The Glass Castle Summary The Glass Castle is an autobiographical story written by Jeannette Walls about her crazy, dysfunctional family. It is 288 pages long and was published by Simon and Schuster published in March 2005. Most of the characters fall into multiple categories of character types. Rex Walls, for example, is a protagonist when he gets money for his daughter to stay in college, but is an antagonist when he steals their New York money.
Like most best-selling books, “The Glass Castle” has taken up the opportunity to be made into a movie. A book based on a memoir of the Jeannette Walls who portrays that the idea of family, poverty, and education, was not always what it seems. An alcoholic father played by Woody Harrelson and a condescending artistic mother played by Naomi Watts who showed that there was still hope beyond the conditions that they were in yet failed to show. When it was first released back in August 2017, the anticipation for the movie wasn’t as expected compared to the book in my opinion. It didn’t really portray what Jeannette Walls had felt and seen in the book.
The Glass Castle is a memoir written by Jeannette Walls which describes her family’s troublesome past. When examining one of Jeannette’s childhood bullies, and her dad whipping her with a belt, it becomes apparent that even the worst experiences can have a valuable gift wrapped inside if you’re willing to receive it. The Walls kids came across numerous bullies throughout their childhood. When living in Welch, one of them was Ernie Goad, who made fun of the kids because of their poor living conditions.
Throughout Walls’ piece, she gives countless examples of the nature of her childhood. One of these includes when her Mother’s carelessness directly results in her three-year-old child’s dress catching
In “The Glass Castle” by Jeannette Walls, she shows moments of her life to explain the truth of her life and how she and her siblings fought through the hardships and persevered. One moment in the book that shows this is when their parents are away from Welch and Lori slaps Erma back after Erma molests Brian when Jeannette explains, “Lori heard the commotion and came running… Erma reached over to slap me, but Lori caught her hand… Erma jerked her hand out of Lori’s grasp and slapped her so hard that Lori’s glasses went flying across the room. Lori, who had just turned 13, slapped her back” (Walls 146-147).
Sinking to the bottom of the ocean can signify that, that person is giving up and that they are not willing to fight anymore. Jeannette Walls was raised by parents that believed that their children should learn from their own mistakes. The Walls children were put in danger by their parents various times, just so they could understand that they should not depend on anybody but themselves; the Walls children were taught that living life holding on to the edge could prevent them to take risky chances and lose the chance of having success. In the book “The Glass Castle” written by Jeannette Walls, Rex Walls describes to Jeannette that “If you don’t want to sink, you better figure out how to swim. ”(Walls 66).
The book, The Glass Castle, written by the world renowned author Jeannette Walls, is a memoir of an epic life journey of a small town girl and her family of six. The book starts off with Jeanette's first memory, catching herself on fire at the age of three while cooking unsupervised. This sparks the topic of neglect within her family, which is thoroughly present throughout the book. Although the movie content may be difficult for some audiences to watch, Jeannette Walls demonstrates the importance of addressing the pain or neglect even if it makes the audience uncomfortable.
In the excerpt from Jeannette Wall's autobiographical memoir, The Glass Castle, I noticed many strategies that she used while developing her story line. First, I realize that she uses very little humor due to the circumstances that she and her family are going through at the time, however, I did notice one example. This was when Jeannette's mother put mayonnaise in her hair before a school photograph and forgot to wash it out which made her hair more stiff, messy, and tangled than usual. Next, Jeannette uses many details throughout her writing to portray the struggles and hardships that her family is having to deal with, including money issues and her father's drinking problem.
“Life is a drama full of tragedy and comedy. You should learn to enjoy the comic episodes a little more.” (Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle) This remarkable quote, that I live by, comes from The Glass Castle written by Jeannette Walls, which was published in 2005. This book is about the lives of Walls family that is constantly up and down.
The Glass Castle Parenting Paradigms The Glass Castle by Jeanette walls is a fascinating story of the author’s childhood and how she portrays her experiences. These hardships are brought on by her permissive parents and their laid back demeanor towards life. What I would call their “nontraditional” (Cherry, the four styles of parenting) way causes many troubles in the children’s life due to lack of parental guidance that should be the foundation of a stable childhood. The first and possibly foremost important example is how eager to play along with the children’s shenanigans Jeanette’s parents are.
Essentially, the expressions a character uses as well as how they speak to other people can convey their personality. Given the nature of the characters in The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls clearly relies on the power of dialogue as well, and sometimes has the parents speak in an uneducated manner. On one of the many occasions when Jeanette gets hurt in the story, for example, her father remarks that “You busted your snot locker pretty good,” (fjfjjddj). Jeanette’s grandfather in Virginia, who is an ornery old man with what appears to be a sub-par education, uses phrases such as, “Don’t bother me none…” (fufuus) when addressing his grandchildren.
The Secret to Jeannette’s Unusual Childhood Nearly 8.2% of all American children lived in unimaginable “deep poverty” in 2016, according to the University of California, Davis. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls is a profound insight into these hidden lives. The Glass Castle is a autobiographical memoir detailing the nonconformist lifestyle of the Walls family. This somewhat dysfunctional family had a number of unconventional experiences. Rex abused alcohol.
Jeannette Walls had to experience adult things while only a child. More specifically, Walls and her family have been victims of sexual abuse. Sexual abuse is a large underlying theme in The Glass Castle. An example of this is the patriarch himself, Rex Walls. Rex was abused by his own mother when he was young.
The Glass Castle is a memoir by Jeannette Walls. It describes a non-wealthy family that has to move from place to place and has challenges along the way where Jeannette, her brother Brian, and sister Lori are forced to make choices as adults. The Walls children had to be the parents of the house most of the time because Rose Mary and Rex were either never home or just raised there children to be independent and have them do everything on there own. Some choices they had to make as adults were mostly about what they were going to get for food, how to spend their money, and when they lived on their own in New York City. In many ways the Walls children were forced to behave like adults in these cases.
The glass castle in The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls can be taken as so many things at first thought. It could be symbolic or literal but you won 't know which it is until you read it. For me, I thought it was a castle they were trying to get to, like a safe haven. It turns out that the glass castle stood for everything the Walls family had worked for, you see this through the characters, their life in Welch and where they ended up in the end. Getting to know the characters was a very important part of understanding the importance of the glass castle.
