“We could live like this forever.” (Walls, 2005, p 18) The Walls family’s life is very interesting and quite similar to my early life. Although my life is similar to theirs it is also very different. Our lives are similar because I also moved around a lot as a child, I had an alcoholic father, and my mother wasn’t the best. They 're different because my family stayed in places longer, we children never had to sleep in boxes or cars, and we weren 't too prideful to sign up on welfare.
Like Jeannette and her family, in my early life we weren’t kept up in money. We moved around crappy little trailers and houses on foundations that were ready to crumble with one wrong step. “We were always doing the skedaddle,” (Walls, 2005, p 19) The first place I remember us living in was a trailer that had roaches crawling all over the place and bees nests up under it. We’d had exterminators many times but it was like what we could afford wasn’t enough to get rid of them. I was around two and have very vague memories but enough to set an impression. I remember watching my dad cut loads upon loads of wood, not just for us but for neighboring
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Even though we moved around a lot, we didn’t move around as much. “If you spend one night in some town, did you live there? What about two nights? Or a whole week?” (Walls, 2005, p 29) In ‘The Glass Castle’ the children lost count of all the places they’d lived but I remember that we lived in about 23 different places—not counting the ones before I was three. Our stays were much lengthier. We’d tried to make real homes for ourselves and only left when my father could no longer find work and we couldn’t pay our bills. We stayed for months not days or weeks. Even if it was just a couple of months. We stayed with friends or family more than we did in our own homes but eventually they’d run us off and my parents were back to finding a new place to
In the story “Swapping Places” by McMillan, the boys would be unhappy if they switched families. Two boys, Dyllan and Billy, are unhappy with their parents and think living at their friend’s house would be better. First, Dyllan asked Billy, do you think your mom will adopt me and Billy responds, “Well, it’s not much better over here.
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.
The family all lives together in two cellar rooms of a large house rented to multiple families. Deborah works as a picker in a cotton mill for a below minimal wage while Hugh and his father work making iron for the railroad as puddlers in Kirby & John’s mill. Hugh and Deborah have a severely impoverished existence of long hours and terrible conditions. Wages are trivial- not enough to save, only to subsist in very poor conditions: “Their lives were like those of their class: incessant labor, sleeping in kennel-like rooms, eating rank pork and molasses, drinking-God and the distillers only know what; with an occasional night in jail, to atone for some drunken excess” (Davis 211). This quote epitomizes their disorderly and deplorable lifestyle. They obtain the lowest class status, and constantly face the strain and insecurity of work.
Joe didn't live far from school so we would walk together. I spent most of my time with him and his family. They lived in a rented 3-bedroom home. Joe lived in the basement so his younger brothers each had their own room. A few years early their home had flooded. The basement was musky and half of it was unused because of the water damage. He slept on an old sofa and kept most of...
Knowing that there are other families out there just like the Walls, possibly some that are even worse, makes me think about how lucky I am and how good I have it. This book really brings to light the neglect that some people are raised in. The thought that someone could come out of such a negligent past with compas...
In the memoir, The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, Jeannette’s parents make selfish decisions and often put their wants and their values before the needs of their children, “Since we didn’t have money for furniture, we improvised…Shortly after we moved into the depot, mom decided that what we really needed was a piano.” (Walls 51-52). Jeannette and her siblings realize that their family needs
Jeannette Walls reluctantly wrote Glass Castle in an attempt to show that even those with very different backgrounds and cultures really aren't all that different after all. Walls wrote of ridiculous situations and her experiences while growing up with a family that lacked the regular structural culture of other families, which included qualities such as morality, integrity, and a basic knowledge and feeling of obligation to follow the law of the land. Her parents both held values that were unique to each one of them as they lived their lives strongly expressing, through actions and words, that the normal values of other people simply weren’t right. Jeanette’s parents, though unconventional, were just as loving, if not more loving towards their kids as other parents. I think the reason the family was so strange, was simply because of the parents’ values that they taught their kids. The values your parents raise you with can greatly affect your future, and who you become as a person; this is what I can relate to. I’ve become conscious of how the values I grew up on evolved into more of a belief system, if not a stubborn pride-driven ability to deny handouts or help from people. Add this characteristic of mine to the fact that my parents wouldn’t allow me to drive until I turned eighteen, the fact that I lived on an isolated
Crucet says, “I don’t even remember the moment they drove away,” but unlike the author’s family, mine left after I moved in, they did not stay the whole first week into my classes. After the first day of being alone, I wish they
Many of these groups utilize surveys and other census data to compile a greater amount of statistics. These studies find that a large amount of Americans that are in poverty today actually have far greater privilege in household appliances and conveniences than did those in poverty in previous years. According to surveys from 2012, 80% of households in poverty have air conditioning as compared to only 36% of all homes in 1970. About 75% have one vehicle and around 31% have two or more vehicles. Over two-thirds also have cable/satellite TV and DVD/VCR machines(Sheffield). Some commentators chalk this up to the devaluation of goods and the commonality of many of these household appliances but others see this as an increase in quality of living. Most people thinking of poverty also think of hunger and malnourishment. In the memoir, we see that the kids often go hungry do to lack or mismanagement of money by their parents. A quote from the book, “When other girls came in and threw away their lunch bags in the garbage pails, I’d go retrieve them” displays the struggle the writer had in finding enough
They lived in constant poverty and went to bed hungry numerous times because of their parents’ lack of money. The Walls children had to fend for themselves when they wanted something to eat. This was made clear when Jeannette said, “When we wanted money, we walked along the roadside picking up beer cans and bottles that we redeemed for two cents each” (Walls 62). They probably walked for hours only making enough money to buy a candy bar that would hold over their hunger for a few hours. The children were forced to make their own money because they knew that if they continued to wait on their parents they would starve. Jeannette also explains how she used to steal food at school. She says, “During recess at school, I’d slip back into the classroom and find something in some other kid’s lunch bag that wouldn’t be missed…and I’d gulp it down…” (Walls 68). Jeannette was hungry most of the time due to how her parents lived, and out of necessity she determined that one of the best ways to satisfy her hunger was to steal from her classmates. Both examples show that the Walls children had to rely on themselves and not be dependent on their parents. Most of the time, their parents were too self-absorbed in their own dealings and they did not have time to properly care for their children. This caused the children to become self-reliant and learn the importance of standing by each other. If it was not for
Where Boy lived high, I lived - well, not low, but in the way congenial to myself. I thought twenty-four dollars was plenty for a ready-made suit, and four dollars a criminal price for a pair of shoes. I changed my shirt twice a week and my underwear once. I had not yet developed any expensive tastes and saw nothing wrong with a good boarding-house. (Page 1...
The Walls lived a lower class lifestyle; they could rarely afford a hefty meal to feed the family of six. When they could afford a meal, they evenly split it up to make sure the food reaches entire household. Though that is what Jeanette previously believed; after...
Jeannette Wall’s memoir, The Glass Castle, talks about the hardships and challenges that she and her family had to suffer from, as they were constantly running out of the food and cash, leading them to move from places to places such as Battle mountain in Nevada, Phoenix in Arizona, Welch in West Virginia, New York City and so on in the search of survival. Some places provided a better quality of live , while some worsen it. Thus, the author and her family were living under the condition of the poverty, where they had to struggle for the basic needs such as food, clothing, and shelter by not getting adequate resources to support the minimum level of their physical health.
...ndurance of poverty, as we witness how Walls has turned her life around and told her inspiring story with the use of pathos, imagery, and narrative coherence to inspire others around her (that if she can do it, so can others). Jeannette made a huge impact to her life once she took matters into her own hands and left her parents to find out what life has in store for her and to prove to herself that she is a better individual and that anything is possible. Despite the harsh words and wrongful actions of Walls’ appalling parents who engage her through arduous experiences, she remained optimistic and made it through the most roughest and traumatic obstacles of her life at the age of three. Walls had always kept her head held high and survived the hardships God put upon her to get to where she is today; an author with a best selling novel to tell her bittersweet story.
The family’s poverty (which is partially due to the father’s absence) makes their future seem hopeless. The family lives in a poor, rural area, which was typical of black persons of their time. The family is crowded into a small, shabby home, so they must share rooms and beds. The family’s clothes are quite shabby too, for when James sees a mannequin in a store with new brown shoes, he looks at his own old shoes and thinks, “You wait till Summer…” The family does not even have enough money for some of life’s other necessities, such as food and medical care. For example, they eat bread and syrup every day for breakfast; and as James’ younger brother, Ty, said, “I’m getting tired of this old syrup. I want me some bacon sometime.” Beans are another bland food that J...