...Report on Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls 1 Book Report on Jeannette Wall’s Glass Castle Book Report on Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls 2 Jeannette Walls's story is one that gives the reader an idea of what it is like to grow up in a very complex and often self-destructive family system. Jeannette Walls's memoir Glass Castle begins with her riding in a taxi through contemporary New York City on her way to a party. As she looks out the taxi window, Jeannette sees her mother digging through a dumpster. Even though her mother had been homeless for years, Jeannette was all of a sudden filled with shame and gloom about her mother's life. Jeannette then begins to reflect on her childhood and how her Mom and Dad's choices affected her. The story then transitions to a three-year-old Jeannette and her story of catching her dress on fire while cooking her dinner. After a few days in the hospital, Jeannette's father shows up, lifts Jeannette out of bed, and leaves the hospital without paying the bill. The memoir continues with the family moving town to town in the American Southwest. Only staying in one place until Jeannette's father could no longer hold a job, or her mother demanding they spontaneously uproot and start again. Jeannette's father's paranoia about the state and organized society, coupled with his alcoholism, leads them to move more and more frequently. Finally, they settle down in a small mining town, Battle Mountain, Nevada, for a few months; where Jeannette enjoys adventuring...
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...” ― Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle things usually workout in the end" "what if they don't?" "that just means you haven't come to the end yet” ― Jeannette Walls http://kmo236.hubpages.com/hub/The-Glass-Castle-Essay B.This is a novel that is full of tragedy's and the sad truth of what Jeannette walls had to live through in her child hood. C. Jeannette Walls is author of the memoir, The Glass Castle, which has been on the New York Times best-sellers list for more than four years, has sold an incredible 3.5 million copies in the US, and was named one of the "Top 10 Books of the Decade" by Amazon. The Glass Castle details Walls' life growing up in extreme poverty and describes the unimaginable obstacles she faced. From the desert of the Southwest to the mountains of West Virginia to her parent's homelessness in New York City, Jeannette Walls' account of an impoverished life is a compelling and moving first-person testament to what it means to be poor. She explains in detail the effects of poverty and tells the tale of her emergence from it D. Jennette walls was a brave soul that struggled but pulled herself out through all the tragedy's in her life. This novel was a way for Jennette Walls to show her story to the people around her telling them her straggles, happiness In Jeannette Walls captivating memoir, The Glass Castle, the reader becomes enthralled with Jeannette’s constant battle between defending her family and the greatness she hopes the Walls will amount...
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...The Glass Castle In The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, the author reflects on her childhood growing up in an unstable household. The theme of Walls’ memoir reveals that a lifestyle change results in the ability to rely on oneself. Throughout the The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls’ actions, dialogue, and thoughts in response to events in her dysfunctional childhood shows that an unstable childhood does not have to negatively impact an individual. In the rising action, Jeannette’s actions during the period of time that her father is not around, conveys an essential moment of her acquiring a role of responsibility in her own life. The author writes, “We couldn’t afford wood any more than we could afford coal, and Dad wasn’t around to chop and split any, which meant it was up to us kids to gather dead branches and logs from the forest” (pg. 175). Jeannette Walls is trying to explain her childhood with a father that is an...
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...For her entire life, Jeannette Walls struggles to find the delicate balance existing between the turbulence wrought by her homelife and the order of society so despised by her father. Growing up, Walls was subjected to her father’s alcohol problems and thus poverty ensued. Exhibiting unwavering loyalty towards her incompetent father, Walls would vigorously defend him against familial and outside antagonizers. Yet after this alliance shattered, she rejects her father’s precepts feeling ashamed of her upbringing and soon after moved to New York. When Jeannette asks her mother about what she should do when people ask about her parents’ situation or her past, her mom said “Just tell the truth” (5). In her memoir The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls...
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...apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” But what is the reality of this statement? Are children always similar or identical to their parents behaviour? The memoir The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls is a piece of literature that one can study and relate to this philosophy. Children are influenced to become who they are by their parents’ positive and negative actions. Jeannette’s creativity is derived from her parents. Her mother, Rose Mary Walls, has possessed artistic abilities since she was a child. Throughout The Glass Castle, Rose Mary is always painting. When she is stressed or has spare time, she grabs a brush and a canvas and lets the paint flow. Jeannette’s father, Rex Walls has a big imagination and...
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...When writing a memoir, the goal of the author becomes very different than in novel or other fiction-based writing. The writer is not just telling a story, they are relaying the story of their life and it important to make the reader interested and realize why it is they chose to tell this story to begin with. A memoir is the most personal form of written word, which puts a greater demand on the writer to produce the best quality work they are capable of. There is a certain defensive aspect that comes along with memoir writing. No matter how happy or horrific the story is, it is the author’s natural instinct to defend it. Similarly in everyday life, there are things that people are naturally inclined to defend such as family, friends, or the way in which someone chooses to live their life. Maybe their choices or actions aren’t exactly admirable or necessarily considered “right”, but nevertheless they defend them if anyone were to ever challenge them about their legitimacy. In Jeannette Walls captivating memoir, The Glass Castle, the reader becomes enthralled with Jeannette’s constant battle between defending her family and the greatness she hopes the Walls will amount to, and settling for the fact that her family is based off of false hope and senseless lies with her incredible story telling techniques. The time the Walls spent living in Welch, Virginia serves as a major transition period for everyone in the family. While Lori, Jeannette, Brian, and Maureen were...
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...The Glass Castle Reflection In Jeannette Walls’s Memoir, she describes how her father, Rex, wants to build a glass castle for him and his family to live in. In the book, she writes, “...All of Dad’s engineering skills and mathematical genius were coming together in one special project: a great big house he was going to build for us in the desert” (Walls 25). Rex wanted to make this happen for his family but unfortunately, his plans weren’t so realistic. So if I could build a glass castle the location of my glass castle would be in Atlanta, GA. I chose this location because I have family down there and I always travel down south every year. I chose to have 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a kitchen, an attic, a living room, a dining room, patio, and a basement. I chose to have these things because if I’m going to have a dream house I want it to be realistic, I don’t want to have unrealistic things that I know I’m not going to be able to afford. My favorite...
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...People have said, “The hard way ends is in the easy way.” Throughout The Glass Castle, written by Jeannette Walls, Rex the father does not follow this advice. He is a caring yet neglectful father. He is a smart man that could have gone far in life but chose to be lazy and get in fights for the people he works for. Rex ended up becoming an alcoholic father and starting to be absent with his family because of it. He would never make the right decisions and ended up having him or his family pay for it. In this memoir, readers see that Rex Walls unrealistic dreamer that changes from a thoughtful, more caring father to being a selfish and absent one. In the memoir readers notice that Rex is a unrealistic dreamer. Rex really wants to build this big dream house called the Glass Castle. “He was telling us all the wondrous things he was going to do”. “ Like build the glass castle”(Walls, 25). This quote shows that Rex has dreams like...
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...failing. In the novel, The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls didn’t want a part in this, she had the mindset of no other. She wanted to explore, take risks, and accomplish something extraordinary. She managed to live an exciting and adventurous life where she was able to make her own choices. It didn’t matter to her that she would fail. It mattered that she was able to choose her decisions for herself and not having other people do it for her. She was bullied, pushed to the brink, but still she never gave up on living an adventurous...
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...Review of “The Glass Castle” by Jeannette Walls “The Glass Castle” by Jeannette Walls is an intriguing story of Walls’ family and their experiences. Through Jeannette’s story as both the narrator and the protagonist in the story, the actual state of Walls’ family is vividly described. Through the eyes of Jeannette, the reader finally shares the troubles of Walls family, where the parents are less concerned about the children. Jeanette herself is rendering the burden and responsibility of taking care of her siblings on her shoulders. In conjunction with the other Walls (Jeannette’s siblings), the theme of the story is relinquished while at the same time developing the character of Jeannette. This context will embark on describing the Walls from a family’s point of view while at the same time highlighting their attachment styles. Right from the beginning of the story, the immediate surroundings of the Walls Family is disgusting. It clearly portrays negligence which is symbolic throughout the story as portrayed by Rex and Rose Mary Walls. Though Rex is a loving and caring father, he is irresponsible. Despite his academic qualifications, he cannot keep any job when his family needs it most. Under his alcoholic cover, Rex becomes a completely different person (Walls, 2006, p. 25). Throughout the story, Rex lives a dignified life in dreams and illusions. This is the only way he escapes his responsibilities and problems as the head, the provider, and the protector of the...
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...of contentment after losses that occur to his family during war, he must learn to accept the fate God allows. Jeannette Walls, in The Glass Castle, also learns that her salvation in life comes from acceptance of both her parents and her past. Resilience is a quality that can be modeled, but most people gain this trait from enduring and overcoming the hardships that they face in order to survive and ultimately, thrive. (OR): Christy Brown from My Left Foot, Jonathan Iwegbu from “Civil Peace” and Jeannette Walls from The Glass Castle are resilient in their ability to overcome hardship. In the autobiography, My Left Foot Christy Brown… In the short story, “Civil Peace,” …….. In Jeannette Walls’ memoir, The Glass Castle, Jeannette depicts her journey through a chaotic childhood to adulthood; in this tale she learns to transcend poverty with forgiveness and grace. For example, when her father terrifies her by throwing her in the Hot Pot springs, he says to her, “If you don’t want to sink, you better figure out how to swim” (Walls 66). Struggling alone in the water, she learns that no one can save her but herself. Whether cooking her own hot dogs, or dealing with bullies at school, Jeannette grows into a strong, self-sufficient girl. Her childhood is lost, but she gains the maturity of an adult in order to care for her own needs. In addition, Jeannette undergoes many embarrassments during adolescence; she explains: Other kids...
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...reading Jeannette Walls’ memoir, “The Glass Castle”, it became clear that there were many repetitive factors that shaped the Walls family’s lives. There are numerous accounts of sexual abuse, parental alcoholism, evidence of mental illness and finally poverty in the form of homelessness. For even when the children prospered the parents choose to be homeless. The question is, are these factors relative? Can it be that childhood sexual abuse can inflict mental illness or alcoholism in adulthood? Does mental illness and alcoholism affect the chances of being homeless? The focus of this essay is to provide evidence that the events in Walls own life, documented in her memoir, have a butterfly effect in the outcome of their parent’s lives. In Her memoir Walls documents several cases of sexual abuse during her and her sibling’s childhood. She writes of her own experiences with Billy Deel, although he is only a minor as well, he sexually assaults her during a game of hide and seek. PAGE 85-87 Afterward Jeanette was reluctant to tell her father, “I had a feeling it would cause problems” (Walls 87) The second assault Walls documents, was when she was nine years old. “I was awakened by someone running his hands over my private parts.” “‘I just want to play a game with you’ a man’s voice said.” The next day when they told their father, “he said he was going to kill that low life…” Although, no serious action was taken to find him or prevent it from happening again. (Walls 103) The...
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...Jeannette Wall’s memoir portrayed in The Glass Castle, depicts the impact of education in a person’s life. Rex and Rose Mary Walls raise their children (Lori, Jeannette, Brian and Maureen), in an unusual parenting way that involve giving the children infinite independence. Even though this independence brought a lot of misfortune to the children, in terms of starving and Rex stealing their money to drink, this independence introduced a unique style of educating the children. This unique style involved not going to school for the first years of the children’s life, spending their majority of their time reading books and taught them everything they needed to know about the “world” and technology. Rex trained the children by teaching them variety...
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...The glass castle revision essay Valerie Feldman In the book, “The Glass Castle” by Jeannette walls, her memoir shows the family and their experiences of the life on the move. Jeannette’s frame of mind is described clearly through the book, the many ups and downs As the walls left phoenix, Jeannette felt a sense of disatachments. Although Jeannette felt completely different when they arrive in phoenix. When they arrive Jeannette is astonished by the house itself and the atmosphere around it.” The backyard had orange trees that grew real oranges.”(pg 94) the “highlighted” word in the moment is real, this word represents the surrounded meaning of possibility, new adventures and opening horizons. Jeannette’s father, rex, repeatedly threw her into...
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...Jeannette Walls' writing style is pretty consistent, after all this book is a memoir. She combines the emotional struggle of her early years of childhood with the social and economic factors that surround her to create a pretty bleak picture of what her life use to be like. One thing she definitely accomplishes in this novel is making the reader feel for her and understand her family's situation. With a drunken and unstable father, a mother who seems to never side with Jeannette on anything, and a grandmother who practically hates her, Walls' definitely accomplishes bringing the element of pity and sometimes anger to anyone reading this book. Throughout the book, she is always very descriptive of events and places, often using several vivid adjectives in one sentence, just to give the reader the idea she...
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