Myth In The Glass Castle By Jeanette Walls

I was homeless. Everything - from my prestigious awards to my mattress all the way to the trash from beside my toilet- was piled right on top of one another. Teddy bears, pictures, and even abstract memories seemed to have a haunting presence as I tried to comprehend what was happening. My dad patiently tried to help me understand how we had got to a point of such penetrating financial instability that the bank had revoked our house. Homelessness, while seemingly obvious, means different things to different people. As someone who has been homeless, I concur to the varying views within in the Walls’ family in respect to their living situation. The Glass Castle, a memoir by Jeanette Walls, illustrates the poverty gap in order to demonstrate the

Similarly, Rex Walls suffers from this blind devotion when trying to envision a better life for his family. He creates blueprints of an elaborate solar-powered “glass castle,” he will build by hand once he strikes gold. His rationality parallels the thoughts of (Adam’s) (natural tendency of people to….) caused by the American Dream.
On the other hand, Rose Mary Walls is so determined to accomplish her personal goals of being an artist; she neglects her responsibilities as a mother and a wife. She lets her children go hungry for days while she scarfs down her chocolate fix. There is an inverse relationship between the growth of her children versus their intellect in stark comparison to Rose Mary’s growing size and further negligence.
The children of the Walls’ family, however, had a much more successful outcome in their journey from rags to riches. Despite their hardships and lack of a permanent home, all four children make it to New York and take up jobs and become successful and happy. All, but one, of the children, lead fairly normal lives once they leave small town, Welch. Their success demonstrates a positive illustration of the idealistic rags to riches mythology. But these instances rely heavily on motivation and

They start preparing the foundation so it will be ready for their father when he begins building. Eventually, the plot of land becomes the family’s landfill thus crushing the slightest bit of hope of the glass castle becoming a reality. The glass castle in this case parallels the failure of the American Dream; a vision that never comes to fruition. Jeannette deals with a similar failure in Welsh. She begins painting the house, but ultimately the paint freezes resulting in "a weird-looking half-finished patch job - one that announced to the world that the people inside the house wanted to fix it up but lacked the gumption to get the work done” (Page 158). People start off strong when trying to accomplish the American Dream and their motivation and ability simply dies off once they’re about halfway.
The patriarchy of the American Dream, surrounded by the idea that “the man” is the head of the household and the one that is responsible for putting bread on the table and taking care of his family is mirrored through Rex’s logic. He refuses to take logical advice from his children due to an overarching notion of fatherhood and masculinity and constantly questions, “Have I ever let you down?” When, in reality, time and time again, he is burdening his children to work and take care of him during his alcoholic