argue that the unusual and destructive behavior of the parents forced the children into a unique collection of rites of passage that resulted in surprisingly resilient and successful adults. In moving back to Welch, Virginia, the children lost what minimal sense of security they may have enjoyed while living in their grandmother’s home in Arizona. The culture and climate (both socially and environmentally) along with an increased awareness of their poverty resulted in a significant loss of identity. As they learned new social and survival skills in this desperate environment, there is a powerful sense of camaraderie between the older children. Their awareness, drive and cunning survival skills while living in Welch result in a developing sense of confidence in their ability to survive anything. This transition, while wretched, sets the stage for their ability to leave their environment behind with little concern for a lack of success. As the children leave, one by one, to New York, they continue to support one another, and emerge as capable, resourceful young adults.

    Read More

  • Changes in Tone Throughout the Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

    646 Words  | 2 Pages

    Throughout the Glass Castle there is a constant shift in Jeanettes tone through her use of diction. Her memoir is centered around her memories with her family, but mainly her father Rex Walls. Although it is obvious through the eyes of the reader that Rex is an unfit parent and takes no responsibility for his children, in her childhood years Jeanette continually portrays Rex as an intelligent and loving father, describing her younger memories with admiration in her tone. The capitalization of “Dad” reflects Jeannette’s overall admiration for her father and his exemplary valor. “Dad always fought harder, flew faster, and gambled smarter than everyone else in his stories”(Walls 24). Jeanette also uses simple diction to describe her father, by starting sentences with, “Dad said,” over and over. By choosing to use basic language instead of stronger verbs, she captures her experience in a pure and honest tone.

    Read More

  • Character Analysis: The Glass Castle

    255 Words  | 1 Pages

    Jeanette decided to leave for New York as a way to escape the past she came from and embrace the future she wants to have. One final event that is very important to the story is the event where Jeanette sees her mother going through a dumpster in New York while

    Read More

  • The Glass Castle Analysis

    354 Words  | 1 Pages

    In the passage from the Glass Castle, Jennette’s family is trying to find and buy a house; they don’t have much money and they are looking for a marvelous home. The author of the passage conveys Jennette’s family is trying to live the American dream by moving to a low-priced home trying to build an upgraded future. The author uses indirect characterization to show how they struggle to accomplish their dreams.

    Read More

  • Jeanette Walls Quotes

    545 Words  | 2 Pages

    Jeanette Walls is the picture-perfect illustration of an individual who finds righteousness for herself. She is the protagonist in the book “The Glass Castle”, who has an unfair miserable childhood due to how her parents were. Walls stands out for her determination as she goes out to the real world to seek her own justice, with the ultimate goal of being stable for once, and take responsibility for herself, not for the whole family.

    Read More

  • The Importance Of Education In The Glass Castle

    1031 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...life living with yet loving parents and siblings just to stay alive. Rosemary and Rex Walls had great intelligence, but did not use it very wisely. In the book The Glass Castle, author Jeanette Walls discovers the idea that a conservative education may possibly not always be the best education due to the fact that the Walls children were taught more from the experiences their parents gave them than any regular school or textbook could give them. In this novel readers are able to get an indication of how the parents Rex and Rosemary Walls, choose to educate and give life lessons to their children to see the better side of their daily struggles. Showing that it does not matter what life throws at us we can take it. Rosemary and Rex Walls may not have been the number one parents in the world however they were capable in turning their children into well-educated adults.

    Read More

  • The Glass Castle Reflection

    989 Words  | 2 Pages

    The book “The Glass Castle” is written base on a true story by Jeannette Walls. The book talks about the childhood of four children Lori, Jeannette, Brain and Maureen how they grow up in a problem family. The reason for that is because of their father Rex Walls likes to drink and gets in trouble for stealing, the mother is selfish only care about herself, most of the time they don’t even a place to stay and have to be worrying about each meal. How each of the children grew up in those situation and still end up with a pretty successful life.

    Read More

  • Literary Analysis Of The Glass Castle

    1168 Words  | 3 Pages

    It is commonly believed that the only way to overcome difficult situations is by taking initiative in making a positive change, although this is not always the case. The theme of the memoir the Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls is that the changes made in children’s lives when living under desperate circumstances do not always yield positive results. In the book, Jeannette desperately tries to improve her life and her family’s life as a child, but she is unable to do so despite her best efforts. This theme is portrayed through three significant literary devices in the book: irony, symbolism and allusion.

    Read More

  • The Roles of Parenting Style in The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

    1211 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

More about The Glass Castle Analysis

Open Document