The Glass Castle Literary Analysis

Living a Life in Poverty According to the statistics from United Nations, close to half of the world is living under poverty. This is one person every four seconds, and it is not surprising that children, who are in a weak position, are afflicted the most. In the book, The Glass Castle, the strong portrayal of world poverty has a profound impact on the author, Jeanette Walls. She describes how she had been living and directly addresses the issue of poverty to what most people turn a blind eye to portraying her story without diverting from the main theme. One immediately realizes that the problem is still in existence today and that an efficient solution must be sought out promptly. Poverty’s repercussions on an American economy, child upbringing,

Because of a more difficult upbringing by their parents, Jeanette and her siblings lose their childhood innocence through the deceitful acts of their parents. This is seen where Jeanette is at the hospital due to her burns from a fire accident and her father decides to forcefully take her away. “Dad hurried down the hall with me in his arms,” (Walls 14). Jeanette grows up in a world where behavior like this is normal and excuses for it are made. If her parents had instilled a value system in their children, or had the mother not consistently upheld a superior attitude to the others, Jeanette and her siblings could have turned out much different. Considering this thought, some live even more atrocious careers and commit misdeeds in third world countries such as Africa or India. Annette Lareau, after conducting studies on the underprivileged, argues that ““poor children may do worse over their lifetimes in part because their parents are more committed to “natural growth” than “concerted cultivation” as their cultural model for child rearing,”” (Annette Lareau, 2003). Because of a difficult life situation, parents are unable to support their children in their educational