Analysis Of The Glass Castle By Jeannette Walls

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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, …show more content…

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

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