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What Is The Theme Of The Glass Castle By Jeannette Walls

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September 3, 2014 ENG 130 G Professor Ady Response to The Glass Castle In Jeannette Walls’s memoir, The Glass Castle, she, despite everything, refuses to condemn her parents. It was very, very hard to remain equally nonjudgmental. I actually found myself unable to be so kind and generous in my opinion. Her attitude is, and to this day remains, extraordinary. Her parents treated her and her siblings with such neglect and had such a lack of responsibility. It’s hard to understand how she remains so nonjudgmental. However, there were times when I agreed with their parenting methods. Jeannette’s mother, Rose Mary, is an artist. No, she doesn’t sell her art. She paints and draws purely for the enjoyment of it. Rex, Jeannette’s father, is a …show more content…

In the memoir, Jeannette gets severely burned from accidently setting herself on fire. Originally, her mother and father don’t even want to take her to the hospital. They insist on taking her to a “witch doctor.” Reluctantly, they end up taking her to get professional help, just to end up basically kidnapping her out of the hospital before she has completely healed. The way her father speaks about it, spinning tales and calling it “Breaking out, Rex Walls style” makes it seems as though he is condoning such awful and illegal behavior. That whole incident outrages …show more content…

They would have to go days, even weeks without a proper meal because their father spent all of the little money he made gambling, on some more gambling, booze, and cigarettes. Rose Mary hardly worked as well. She had the occasional teaching job, which she was not very good at, and her children sometimes literally had to drag her out of bed for her to go to work. Jeannette and her siblings had to scavenge through dumpsters and trash barrels at school to find sustenance. That is such an awful way to grow up. I don’t understand how anybody could ever really be okay with that. Another thing that Rose Mary taught her kids was stealing. She would have them create a distraction in thrift stores or department stores so she could hide a dress or two in a bag while store employees weren’t looking. In my opinion, kids should never be taught that stealing is okay. They need to work for what they want and for what they need, not take it from whomever they please. That is definitely condemnable

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Brief Summary Of Quotes From 'The Glass Castle'

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• After realizing that her parents are never going to change, Jeannette decides to stand up to them • Rex whips Jeannette with a belt and she decides that she and her siblings won’t live in a toxic household with Rex and Rose Mary for much longer • They start an escape fund together, aiming to go to New York • Rose Mary starts crying because she’s stuck with Rex • Rex takes all of the money that they’ve saved for New York and spends it on alcohol • Lori babysits for the summer to make up the two hundred dollars and moves to New York • Rex tries to convince Jeannette to stay by working on the Glass Castle • Jeannette leaves for New York a year after Lori • Brian moves to New York shortly after Jeannette Three years later • Jeannette is attending

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Summary Of The Glass Castle By Jeannette Walls

951 Words | 4 Pages

“I guess we can eat less I said “we have before” Lori said (Walls 67). In the memoir, The Glass Castle author Jeannette Walls Lori knows this works with an alcoholic father Rex and an absent mother Rose Mary Lori knows that every time her dad loses his job from his hot temper or her mom for being lazy and choosing not to work she knows that her and her siblings have to find food and help with other needs. Lori was the oldest very hopeless as a young girl and down she was very to herself she wasn't adventurous like her brother or sister Jeannette and Brian but ever since her mom bought her glass to help her see better she decided to be an artist like her mother, she a bit unsentimental about her parents getting in arguments but when she's ending

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The Glass Castle By Jeannette Walls: Character Analysis

646 Words | 3 Pages

In the book The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, Rex is very important character because he plays a key role in his kids lives. This character named Rex has many point when he is helpful and others with he is not in his right mind. He is in a hard time when he does not have much money and him and his wife Rose Mary does not have money management skills. These are just a couple of reasons why things you do have consequences for the actions. There are many parts in the story where something they do have a consequence right now I will find a couple examples of this.

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Summary Of The Wall By Jeannette Walls

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Rex and Rose Mary’s persistent laissez-faire attitude towards the children’s basic needs for safety and age-appropriate expectations are evident in stories of Jeanette’s early childhood. When Jeannette was three years old, she badly burned herself when she was making herself hotdogs to eat. Upon being asked by a nurse why she was cooking unsupervised, Jeannette replied “Mom says I’m mature and lets me cook for myself a lot”. (Walls 18). Already, at the ripe age of just three years old, Jeanette knew that if she wanted to eat, she had better grow up quick and become independent and able to care and cook for herself.

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Summary Of The Glass Castle By Jeannette Walls

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After reading The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, I realized that some bad things that have happened to me aren’t really that bad. Jeannette Walls had been through a lot throughout her childhood, and that has made her a very strong person now days. For example, when Jeannette was very young she had dealt with adversity with when she burned herself and went to the hospital for 6 weeks. She also went through some tough times when her father was drinking and wandered off and she was all alone by herself.

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The Glass Castle Literary Analysis

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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Symbolism In The Glass Castle By Jeannette Walls

669 Words | 3 Pages

Symbols in literature aren’t simply one-sided. When looked at briefly, symbols may seem to be just another simple element in a story. Although when one takes the time to really understand the symbol, it becomes another whole component. In the novel, The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls, the Glass Castle is one of the biggest symbol. Whenever Jeannette’s father, Rex, couldn’t seem to support his family in an adequate way, he brought up the Glass Castle as a promise to his children.

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Struggle Of Life Exposed In Jeannette Walls's The Glass Castle

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Throughout “The Desert,” Jeanette is exposed to everything directly from her parents. The immediate connection on how she perceives things based on how her parents do, deviates her struggles with comprehending the real society. Rex came up with a plan that would trick the system. He decided to make Rose Mary

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The Glass Castle, By Jeannette Walls

933 Words | 4 Pages

“Life’s too short to care about what other people think” (Jeannette Walls). It is good to not care what other people think, so stay true in life and live it to the fullest. The book, The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, is a memoir that tells the story of Jeannette’s difficult family and her poor living conditions, that cause life to be difficult for her. She struggles to move past all the hardships in life and she learns how to overcome the majority of them, so she can develop into her own person. Even though her family can be a little peculiar, they possess a strong bond with each other and they always seek to help one another out.

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Argumentative Essay On The Glass Castle

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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The Glass Castle Symbolism

1211 Words | 5 Pages

As a child, Jeannette Walls moves around constantly with her family. The Walls family would move to different desert towns and settle as long as Mr. Walls can hold a job. When sober, Mr. Walls represents a charismatic father who loves his children and teaches them important life skills. He encourages imagination inside of the Walls kids and often captures their dream and creativity. Together, the family had planned to build a glass castle that contains all of the family’s hope and inspiration.

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The Glass Castle

1146 Words | 5 Pages

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.

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Jeannette Walls's The Glass Castle

1145 Words | 5 Pages

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.

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Jeannette Walls: The Symbolism Of The Glass Castle

1118 Words | 5 Pages

Furthermore, Walls’ enthusiasm about the Glass Castle, calling it “special” and “great”, communicates to the reader that this is what she perceives to be her dream in life. She believes that the

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The Importance Of Neglect In The Glass Castle

1320 Words | 6 Pages

Jeannette described that this experience made her feel used by her father and gave her a sense of self-worthlessness. Rex knew that Jeannette had a soft spot for him and he took advantage of this. Jeannette has a psychological scar from this for the rest of her life, and it produced long-term effects of distrust and diminished self-worth. As a child she had been through more than most adults, and in one case she even wakes up in the middle of the night with a child molester in her bed. “One night when I was almost ten, I was awakened by someone running his hands over my private parts” (Walls 103).

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