Jeannette Walls, American writer and journalist, in her memoir, The Glass Castle, shares her vividly stunning childhood growing up with her family. Due to her misguided and dysfunctional parents, Jeannette and her siblings had to suffer through poverty, negligence, and abuse. Jeannette Walls states, “Some people think my parents are absolute monsters and should’ve had their children taken away from them. Some think they were these great free-spirited creatures who had a lot of wisdom that a lot of parents today don’t [have].” Although a handful of individuals believe that the Walls’ parenting style was justified and has led to the sibling’s success, their children should have been taken away to be raised properly because their parents were unfit, and they experienced an immense amount of physical and sexual abuse and neglect throughout the process.
The Walls siblings did in fact become successful
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Even though their children had gone through such harassment, both Rex and Rose Mary completely disregarded the situations they experienced. At times, both parents even enforced such acts in order to avoid trouble and to avoid being moved out into another place. After Rose Mary was aware of the incident with Uncle Stanley sexually assaulting Jeannette, Jeannette states, “[Mom] said that sexual assault was a crime of perception” (184). Posterior to the incident of Erma sexually assaulting Brian, Jeannette’s father also states, “I don’t care what happened!” (147). These two quotations clearly shows the harassment Brian and Jeannette suffered; moreover, it evidently shows the parents’ negligence towards the children. They both completely disregarded what had happened to both Brian and Jeannette solely for their defective idealism and to avoid confrontation with the individuals involved; therefor, Rex and Rose Mary were inadequate to raise their
Jeannette Walls has lived a life that many of us probably never will, the life of a migrant. The majority of her developmental years were spent moving to new places, sometimes just picking up and skipping town overnight. Frugality was simply a way of life for the Walls. Their homes were not always in perfect condition but they continued with their lives. With a brazen alcoholic and chain-smoker of a father and a mother who is narcissistic and wishes her children were not born so that she could have been a successful artist, Jeannette did a better job of raising herself semi-autonomously than her parents did if they had tried. One thing that did not change through all that time was the love she had for her mother, father, brother and sisters. The message that I received from reading this memoir is that family has a strong bond that will stay strong in the face of adversity.
Although most people would not be able to give someone so much forgiveness for such dishonorable acts, author Jeannette Walls and her siblings knew it was the only way out. Throughout the book The Glass Castle, Walls writes about hardship in life and overcoming most things through forgiveness and constant love for family. Therefore, it is evident that the memoir The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, makes it clear that being able to let go of things for the better is a tremendously important trait to possess when living with a dysfunctional family. These ideas that Walls shares throughout the novel heavily rely on the appeal of pathos and attaining sympathy from the reading through writing about all of the hardships she had to face at such
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls is a memoir about Jeannette’s childhood experiencing many difficult situations. It is an excellent example of contemporary literature that reflects society. This story connects with social issues relevant to our time period, such as unstable home life, alcoholism, and poverty. Many of these issues, as well as others, are also themes of the story. One major theme of the story is overcoming obstacles, which is demonstrated by Jeannette, the Walls’ kids, and Rex and Mary Walls.
The story of Jeannette Walls and her dysfunctional family gives insights of hope and growth. To get these points across, author, Jeannette Walls wrote her autobiography using many different literary devices to tell the story of her childhood. She used themes that were apparent her whole childhood. She used symbolism to say the things that needed to be said in a discrete way. And her similes gave her audience insight to the people around her. Devices like symbolism, similes and theme have been used in all great literature to convey information, as well as in this story in a refreshing, thought-provoking way.
Rex Walls, a dynamic character, in the Memoir The Glass Castle written by Jeannette Walls was portrayed as drunk, lazy, pride stricken man. At first Rex started of as a hard working man but later as reality kicked in he realized the glass castle was only a figment of his imagination and he started to go down the hill and became and alcoholic. The Glass Castle was used as a symbol which represented prosperity and a safe haven. Rex used this glass castle as a means of hope for a better life but as, “The hole for the Glass Castle’s foundation slowly filled with garbage,” all hope was lost for both Rex and his family (Walls 155). Due to this incident Rex started to drink more and more which later broke his family apart. Personally I think that Rex Walls was irresponsible
The Glass Castle is a book about the childhood and adolescence of Jeannette Wells, the daughter of Rex and Rose Mary Walls. Throughout her childhood, she moved all over the country with her family, moving from one town to the next, often lacking food and good clothes, and living in a state of perpetual poverty. Once the children have grown up, they go to New York, where they live out their dreams while their parents live on the streets. There has been much debate whether Mary and Rex are bad parents are not. Even though their childhood was less than ideal, the fact that they survived and are now productive citizens means that they were better off living with their parents than in a foster home.
Jeannette Walls, the author of the memoir, The Glass Castle, was raised by parents whose relentless nonconformity and radical ideals were both positive and negative aspects to their wellbeing. Their names were Rex and Rosemary Walls, and they were the parents of four children. While the kids were still young, the family moved from town to town, camping in the wilderness and sleeping in the car, and sometimes even had a small place to stay. Rose Mary, who was both an artist and an author, identified herself as an “excitement addict”. As a mother who despised the responsibility of caring for her family, Rose Mary preferred making a painting that will last forever over making meals for her hungry children. Rex was an alcoholic who, when sober, was a charming and intelligent man that educated his children through geology, physics, mathematics, and how to live life fearlessly.
However as Jeanette and her siblings quickly lose their innocence and are pulled into the reality of life, her idolization of her parents, (especially her father) gradually lessens and she comes to terms with their flawed lifestyle. As she begins to lose hope in her parents, she begins describing them in a more negative light. For example, she exposes the intensification of her father's drinking problem. “He staggered off to the bathroom, came back, ordered one for the road, slammed the shot glass down on the bar, and walked to the door. He lost his footing trying to open it and sprawled on the floor. I tried to help him up, but he kept falling over”(page?) This repugnant and embarrassing description of Rex, contrasts how Jeanette tried to showcase his admirable qualities earlier in the story. In the sentence she also no longe...
From being able to save up money to buy a car and move out to West Virginia and then leaving the responsibility of finances and income to her children, Rose Mary Wall’s helped put Jeanette and her siblings through a hard and tough childhood. Although, a debate could be made that with all the awful impacts that the mother had on her children, all she really did was actually positively influence them to be able to conquer any hardship that they may face in their life. In the end, Rose Mary Wall’s character of being independent, unreasonable, and stubborn did both positively and negatively impact her children’s lives through the hardships they all faced
Every day the safety and well-being of many children are threatened by neglect. Each child deserves the comfort of having parents whom provide for their children. Throughout the memoir, The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls explains the childhood from being born into the hands of parent who neglect their children. Many may argue that children need to grow with their parents; however, the removal of children is necessary if the parents disregard the kid’s needs and cannot provide a stable life for their children.
Fire. Neglect. Sexual Molestation. No one child should have to face what Jeannette Walls had to endure as a young child. However, Walls clearly shows this chaos and the dysfunctional issues that she had to overcome while she was growing up. Within her memoir, The Glass Castle, Walls incorporates little things that were important in her life in order to help the reader understand her story even more. These little things amount to important symbolisms and metaphors that help to give the story a deeper meaning and to truly understand Jeannette and her family’s life.
In many ways, he made his kids’ lives harder than it already was. He was always drunk and spending their money on himself. Rex was also always running from authority. This was one of the reasons they moved around so much. One summer Rose Mary decided to go back to school to get her teaching certification again and leaves Jeannette in charge of the money. After only a week Jeannette has given Rex $30 after being guilted into it. Rex swindles a man in a game of pool and wins back the $30; he does this by using Jeannette as a distraction. After this experience Jeannette feels betrayed and used by her father. When Jeannette explains to her father that the “creep attacked [her] when [she] was upstairs” her dad shrugs it off by saying “I knew you could handle yourself.” (213) After Lori and Rose Mary got home from being away for the summer, Lori and Jeannette decide to start saving money so they can leave their parents and move to New York. One-day Jeannette comes home to find out that their piggy bank had been broken into and all the money was taken. Later they realize that Rex had taken the money and when they confront him about it, he denies it. Out of the four kids, Jeannette was closest to her father, but by the time she moved to New York she didn’t want anything to do with him or her mother. Many events that happened with her father were very hard, but made her stronger and more of an independent woman. Her father
Ever since she was a young girl. Jeannette had set high goals for herself. Since she was so advanced in school and genuinely enjoyed learning, it made sense that she would want to do big things with her life. Whether it was being a veterinarian or a geologist, her dreams extended far beyond her homes in little desert towns or Welch, West Virginia. However, because of her poverty-stricken home life, many people believed it didn’t seem likely that she would be so successful. One day, while living in Welch, Jeannette goes to the bar to drag her drunk father back home. A neighborhood man offers them a ride back to their house, and on the ride up he and Jeannette start a conversation about school. When Jeannette tells the man that she works so hard in school because of her dream careers, the man laughs saying, “for the daughter of the town drunk, you sure got big plans” (Walls 183). Immediately, Jeannette tells the man to stop the car and gets out, taking her father with her. This seems to be a defining moment in which Jeannette is first exposed to the idea that she is inferior to others. Although this man said what he did not mean to offend her, Jeannette is clearly very hurt by his comment. To the reader, it seems as if she had never thought that her family’s situation made her subordinate to those
There are several different social issues presented in Jeannette Wall’s memoir “The Glass Castle.” These issues included neglect – medical and education,
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.