The Glass Castle is the best selling memoir written by Jeannette Walls. The memoir recounts Walls’ childhood and the life she lived with her siblings, selfish mother, and drunken father. In the popular opinion, the novel was a riveting look inside the sad and dysfunctional childhood of a successful author. Twelve years after the book was written Director Destin Daniel Cretton decided to take the plunge and create a movie to bring Walls’ story to life. Although it had an all-star cast many believed it “lacked edge” or, “ left out details that made Walls’ memoir so raw and pure”. Even with these mediocre reviews others still said that the movie brought Walls’ story to life in an effective and emotional way. So, with all these mixed reviews …show more content…
There are many themes in The Glass Castle that make it the riveting book that it is. These themes include responsibility, independence, family dysfunction, and societal views of normality. I’ll start with the most simple of them all, independence. In both the book and movie the Walls children have more freedom than any child should really have, although children should have some sort of freedom, I feel it should grow and expand over time not just all the freedom in the world at every age. An example of this is the very first glimpse into Walls’ childhood when three-year-old Jeannette is hungry and decides to make herself hotdogs. While attempting to make hot dogs, the flames from the stovetop ignite the bottom of her dress and begin to rip up her side. Her mother, Rosemary, rushes to her side and begins to try and pat down the flames before taking her to the hospital. This same scene presents itself in the movie, but in the movie, it seems to rush along a little too quickly. Although I feel that the rush of this scene fits the movie and it’s idea to emphasize the important themes. As the kids grow older their sense of independence grows until it’s almost in a ridiculous state of the children …show more content…
The biggest theme, I feel, in both pieces of work is family dysfunction. Family is a huge role because the audience can see that no matter what the Walls’ go through they always stick together. Although, in the movie, Cretton adds a powerful argument between Jeannette and Rex about the hardships of Jeanette's childhood. One of the lines of the argument that sticks out to me is, “ It was your job to protect us, and you didn’t even try”! That one line, in my mind, creates that line between being too independent and having a ridiculous amount of responsibility, and then at the same time never leaving anyone behind in all of its dysfunction. I feel that Cretton added that scene to add more power to the movie and to try and add the same amount of detail that the book gave. The final theme that I feel is prominent and presents itself more in the movie than in the book is the way that the Walls’ social class is viewed by society, society is the audience. The only way this shows in the book is when the different houses and environments are being described. As in the movie, I feel the audience can get a clearer picture of the theme as a whole. In the movie, we, see the living situation of the family as they move place to place, although we see them mainly living in Welch. We see the
The memoir, “The Glass Castle”, written by Jeannette Walls, is a novel filled with hardships and obstacles faced by the author and her dysfunctional family. Living with her depressed mother who weeps and sobs about her struggles in her teaching job, her alcoholic gambling father who, on a daily basis, would not arrive home, and her two sisters, Lori and Maureen and brother, Brian. Though their constant moving and chasing from the debt collectors, one person who has affected Walls life would have to be her father, Rex Walls. Although his constant gambling and consistent job loss, he has become a significant figure in Walls life. He has shown her the problems of alcoholism, the struggles, and corruptions of the world, and especially allowed
In the memoir The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, a dysfunctional family with a delusional mother and a paranoid father try to prosper in the world with their nomad style of living. In the novel Walls stresses on the importance of home ownership, and the value of promises. In many occasions, Rex Walls, the father attempted to bring stability to the family, but each attempt was met with failure, for he was an irresponsible man. Although he tried to stop drinking, in the end, he miserably failed. Also, Rex attempted to maintain a stable job, but due to his alcoholism and his severely clouded perception of the world, he pathetically failed.
The Glass Castle is a memoir that was written by Jeannette Walls, who explains how within her childhood grew up extremely poor and had an alcoholic father, a mother who took advice from no one, and had three siblings, Brian , Lori, and Maureen. Rex and Rose Mary Walls show signs of being permissive or uninvolved parents by having very few demands, neglect to the children's needs, and letting their children make their own decisions. Throughout her memoir, Jeannette had multiple occasions were herself or her siblings would have to fend for themselves, because Rex or Rose Mary refused to hold on to a job. For example “When we wanted money, we walked along the roadside picking up beer cans and bottles that we redeemed for two cents each.”
The Glass Castle written by Jeannette Walls is story that revolves around a family that faces the hardships of a low class life, constant frustration, and hopelessness. I believe this story is centralized by the title of the book. “The glass castle” throughout the book is a dream, it is dream to Jeanette and her whole family, it represents a better life in a better place. Jeannette Walls centralizes her writing based on diction, the writer specifically chose unique words to show her experiences and emotions, this helps readers interpret the story from the writer's point of view.
Written by the author Neil Gaiman, is the award winning book ‘Coraline’. This book shows the themes ‘Family’ and ‘Fear’ throughout the book such as it when it talks about when Coraline and her Father are walking down the side of their apartments and when her Father tells Coraline to run up ahead while he got stung by wasps as the quote says, ”When you are scared but you do it anyway, that is brave” this quote is on page 57, chapter 5. The themes of ‘Fear’ and ‘family’ are important features due to the nature of the book, family is evident when the other mother locks up Coraline’s parents because that is when she realises what her family means to her... Fear is evident when the other mother is asking Coraline to let her sew buttons on her eyes,
In The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, it tells about how the Walls family move to different desert towns, settling in for as long as their father, Rex, can hold a job. However, his perspective of the state and society, and his alcoholism led them to move frequently. The children - Lori, Jeannette, Brian, and little Maureen- experiences unusual childhood, where they travel like nomads to find new money source. This lead to the theme, sometimes you can be mature and responsible at a very young age. The theme is developed by how Jeannette learns how to take care of herself and her younger siblings, and the way her parent taught her.
Success: An Escape from Privation Inevitably, the conflicts people face at multiple points in their life is a determining factor in shaping individuals into the person they will eventually become. Namely, these conflicts direct people 's behavior over the course of time; contributing to a person’s ability to achieve success. In particular, Jeannette Walls’ The Glass Castle is an honest depiction of her life and the conflicts that arise throughout her state of impoverishment, as well as the success that stems from her hardships.
A book and a movie can be both the same and different. In The Outsiders there are many similarities and differences with the book and movie. They were the same because Johnny kills a man, they cut their, there was the movie scene, and Johnny and Ponyboy went to the church. Some of the differences is when Darry slaps Ponyboy but in the movie he pushes him, Johnny doesn't bring a lot of food in the book but does in the movie he does, when Johnny killed the man it was more described but it wasn't in the movie, and Johnny says he wants to kill himself in the movie. In The Outsiders one of the themes is “friendship”
It is evident that her childhood may have impacted her in a more severe psychological way. The book The Glass Castle is a very interesting narrative. The author Jeanette Walls is able to bring new light to circumstances that many people choose to ignore or overlook by writing about her own childhood. This gives the book a new perspective and allows the reader to gain insight.
Jeannette Walls depicted an epoch of misfortune and adversity in her memoir, The Glass Castle. Jeannette and her 3 other siblings were all in a constant struggle to survive. Rex and Mary, the parents of Jeannette and her 3 siblings, were often in a constant dichotomy between submitting to self-interest and supporting the family. Having misfit parents, Jeannette and her 3 siblings were often independent and left to fend for themselves and for the family as a whole. In The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls evolved the theme of ideal versus reality throughout her memoir though her countless anecdotes of her father and his unattainable plans to find gold and to build a home, named The Glass Castle, for his family and her mother’s dream to become a professional and well redound artist.
The Glass Castle would have solar cells on the top that would catch the sun’s rays and convert them into electricity” (Walls 25). The glass castle represents the family’s hope and dream towards the future. The castle represents Mr. Walls’s hope for an idealistic life where he could provide for his family and have a safe, stable roof above their head; the castle also represents all of Jeannette’s wonderful wishes and aspirations growing up. The glass castle is a powerful tie shared by everyone in the Walls family. “[Mr. Walls] [carries] around the blueprints for the Glass Castle wherever [he] went” (Walls 25).
“If you don 't want to sink, you better figure out how to swim” (41). Although Rex Walls was not always an admirable father and role model, he did make an essential point while teaching his daughter, Jeannette, how to swim. In life, not everything comes without resistance. As Jeannette Walls describes throughout her life story, sometimes people are forced to face hardships that make them question their whole life. However, as seen in her book, it is important to learn to take those hardships and use them to shape one’s future for the better.
In this world, there’s learning things the hard way and the easy way; in Jeannette Wall’s world, there’s only learning things the hard way. The Glass Castle is an adventurous story that reveals the painfully miserable story of Jeannette Walls. A selfish mother, a careless father, and terrible social encounters- these are some of the elements of a harsh reality Rex and Rose Mary Walls failed to shield their children from. Growing up poor was already difficult, but growing up with a selfish parent, specifically an unfeeling mom, made life hell for the Walls children. The family barely had one source of income from Rex Walls, and instead of helping out with the family’s finance issues, Rose Mary spent her days at home painting.
Jeannette Walls also uses the symbol of the Glass Castle, which develops throughout the memoir to show how she slowly loses trust in her father as she realises that she can not depend upon him or anyone else for happiness. The symbolism evolves throughout the memoir as Walls evolves as a person. In the beginning of the memoir, her description of the Glass Castle is naive and hopeful. Her naivety is most apparent when Walls writes, “All of Dad’s engineering skills and mathematical genius were coming together in one special project: a great big house he was going to build for us in the desert… All we had to do was find gold, Dad said, and we were on the verge of that.
The Glass Castle is the life story of a girl, Jeannette Walls, and her siblings who grew up in poverty unnecessarily because of their parents’ irresponsibility. One of its themes is that strength and perseverance can significantly improve your chance at success and your future. The Walls children did not allow their childhood struggles prevent them from creating better and brighter futures for themselves. They all grew up impressively sane considering their living conditions.