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Summary Of Homer H. Hickman's 'Rocket Boys'

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McDowell county has the lowest median household income of $22,000, and the highest number of teen births. Rocket Boys by Homer H. Hickman Jr., The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, and 50 Years Into the War on Poverty, Hardship Hits Back by Trip Gabriel are memoirs and articles describing life in McDowell County throughout half a century. Rocket Boys takes place in the 1950s and 1960s in Coalwood when the coal is getting harder to mine and people are losing jobs and leaving the company towns. The Glass Castle takes place a few decades later, during the 1970s and 1980s in Welch, when most mines have shut down and many people are unemployed. The last article, 50 Years Into the War on Poverty, Hardship Hits Back, describes life in McDowell County …show more content…

When Jeannette explains to Rex Walls what Erma did to Brian, he starts to shake and cover his ears and pretend like he couldn’t hear them. After Lori and Jeannette talk, Jeannette thinks, “You’d be weird, too, if Erma was your mom... it would explain a lot… Why he drank so much and why he got so angry.” Rex Walls tried to escape from Welch and its people for a better future, but in the end couldn’t escape from his problems because he focused too much on his past and never gave the future his complete attention. When the mines started to shut down, many people turned to alcohol and drugs to keep their minds off of their problems in life. Erma also turned to alcohol and drugs to forget her past, and abused Rex Walls both mentally, physically, and sexually, eventually leading Rex Walls down the same path with alcohol and drugs which made him lose all hope. Jeannette knows that both of her parents have no ambition to leave Welch for a better life, so she has to act independently to get out of Welch. Children have to not only work to not become like their parents, but also to be independent from them and learn to help themselves to leave McDowell

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250 Words | 1 Pages

As a result of this parenting style “We’re going to Phoenix” Walls 89. They didn’t punish Jeannette for shooting Billy they just blew it off and moved to a different state. In the book The Glass Castle Jeannette Walls, the narrator displays her parent's parenting skills as

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995 Words | 4 Pages

“Zoom in. Zoom in more. A boy, grainy. Facedown on the pavement. A man above him.

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323 Words | 2 Pages

As Jeannette matures her connection with her parents, particularly her father begins to diminish. Jeannette didn’t grasp that the way her parents raised them or viewed the world wasn’t normal and as she got older she recognized how selfish her parents were. Jeannette was constantly close with her father, and always showed compassion for him, but when they relocated to Welch it appeared as if her father had changed. Jeannette eventually obtained work and began to save up money so she and her siblings could survive, but her father didn’t approve and eventually sabotaged that plan. Eventually, Rex went to Jeannette and requested money from her, he did promise to pay her back.

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1290 Words | 6 Pages

Rex’s method is not that of many fathers, his being “sink or swim”, providing not only the ability to swim but also a strong metaphor for the reader and Jeannette. This is a representation of not only the Walls’ teaching strategy, also for the struggle to succeed in a life the Jeannette has literally been thrown into. Jeannette takes this idea to heart even though she may not realize it, for her not to succumb to the environment in which encapsulates her, such as Welch and life on the road, she must be able to handle these hard situations and be able to stay

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1574 Words | 7 Pages

When Rex Walls would announce that they had to leave, the children would not become irritable because, to them, this meant a new adventure was ahead. As she grew up, Jeannette brought

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937 Words | 4 Pages

Since the Walls family is so poor and homeless it seems that Rex and Rosemary are not always there to give their children the support and comfort that kids need at a young age. Instead of giving love and comfort, they decide to teach their kids how to be tough and how to learn to do things themselves. Unlike most parents, who focus on supporting, caring for their children first, and then teaching them how to live on their own once they get much older. This attentive parenting method is not visible in the Walls’ family. For example, when Jeannette has her accident with fire and explained it to the nurses she gets rather surprised and

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1956 Words | 8 Pages

He conveys that Jeanette can become triumphant over anything she puts her mind to; as long as she is confident, she can overcome any obstacle in life. In a similar way, when the Walls go to the Hot Pot to swim, although her siblings know how, Jeanette does not know how to swim. In an attempt to teach her, Rex heaves her into the middle by herself, only saving her when she starts to sink. He continues to throw her out into the water repeatedly, saying, “you can’t cling to the side your whole life; one lesson every parent needs to teach a child is ‘if you don’t want to sink, you better figure out how to swim’” (66). Using another metaphor for a life lesson, Rex ensures that Jeanette understands that no one will do everything for her in life, and if she does not learn how to take care of herself, she will never survive in the world by herself.

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1150 Words | 5 Pages

I believe they are inadequate parents. My opinion is based on everything, Jeannette had experienced in her early years as a child, and as a teen growing up in Welch. The first reason why I think Rex and Rose Mary Walls are inadequate parents, is the skedaddle. The skedaddle is something that Rex and Rose Mary Walls used as an excuse to escape the “FBI” and debt collectors (and they had a large sum of debt).

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648 Words | 3 Pages

n Rocket Boys by Homer Hickam, Homer had to learn that the only way to build a better rocket was to learn more about it. At one point in the book, He had to decide what kind of explosives to use. He started with a very weak explosive but slowly experimented with stronger explosives. He knew that he had to get a new explosive when his current one would no longer gain altitude. Homer knew the importance of learning and so did his teacher that is why she said, “All I’ve done is give you a book, you have to have the courage to learn what’s inside (Hickam).”

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1852 Words | 8 Pages

To illustrate, Walls begins painting her memoir by describing what was likely her first experience of neglect. After moving from place to place for years, when Walls family finally settles down in Welch, West Virginia she is forced to reconsider her circumstances. As Walls ages she realizes that she is not living a healthy, stable life style, but instead the lifestyle of a child subjective to physical and mental neglect. (“Jeannette Walls

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874 Words | 4 Pages

According to Jeannette Walls, Rex was a very fun and loving father while she was growing up. Alcoholism affects the good people and the bad people, many in the same ways. However from an outside perspective, Rex Walls' behavior put his children at risk. In The Glass Castle, Rex has many moments where he puts his family's lives in risk, maiming Jeannette's. In one scene, Jeannette and the family go to a water hole to go swimming.

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701 Words | 3 Pages

In the memoir, The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, Jeannette manages to overcome her obstacles by realizing her independence. She is impacted by her parents’ incapabilities because she realizes that she has to do things differently than other children. Her father was a stubborn alcoholic who believed that: “[they] were all getting too soft, too dependent on creature comforts, and that [they] were losing touch with the natural order of the world”(Walls 106). He believes that every human should be independent and fend for themselves. By using the term “creature comforts”, her father is trying to separate himself from what he calls the civilians.

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539 Words | 3 Pages

The Glass Castle Essay Wesley Murray A3 8/28/16 In Jeannette Walls’s book The Glass Castle, there are many examples of what is called human resilience. No better quote describes human resilience better than, “No matter how much falls on us, we keep plowing ahead.

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1134 Words | 5 Pages

Her and her siblings are exposed to unideal living conditions and have to learn to take care of themselves, especially due to the fact that their father, Rex walls seems to suffer from an undiagnosed mental illness. Considering Rex Walls symptoms throughout the memoir are linked to having bipolar disorder, he was unpredictable. Jeannette and her sibling’s ability to be resilient despite their father’s bipolar disorder growing up are perfect examples of Max Lerner’s quote “the turning point in the process of growing up is when you discover the core of strength within you that survives all hurt” and has let them get far in life even with everything they had to

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1320 Words | 6 Pages

It seems that Jeannette grew up in cases of extreme abuse and neglect, and this causes her to rely on her siblings and gives her motivation to be successful. Jeannette’s parents, Rex and Rosemary Walls, most certainly had an interesting lifestyle causing short and long-term effects for all four of their children. Throughout the book, Rex’s substance abuse and Rosemary’s neglect

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