Summary Of The Glass Castle By Jeannette Walls

At the home on 93 Little Hobart Street, in Welch West Virginia lives a family consisting of Rose Mary and Rex Walls and their four children. Before speaking to the children the appearance of their home noticeably stands out. The roof was caving in particularly in the kitchen and the bedrooms, there was no plumbing or electricity, and the house appeared to be fragile, as if it could fall over at any given time. One of the children, 13 year old Jeannette Walls, elaborated on these issues. She simply said her father never repaired the ceiling so when it rains outside it also rains in the kitchen, a clean bathroom with plumbing was substituted with a 6ft hole, and the lack of electricity only calls for the family to wear rags on their hands to

She is 16 years old and the first of Rex and Rosemary's children. Lori elaborated more on the incident with Erma abusing Brian. Lori tried to peacefully break up the fight between the two, however; Erma took a more violent approach by smacking Lori. “Erma jerked her hand out of Lori’s grasp and slapped her so hard that Lori’s glasses went flying across the room,” (Walls 147). It is plain evidence that Erma jeopardize Lori’s safety and hurt her. This wasn’t the only time Lori was beat by a member of her family. When she was around 10 years old, Rosemary was assigned to teach Lori’s class in school. Rosemary made it a point to show she could discipline by beating Lori in the front of the class with a wooden paddle (Walls 75). Lori’s mother abused her in public for her own personal gain. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs includes protection from danger, however; it is members of Lori’s family that she needs protection from (Maslow). In both cases Lori did nothing wrong and didn’t deserve to be hit. The safety needs of this child are not being satisfied by her

One of them is poverty and its correspondence to slow brain development. This is due to a smaller amount of grey matter which is brain tissue critical to process information and perform well (University). This applies to the Walls family since they rarely have a source of income and are living in poverty. The children are already not receiving an education and their brains are being damaged even more by their way of life. The environment the children are being brought up in is unsafe, unsupportive, and unfair to them. These circumstances have been proven to affect the behavior and attention of children. This can be seen when Jeannette was young and had a fascination with fire and burned the face off of her doll. The brain tissue of the Wall’s children is affected in a negative way due to the way their parents are forcing them to