Living In Poverty In The Glass Castle By Jeanette Walls

In Jeanette Walls’ non-fiction life changing story about living in poverty, The Glass Castle, she describes the

The Glass Castle reflects much of Jeanette’s life living in poverty with her mom, dad, Brother Brian, and Sisters Lori and Maureen. Constantly short on cash and food, Jeanette frequently has to move from city to city in the desert area while her dad looks for a steady job. When her dad finds a steady job in the desert on the west coast, the family is able to buy a house but unable to manage the income because her dad is an alcoholic and her parents never learned to manage cash. Both of her parents are educated but very lazy. Her mother manages to get a job as a teacher but soon decides it is too much and Jeanette and her siblings

Jeanette’s parents were very neglectful to her and her siblings; her mother was always too occupied with her painting and her father was an alcoholic. Her earliest memory of her parents neglect was when she was three and caught fire while making hotdogs for herself. While cooking the hotdogs, her dress caught fire and she was severely burned. Jeanette was immediately taken the hospital and was treated for her burns. Jeanette’s brother Brian stopped by the hospital to visit his sister but had bandages covering his head; Brian had fallen and cracked his head open. Both of their parents did not bring Brian to the hospital because they felt “one kid in the hospital at a time [was] enough” (Walls 13). Jeanette had the opportunity to live a normal childhood but her parents chose to be poverty stricken because they both did not have the motivation to live in a civilized society and work. Because of this, Jeanette and her siblings had to endure a neglectful childhood and be made fun of by other kids because they were so poor. Both of her parents were educated, however neither of them could hold a job because they felt too constricted on doing one task. Even though the family was living in poverty, Jeanette’s parents educated, loved, and educated the kids with values; however her parents failed to provide the kids their basic needs of survival. Jeanette was frequently