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The Hardships Of Upbringing In The Glass Castle By Jeannette

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Jeannette was neglected, beaten, and starved all throughout her childhood. She lived without a home, money, and enough food to get by and also managed, against all odds, to fight for her ambitions. The Glass Castle, a memoir by Jeannette Walls, depicts the hardships of her upbringing by her nomadic, undependable parents, yet also her ability to persevere into a successful and aspiring young woman. As a young girl, Jeannette was always travelling due to her unstable parents and living on edge in fear of her parents’ outbursts. When she was the tender age of five, she actually recalls thinking fondly of her dad, always being his little “mountain goat”. She describes his ever changing and creative plans for their future; however, also remembers …show more content…

Later, when Jeannette becomes a preteen, she clashes with her parents’ viewpoints more, but manages to learn valuable lessons from their unreasonable cruelty. When her father has nowhere to go, he decides to take them into a town called Welsh, where his parents live. Erma, Jeannette’s grandmother is racist, hateful to her grandchildren, and is constantly beating them. Rose Mary, Jeannette’s mother, tries to explain that everyone has good qualities but Jeannette refuses to accept this idea and fires back: “Oh yeah? How about Hitler? What was his redeeming quality?’ ‘Hitler loved dogs.’ Mom said without hesitation” (Walls, 144) Although her mother is not nurturing and empathetic towards Jeanette, she truly believes there is good in everyone and overtime teaches this to Jeannette. This is critical to her growth, for it helps her tolerate her parents by seeing good qualities in them, keep hope when her opportunities dwindle, and find faith in herself when she cannot place faith in anyone else. Finally when Jennette becomes a young adult, she takes ahold of her life, leaves her impoverished parents, and travels to New York alone for journalism

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In the inspiring 2005 poignant memoir The Glass Castle, written by Jeannette Walls, establishes a mind changing perspective through a tough loving family of four. Jeannette is the second oldest of the 4 children born to Rex Walls, an alcoholic, and Rose Mary Walls, a painter and artist. The book uses the symbol of a Mountain Goat to develop a theme of growing up by overcoming obstacles. Not only that it also displays an endearment that implies a special relationship between Jeannette and her father that the other children could not share with him.

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Jeannette Walls opens her memoir, The Glass Castle, with a story of her childhood in which she is cooking hot dogs on a stove and her dress catches on fire. This story sets the stage for the rest of the book in several ways. Firstly, the story immediately introduces the reader to the chaotic and dangerous environment in which Jeannette grew up. Her parents were neglectful and often put their children in harm's way, as evidenced by the fact that Jeannette was left alone to cook hot dogs at a young age.

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They think they can bend the rules and do what they think is necessary. Jeannette is exposed to these understandings, making her the person she grew up to be. Jeanette demonstrates how she struggles with her family throughout numerous portions of the novel: “The Desert,” “Welch,” New York.” These struggles developed and defined who she came to be.

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Jeannette stated, “It was hard for me to believe that this woman, with her head under the blankets, feeling sorry for herself and boohooing like a five year-old, was my mother… I swore to myself that it [her future life] would never be like Mom’s, that I would not be crying my eyes out in an unheated shack in some godforsaken holler” (Walls 208). Her mother’s mood swings and complaints made Jeannette want to become a strong woman, unlike her mother. Her mother also stated: “Jeannette, you’re so focused, it’s scary” (Walls 195). Jeannette took that as a compliment, but this shows that Jeannette and her mother had completely different attitudes towards life. Her mother was free spirited while Jeannette believed that there would need to be plans in life.

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Imagine growing up on the streets, living in cars, in broken homes and then living in an apartment on Park Avenue in New York City. The Glass Castle, by Jeanette Walls, is a memoir about Jeanette and her siblings childhood, going through poverty and parents who were were irresponsible, neglectful and careless. The memoir talks about the many obstacles their family faced and how they overcame them. Jeanette moving to New York symbolizes a new chapter in her life and becoming independent from her family, and finally breaking the “skedaddle” streak. After high school, college is the next step in life.

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After graduating middle school her friend lost touch with her and eventually left her life for good: “By the time she got to Welch High Dinitia changed.” Jeannette was also sexually harassed by one of her friends in Phoenix while playing hide-and-seek: “Billy smushed his face against mine… ‘Guess what?’Billy shouted. ‘I raped you’” Lastly, while going to school in Phoenix Jeannette was bullied for being smart and skinny: “The other students didn’t like me much because I was so tall and pale and skinny and always raised my hand too fast… A few days after I started school, four Mexican girls followed me home and jumped me in an alleyway…”

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In The Glass Castle, Jeannette overcame the obstacles with her parents, poverty, and getting bullied. First, Jeannette moved to the city because she needed to take matters into her own hands. Jeannette could not handle "[moving] around like [a] [nomad]" (Walls, 19) any longer, so she bought a one way ticket to New York City. Jeannette was relieved that she had a chance to start new and get away from the instability of her past. Not only did Jeannette want to get away from her parents, but her siblings did too.

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Although Jeannette’s childhood is difficult, she overcomes poverty through her skills of being hardworking and

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It is crucial to Jeanette’s development that she recognizes the need to be independent and to acknowledge the drive and determination required to succeed in life. Without the ability to persevere and push oneself past their fears, a person will inevitably fail, something Jeanette will not tolerate. In another example, while

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While Jeannette was a junior in high school she became aware of the fact she had to get out of Welch and away from her parents. “ All through the long walk, the pain had kept me thinking, and by the time i reached the tree trunk, i had made two decisions. The first was that id had my first and last whipping. No one was ever going to do that to me again. The second was that, like Lori, I was going to get out of welch.

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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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Nicholas Sparks once said, “I don’t know that love changes. People change. Circumstances change.” In the memoir, The Glass Castle author Jeannette Walls shows how her father Rex Walls changes with everything thrown at him as a father or four. In the beginning of being a parent Rex shares his intelligence with his children.

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Through the Eyes of the Impoverished The novel The Glass Castle is more than just thousands of words typed on simple, yet small, white sheets of paper; it is a memoir that recounts a time when a young girl went through heart wrenching struggles to find food to eat, enough water to bathe in, and parents who actually acted like parents. Jeannette Walls grew up with an unsteady family that included a few kind siblings, an alcoholic as a father, and a mother with her head in the clouds. It is obvious life was never easy for this author as she managed to keep the household together, constantly calming her dad down after an alcohol driven burst of rage, or reminding her mother that it was necessary she pulled herself out of bed to go work to help

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Jeanette’s childhood was shameful due to her parents careless way of living. Throughout The Glass Castle Jeannette hides her childhood just like she from her mother because she is ashamed of what people might think. Jeannette Walls lived a tough childhood because of her parents. They were always moving around trying to find a place to build a glass castle. They never gave any of their children a set home while they were growing up.

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