Oftentimes, life is a treacherous and unforgiving place; coincidentally the underlying message of both “The Glass Castle” and “The Grapes of Wrath.” These texts include a series of challenges to the lives of two very different families in unique time periods. In order to survive, these families must overcome the challenges of addiction, poverty, and disparity in their own ways. Steinbeck’s, “The Grapes of Wrath,” details the lives of the Joads, Oklahoma farmers in the Great Depression of the 1930s; who travel west in search of a better life. A sense of community unifies the families and keeps the Joads together as a whole. Walls’s memoir “The Glass Castle,” tells of the highly unstable and nomadic life of protagonist Jeannette through the early stages of her life. The Walls children manage to prosper in their own individual ways, stemming from decades of suffering and adversity. The Joads and Walls’s alike share characteristics that help them get …show more content…
Just like Tom Joad, Jeannette Walls must learn the power of community and its importance on perseverance. However in the Glass Castle, the aspiration of leading better lives leads the children to unimaginable goals. “He carried around the blueprints for the Glass Castle wherever we went, and sometimes he 'd pull them out and let us work on the design for our rooms. . . (Walls 25).” This drive to lead more promising and fulfilling lives results directly from the abusive living conditions Jeannette grew up in. In this way, the Glass Castle differs from the unfortunately difficult lives of the Joads in Grapes of Wrath. “No child is born a delinquent. They only became that way if nobody loved them when they were kids. Unloved children grow up to be serial murderers or alcoholics. . . (Walls 83).” With this realization, Jeannette learns that she must strive to get out of the metaphorical
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 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.
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
In the 1930s, America’s Great Plains experienced a disastrous drought causing thousands of people to migrate west. As their land was devastated by the Dust Bowl, deprived farmers were left with few options but to leave. The Grapes of Wrath depicts the journey of the Joads, an Oklahoma based family which decides to move to California in search of better conditions. Coming together as thirteen people at the start, the Joads will undertake what represents both a challenge and their only hope. Among them are only four women embodying every ages: the Grandma, the Mother and her two daughters, the pregnant Rose of Sharon and the young Ruthie. Appearing in Chapter Eight the mother, who is referred to as “Ma”, holds a decisive role in Steinbeck’s novel. She is, along with her son Tom (the main character of the book), present from the early stage of the story until its very end. We will attempt to trace back her emotional journey (I) as well as to analyze its universal aspects and to deliver an overall impression on the book (II).
In the book, The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls there were many conflicts throughout the book, and the people in the situations made different decisions and actions depending on how they were involved in the conflict. The title of the book itself is a metaphor that signifies false promises and hopes. The author uses Mary literary devices to show adversity. The person that stood out the most in how he dealt with things was Rex Walls, since he’s the one who took different actions and decisions when a problem came their way. Jeannette Walls uses a lot of literary devices to show the adversity of building a family and how people’s actions and decisions depend on the conflict.
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
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.
In conclusion, the novel The Glass Castle was an attempt to represent the challenges we face throughout our life. Every challenge should be confronted and solved. Family matters contribute to why many individuals have difficulties, but at the end we should know that they’ll always love us. No matter what happens we face the unknown and deal with it. We forgive many people who are significantly associated to us and most of all we take the responsibilities. It is important to always take action and solve the challenges we
As you approach your home, you realize the empty barn and the crooked house sagging close to the barren ground. A closer view unveils an empty, dried up well, an emaciated cat limping past the caved in porch, a tree with "leaves tattered and scraggly as a molting chicken" (23), a stack of rotting untouched lumber and cracked, jagged window panes reflecting the desolate land abroad. This description portrays the Joad family's home suffering from abandonment when they leave their country home life for better opportunities in the west. Steinbeck portrays the plight of the migrant Joad family from Oklahoma to California in search of a better life during the Great Depression in The Grapes of Wrath.
John Steinbeck’s novel, The Grapes of Wrath is one of the most influential books in American History, and is considered to be his best work by many. It tells the story of one family’s hardship during the Depression and the Dust Bowl of the 1930’s. The Joads were a hard-working family with a strong sense of togetherness and morals; they farmed their land and went about their business without bothering anyone. When the big drought came it forced them to sell the land they had lived on since before anyone can remember. Their oldest son, Tom, has been in jail the past four years and returns to find his childhood home abandoned. He learns his family has moved in with his uncle John and decides to travel a short distance to see them. He arrives only to learn they are packing up their belongings and moving to California, someplace where there is a promise of work and food. This sets the Joad family off on a long and arduous journey with one goal: to survive.
In “The Glass Castle”, the author Jeanette Walls describes her childhood and what motivated her to chase her education and move out to New York City with her siblings and leave their parents behind in West Virginia. The main struggle Jeanette and her siblings had was the conflicting point of view that they had with their mother on parenting. Despite their father Rex Walls being an alcoholic, constantly facing unemployment, and being a source of hope for his children, Rose Mary Walls had her list of attributes that shaped her children’s life. Rose Mary had a very interesting view on parenting in Jeanette Wall’s memoir and this perspective of parenting influenced her children both positively and negatively.
The boundary between turbulence and order, a zone said to have no rules, like the Walls family. They didn’t live life like everyone else, there were no set rules they made or followed, and for the most part, the Walls family didn’t even follow the law. The Walls children’s life was built upon not having their parents tell them what to do and what not to do. Throughout the memoir, The Glass Castle, Jeannette endured many situations where she and her family are either pushing the boundary or are more on one side of it. Put simply, the Walls family epitomizes the line that separates chaos and control.
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.
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.
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.