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The Glass Castle Theme

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Poverty is bad enough by itself, yet when one combines poverty with child neglect the children are put in a dangerous situation. In the memoir The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, the Walls family proves that poverty and child neglect can be extremely dangerous to the kids. Whether it is from their lack of food all the time or neglect to such an extent that they got into a gunfight. The children have been in these dangerous situations where they could have been injured or killed. Taking a closer look into this issue will shed light on why these situations are extremely dangerous for the children. Throughout the story poverty is a prevailing issue where the parent’s are too lazy to work or keep a budget and do not accept welfare to feed their …show more content…
Time and time again, Jeannette would find herself “rooting in the garbage for food” (197). This is extremely detrimental for Jeannette, as anything she eats could have a terrible effect on her health . This is one form of neglect from the book as Jeannette has to put herself in danger of infection just to get some morsels of food. The parent’s neglect continued when Billy shot at Jeanette and her siblings with a BB gun and they returned fire with their father’s pistol. Had the parents been at the house watching the children they may have been able to defuse the situation before anyone shot. Billy started shooting at Jeannette, then “started firing at us all.” After a couple of shots, Lori “pointed the gun in Billy´s general direction and pulled the trigger.” (87-88). This is extremely dangerous for both parties as you can kill someone with the father's pistol and the BB gun. This is one of the worst forms of child neglect since someone could have died. Had the parents been there instead of neglecting their children they may have been able to defuse the situation. The parents were so neglectful that they let a gunfight break out and the kids are left by themselves to search for

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