The Walls family consists of Rex (father), Rose Mary (Mother), Lori, Brian, Jeannette, and Maureen (Children). Jeanette starts of her memoir in new york where she has made a living for herself, a good home in park avenue a nice husband and yet her parents are living out on the streets of the “Big Apple”. Not that she hasn't tried to help them, she has but her father insists they don't need anything and her mother asks for something silly like “perfume atomizer or membership in a health club”. Jeanette recalls her memories of when she was three, her parents are carefree and don't believe in rules or discipline.
In the beginning of the novel Jeannette Walls and her family were not doing good on cash and food and moved from place to place. Her dad and mom said they keep moving because the FBI is after them. During their moving Jeannette Walls and her other three siblings do not go to school. They are all homeschooled by their mom and learned some things from her dad. During Jeannette Walls childhood, Jeannette and her dad would talk about how they were gonna build a glass castle.
Her book describes the hardship and struggle she faced growing up in Little Rock and what it was like to be hurt and abused all throughout high school.
Jeannette Walls tells the story about her life growing up. Her family wasn 't exactly homeless, but they didn 't have a secure place to stay. They traveled all over the country looking for new adventures. She 's the age of 3 when she tells her first adventures. As the middle daughter of very strange and unique parents, she became a very mature and responsible child..
Jeannette Walls, successful social figure and journalist, is on her way to a fancy New York City party. Looking out the window of a taxi, she watches a homeless woman dig through trash cans. She realizes sadly that It's her mother. Jeannette realizes this could be her and she tells us the story of how she got to where she is, sitting in a luxury car, while her mother Rose Mary is literally in the gutter.
In addition to everything negative that happened in the memoir on the parent's behalf, some readers view these negativities as lessons being taught by Rose Mary and Rex to better their children. This argument can be explored in the memoir when the Walls family is living in Welch and the kids choose to get jobs in order to earn money for the things they need and want. As a result of Walls’ parents refusing to get jobs and save money, Walls and her siblings learn to take responsibility and get their own jobs. For example, when Walls is in charge of taking care of her two siblings Brian and Maureen for the summer Rex spends the money Rose Mary gave her on himself and leaving little for taking care of the kids. To solve the problem Rex created, Walls decides to get a job at a Jewelry store to earn money, her reason being that, “Mom still had more than a month in Charleston; we were about to run out of grocery money; and my babysitting income wasn’t making up the difference” (214).
The book is about Jeannette Walls’ childhood. She is the narrator of the book and the story starts by her looking out of her taxi’s window in New York City and seeing her mother digging through trash. From here, she starts telling the story of her childhood. It begins with her telling the story of how she was badly burned at three years old while trying to cook her own hot dog. She is in the hospital for a few days before her father shows up and takes her out without paying the hospital bills.
From her Dad, all the way down to her younger sister, the reader was able to visualize the characters as well as their personalities. Walls described all sides of her characters from the funny, exciting, and happy side to the darker side that her characters, but especially her parents had. She wrote honestly about how her dad struggled with being an alcoholic and how her mom struggled with severe mood swings. She described her siblings personalities through how they each handled their parents decline and the hardships they had to
She is able to realize her shortcomings and wants to be better, but does not necessarily know the right way to achieve this change. Instead, she becomes ensnarled in a cycle of self hatred and greed, playing with
The setting of the story takes place all over the country as Rex Walls, jeannette’s father drags their family from location to location to avoid the law. Most of her life Jeanette is
This moment of loss helps the reader understand how dire and disappointing Jeanette’s circumstances are. From this understanding, Walls fully develops the idea that her perseverance stemmed from continual
Her and her siblings faced extreme poverty and adverse conditions, but her parents liked to pretend that their family life was just an “incredibly fun adventure”. During her childhood the concept of adventure was more than enough to eliminate many of her worries about her uncertain lifestyle. Throughout the memoir, Walls demonstrates the importance of
In the memoir, Rex Walls’ internal conflict, Jeannette Walls’ conflict with Rose Mary, and Jeannette’s conflict with society push her to become the person she is today. Therefore, Jeannette Walls’ owes her success to the hardships she had as a child. To begin, Rex Walls’ internal conflict comes from his inability to provide for his family. Being a father, Rex Walls has an obligation to look after his family and to make sure everyone is looked after.
The joy of learning is what unified the Walls family and is the source of the children’s most endearing memories. They would read together and bond over learning. Jeannette recounts her happier moments “after dinner, the whole family was stretched out on the benches and the floor of the depot and read with the dictionary in the middle of the room so we could look up words we didn’t know. (Walls 56-57) The Walls not only believed in a growth mindset; sharing knowledge was in fact how Rex and Rose Mary best expressed their genuine love and affection towards their children.
The walls parents consider themselves to be their kids’ friend rather than a concerned parent. “’ Good for you, Mom said when she saw me cooking. You’ve got to get right back on the saddle”’ (15)… Friends tend to encourage you to do stupid things but in this situation Jeannette’s mother is the one encouraging her to do something not so bright. Rex and Rosemary do not expect their kids to become any greater than they are.
