Part 1- Summary: In the first forty-seven pages of The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, you’re given a good idea of what the family in the book is like. The first story shows that Jeannettte is ashamed of her parents’ lifestyle when she sees them digging through trash cans. She offers her mom money, but she declines. Jeannette’s earliest memory is at three years old. She was cooking hot dogs over the stove, and once she bent over to feed her dog one of the hot dogs, her tutu caught on fire. She ended up having to be hospitalized, but after six weeks, her family broke her out of the hospital and returned home. A few months later, her father woke everyone in the house up and had them pack up their things, they were now living on the go to avoid …show more content…
Part 2, Option 2- Analysis: A scene that stuck out to me was when Jeanette’s parents met. They were both cliff diving, and her father fell in love at first sight. He tells her he’s going to marry her, but the only reason she agrees to marry him later on is because he “ wouldn’t take no for an answer ” .This shows she wasn’t really in love with him, and I believe a successful family needs love. This could have lead them to the lifestyle they chose of always traveling because they couldn’t stay in one place.
Part 3- Personal Response Analysis: Throughout reading the text, I felt bad for the kids because they’ve never had a stable home or city to grow up in. They are always moving, always being the “new kid” in school. They never have time to make friends because they’ll just end up leaving again. Although it’s the only thing they know, I’m sure they will soon get tired of it, if they aren’t already. Even if they do stay in one place for a while, they will be the outcast because of how their family raised them, just like how the doctors in the hospitals thought it was weird that a three year old was cooking hot dogs by herself, or how Jeanette had never had chewing gum. That’s the exact same way everyone else will see them, as
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I got to work at 3:30, and around 4:56 I get a text from my dad saying “ you need to clean your room”, I respond with something like “ okay, I will. Can you pick me up from work at 10:30? “ Not thinking anything of it, I put my phone away and go back to work, my dad usually doesn’t have a problem picking me up, considering I don’t have a car. It was a really fun day at work, it wasn’t too busy and the other two workers that were there were in a good mood too, so it made everything go by super fast. Around a half hour later I go back to check my phone and my dad responded with “ I’m busy” and nothing
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).
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.
An archetype, according to Literary Terms, is an idea, symbol, pattern, or character-type, in a story that appears again and again in stories from cultures around the world and symbolizes something universal in the human experience. There are symbolic, character, and situational archetypes. The Glass Castle, a memoir by Jeannette Walls, uses each archetype. The memoir captures Jeannette’s difficult life growing up due to her father’s alcoholism and inability to hold a job. These archetypes also play a crucial role in developing the novel’s theme. A central theme to the novel can be perseverance. Jeannette and her siblings grew up and managed to build a better life for themselves. They worked hard and never gave up, demonstrating perseverance.
Jeannette Wales, author of The Glass Castle, recalls in her memoir the most important parts of her life growing up as a child that got her where she is now. Her story begins in Arizona in a small house with her parents and three siblings. Her parents worked and didn’t do much as parents so she had to become very independent. Her parents and siblings were the highlights to most of her memory growing up. She is able to recall memories that most small children wouldn’t be able to recall with as much detail.
Children these days have a variety of needs, often being surrounded by the ideas of freedom and security. While some people seek complete freedom from society’s rules, others seek the comforts of security that a normal life provides. Children’s preferences on freedom and security are reflected from their Mom and Dad’s parenting style. In The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls, the characters Brian, Lori, and Jeannette show that while growing they would rather have security over freedom because they repeatedly find themselves in a state of danger due to their parent’s lack of security. For example, if Jeannette’s parents were accountable while Jeanette was in proximity to fire she would not have been traumatized and severely burnt. Another reason the children want security is Rex is an excessive alcoholic who is very dangerous to be around while he is under the influence of hard liquor, they would rather a father that responsibly handled alcohol. Rex’s surplus of expenses on booze led the family into poverty because instead of using the family’s rare profit to pay off bills Rex uses it to buy alcohol and items that were not a necessity to their survival. Therefore, their parents struggled to give even the simplest things for them such as food and clothes.
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.
When books are very popular most of the time they are made into a movie. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls is a book that depicts the struggle of poverty and addiction. A movie then was made based on the book. The movie did not follow the book completely, but, that was to be expected. The movie did an excellent job with the cast. No one could have played Rex better than Woody Harrelson. The director did a respectable job of casting people who would have looked like the author described them in the book. Overall the movie did a fantastic job of portraying the major events and showing the overall theme of the book. Watching the movie, you notice a few differences. For example, Lori has glasses on and in the book, she did not get glasses until
As I read the Glass Castle, the way Rose Mary behaves, thinks and feels vary greatly and differently throughout the memoir. The immediate question that pops up in my mind is to ask whether Rose Mary carries some sort of mental illness. Fortunately, given the hints and traits that are relevant to why Rose Mary lives like that in the memoir, we, the readers, are able to make some diagnosis and assumptions on the kind of mental illness she may carry. To illustrate, one distinctive example is when Rose Mary blames Jeannette for having the idea to accept welfare. “Once you go on welfare, it changes you. Even if you get off welfare, you never escape the stigma that you were a charity case.” (188). In my opinion, Rose Mary is being nonsense and contractive in her criticism, because of Rose Mary’s resistances to work and to accept welfare, it often causes a severe food shortage within the family that all four little children have to find food from trash cans or move on with hunger, which could lead to a state of insufficient diet. More importantly, having welfare as a way to solve food shortage, it can certainly improve those young Walls children’s poor nutrition and maintain their healthy diet, but Rose Mary turns it down because she thinks it is a shame to accept welfare despite their children are suffering from starvation. Another example will be when Rose Mary abandons all of her school work for no reason. “One morning toward the end of the school year, Mom had a complete meltdown. She was supposed to write up evaluations of her students’ progress, but she’d spent every free minute painting, and now the deadline was on her and the evaluations were unwritten” (207). This is one of the moments when Rose Mary shifts all of her attentio...
Jeanette had somewhat of an usual childhood compared to other kids in the United States. Where most kids don’t have to worry about if there are going to school or the money problems that come up, nevertheless Jeannette has to worry. Jeannette have to deal with her self center mother , her eccentricity father , her older sister that does not protect her and her brother that give up almost everything for her. Jeannette overcome it all and become the strong woman that all reader will believe she is .
Lori was the first one to leave for New York City after graduation, later, Jeanette followed her and moved into her habitat with her. Jeanette promptly found a job as a reporter, the two sisters were both living their dream life away from their miserable parents. It wasn’t difficult for them since they cultured to be independent and tough. Everything was turning out great for them and decided to tell their younger siblings to move in with them, and they did. Jeanette was finally happy for once, enjoying the freedom she had and not having to be moved every two weeks. She then found a guy whom she married and accustomed her lifestyle. Furthermore, her parents still couldn’t have the funds for a household or to stay in stable occupation, so they decided to move in with Jeanette and her siblings. Jeanette at that moment felt like she was never going to have an ordinary life because her parents were going to shadow her.
As she got older, Jeannette and her siblings made their own life, even as their parents became homeless. Jeannette and her older sister Lori decide to run away from their family in Virginia and go start a new life in New York City. However, after a few months, the rest of the family moves to New York and settles down. While in the City, Jeannette gets a job as a reporter, which was her life goal, and one day on her way to an event she sees her mother rummaging around in a dumpster. While the rest of the family gets along, Maureen, the youngest of the family goes insane and stabs their
Jeannette and her siblings were left without a proper education due to the fact of their parents' weird way living. The Walls children were always moving from place to place because of Rex and Rosemary. Parent interaction in their children's educational learning has a big effect in the ending. If a parent is involved, asks about their child's schoolwork, how their day was, etc., the child will do better in school because their parent actually cares. On the other hand, if a parent rarely shows interest in their child's school studies, the child may believe that they do not have to try hard in their studies because the parent will no...
When the topic of childhood memory pops up in a conversation the listeners would think the story teller is telling the truth right? Well, what if I said that the people telling the stories might not even know if they aren’t? When these stories are told most don’t realize the little bit of memory actually involved. So how much or it is true and how much it came from another inaccurate place? Where could something like that come from? Were Jennette Walls’ memories real? Does this affect you or is it not a big dilemma? Should these be considered There are several different debates within itself but the main one to focus on is are your memories even your memories?
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.