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essay about the glass castle
essay about the glass castle
essay about the glass castle
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“When I think of them now...lives seemed secure and good” (5).
Ginny’s shifting view of her life and especially her father progresses throughout the novel. As kids, people tend to view their parents as superheroes and their lives as idyllic. In The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls -- a memoir -- the author recalls the wonderment she viewed her father with as a child; however, as she grew, she realized her father negatively impacted her life and created a toxic family environment. Ginny deals with a similar struggle in A Thousand Acres as she realizes her father is not the man she thought he was and their life may not be as “secure and good” as her past self believed.
“He [Jess] said “I haven’t eaten meat in seven years’” (11).
For some reason,
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Ginny’s description of the “water in the soil” creates exquisite imagery by utilizing a series of -ing verbs: “heating, cooling, freezing, rising…” The last couple of lines create a suspenseful tone as Ginny describes her childhood belief of the water overtaking her family’s land; however, the family continues to conquer the water, but it always rests under the surface of the “tiles.” These lines could be a metaphor of some sort of tension bubbling under the surface of the family, foreshadowing the turmoil in later …show more content…
She refuses to acknowledge her inability to have children, the truth about her father, and the disintegration of her life. Comparing “endurance” to a “pleasant fiction” reiterates that cliche “ignorance is bliss”; however, here, Smiley amends that statement by saying other people allow someone else’s ignorance to persist. Additionally, the phrase “shiver in the hot wind” is a bit of an oxymoron because shivering and hot usually don’t coexist. However, Smiley intends to illustrate how this realization shocks Ginny to where she is shivering in the heat.
“‘Ginny, your mother wasn’t afraid for herself...you would live after she died’” (91).
The repetitive syntax in this quote demonstrates Mary’s insistence in making a point to Ginny about living with proper morals and values. This quote adds to themes of appearances and living an upstanding life.
“‘Well, I think one of them [Larry’s secrets] is that he’s afraid of his daughters’” (103).
Smiley incorporates a few indications early on of Larry’s growing paranoia in regards to his daughters. Smiley foreshadows the disintegration of the family in this quote from Ty and through Ginny’s narration about water below the surface earlier in the
In this touching, non-fiction memoir by Jeanette Walls, The Glass Castle recounts the story of her vagabond upbringing in the 1960‘s. Walls notes her parents lack of conformity while also showing their unconditional love, in rather unconventional ways. While touching the bases of alcoholism, poverty and child neglect, the author still maintains the point of a passionate determination to preserve the alliance with her siblings through it all.
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.
Individuals who are involved in self improvement ask themselves what the key to success may be. The key to success in life is, by far, self-reliance. Although there is nothing wrong with asking for or receiving help, the support of friends and family will only benefit us ephemerally. People go through their own personal journey of reaching the best version of themselves. That journey is best achieved with self-reliance. Jeannette Walls’ memoir, The Glass Castle, is symbolic of the theme survival through self-reliance.
In the memoir The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, the author's earliest memory is her injury at the age of three, and in this memory she is all but unhappy. Jeannette's childhood was full of inconveniences. The Walls family had a hard time conforming to society and shaping their future life for success. Rex and Rose Mary had different morals than others when it came to raising their children: Brain, Lori, Maureen and of course Jeannette. During her childhood, Jeannette was dealt with hardships, but showed maturity and independence throughout it.
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.
American businesswoman Carly Fiorina once concluded, “If a decision-making process is flawed and dysfunctional, decisions will go awry.” In the critically acclaimed memoir The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls pilots a turbulent excursion through the bottleneck of her childhood and dysfunctionality and flawed decision-making is all too common. Throughout this memoir the reader learns of the the appearances and disappearances of stability and functionality, discovers the theme of fantasy vs. reality, and determines how and why the familial dynamics of the Walls alter through the duration of the memoir. The reasons for the instability of the family are evident.
My family isn 't like the Walls family because my parents would never treat my sister and I like their parents treated them, my family and I have a decent living situation, and we would never hurt any animal. From the beginning, Rex and Rose Mary treated their kids wrong and didn 't take responsibility as parents. Every child deserves a loving home and should never have to worry if they are going to eat that night. West Virginia also seemed a lot different then because the laws are more strict now. The way the Walls are, they would get in trouble for the way they treated their kids, animals, and even their living space. "Mom always said people worry too much about their children. Suffering when you 're young is good for you, she said. It immunized
This encompasses much of what the novel is about, every phrase having some significance for its project. Human bodies, as well as the "body of earth", are subject to both seasonal and social change. I argue elsewhere how Ginny's body becomes a signifying system for social intercourse, as does the scenery surrounding her. Here, I would like to explore the multiplex meanings of the motif of the tiles.
Smiley deliberately begins her novel by going into great detail about the landscape. She describes the landscape as “unquestionably flat” (Smiley 3) and the land that Ginny’s father owned as “six hundred forty acres, a whole section, paid for, no encumbrances, as flat and fertile, black, friable, and exposed as any piece of land on the face of the earth”(Smiley 4). Smiley also goes on to describe the Zebulon River which you can see running in the distance. Her purpose in describing the landscape is to parallel Lear’s description of his land in Act 1 where he says: “Of all these bounds, even from this line to this,/ With
Coming from the city, George has personality issues because of his non-existent family background. As a young child, his prostitute mother abandoned him to be raised by the state in the Wallace P. Andrews Shelter for Boys. George explains to Cocoa how the shelter treated him as though there were nothing out of the ordinary about a home without love in it. “They may not have been loving people, [Mrs. Jackson] and Chip–or when you think about it, even lovable. But they were devoted to their job if not to us individually” (Naylor 23).
In the novel The Glass Castle, there are many reasons why a family might be unhappy.
alienation to be broken, Lennie walks into Crooks’ room “smiled helplessly in an attempt to make friends” (75).
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.
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.
The author Jeannette Walls of the Glass Castle uses the literary element of characterization to further the theme of the individual chapters. Walls, divides the novel into sections which signify different parts of her life. During one of the last sections in the later half of Jeannette Walls life she comes accross the character by the name of Ginnie Sue Pastor. Ginnie Sue is a single mother who works at The Green Lantern (a local brothel) in order to support her family. When Jeannette first comes across Ginnie Sue she thinks to herself, “It was only on the way home that I realized I hadn’t gotten answers to any of my questions. While I was sitting there talking to Ginnie Sue, I’d even forgotten she was a whore,” (Walls 163). Jeannette is referring to her question she had earlier anticipated on asking which related to her