Analysis Of The Glass Castle By Jeannette Walls

In the story a glass castle Jeannette Walls walks us through her life and what she had to go through to get where she is today. Through the book Jeannette describes events in great detail, but how factual are these events? In The Glass Castle Jeannette describes an event where she was burnt and was admitted into the hospital. During her visit in the hospital Jeannette describes conversations she had with nurses and doctors, yet she was three years old. The encyclopedia on early childhood development states that “Adults rarely recall personal events from before the age of 31⁄2 years” (Gordon). Though this isn’t always the case in adults, it is highly unlikely that Jeannette remembered the fine details of every sentence. Most people start recalling

Most people have many core memories that didn’t even happen to them but instead happened on a TV show or movie they watched. This leads to many awkward situations when people talk about their life stories and people seem to remember that same event on a TV show they had watched. This remembrance of an event that never happened could be due to many factors. A study performed by Northwestern University concluded that “Every time you remember an event from the past, your brain networks change in ways that can alter the later recall of the event. Thus, the next time you remember it, you might recall not the original event but what you remembered the previous time” ( Paul ). This is just like how you can fold a piece of paper and it will go back to its original shape, but it now has a crease down the middle that makes it want to change. This goes to show though Jeannette might have thought she heard some nurses having a conversation, but it is really just a memory of an episode of Grays Anatomy. Many people assume that they can fall back on the legitimacy of their memories, but memories are what you make them... literally. Memories are what makes you yourself, maybe the ones that are a little flawed just give you a little more

Memoirs aren’t completely told by the person writing the book. It is always about the same person but, memoirs get a lot of detail from family members and friends. Now knowing how memories change, how can it be considered a valid story if all the memories are jumbled up? It’s impossible to get all the right sentences and stories right especially if your asking many other people. Except, this is exactly what makes a memoir a memoir. All the stories aren’t going to be correct or all the quotes, but that’s what makes memoirs so good. You get to see how other people watched the main character go through challenges while still seeing it in the main character’s eyes. This isn’t seen in any other type of genre. Knowing that memories are flawed and that a memoir isn’t going to be completely true doesn’t change the genre, it just shows us how memoirs can capture a bundle of memories and put them into a great