The Glass Castle

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Analysis of The Glass Castle

The Glass Castle is a memoir written by Jeannette Walls. She gives insight into the circumstances she had gone through. The story reveals the journey of the lady to where she is today. She describes events from her early life until the point where she finally got out of all the problems she had in her life. Her relationship with her parents is a major theme of the work. The book is divided into a total of five chapters and the names of the chapters are, Woman on the Street, The Desert, Welch, New York City, and the last one Thanksgiving.

In The opening chapter the writer is describing the scene where she sees her mother on the streets of New York. She catches the glimpse of her mother searching the trash cans while sitting in the taxi. She orders the driver to take her back to her home, as she does not want to take the risk of being seen with her. After this scene, she gives the flashback of her childhood memories. She remembers how she once caught fire while preparing her own meal, and the dad took her out of the hospital at night secretly for avoiding debt. It is the point where the reader is struck by the fact that a child is preparing her own meals. The time she spent in the hospital she enjoyed there because she had meals on time for the first time in her life.

Jeanette has two sisters and one brother. They all used to eat whatever they were given to eat, and they used to ell scraps and the bottle to earn cash. Though the memori4es of her childhood is not so pleasing still she seems to be happy remembering them. All the boor sibling despite their problems with the basic needs are given practical advice, and courage to live an independent life by their parents. The parents are quite liberal and have unusual practicality. The mother Rose Mary thinks of herself as an artist and spends all her money on sculpture, paintings, and writing, while the father Rex Walls is a dreamer, he wants to give his family a rich lifestyle and always plunges into the new ideas, but the only thing that he lacks is the money to fulfill his dreams. In this situation, the children are left by them and they look after for themselves and each other.

The family moves from place to place frequently. Whenever they have piled up bills and are short of money, they took their possessions and hit the road in their old car. In the deserts of Arizona, California, and Nevada, the childhood of the walls is spent. They find it adventurous because their parents make them look this way. Whenever they take off to another place in the midnight, they are told by their portent that they are going on another adventure. In the Deserts, their life ends because of the increasing alcoholism of Rex. Rose Mary takes the burden and shifts to Welch, West Virginia, with the family. They hope to seek help from Rex's family here, but to their disappointment, things don't go their way ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"i4qhLR4h","properties":{"formattedCitation":"{\\rtf (\\uc0\\u8220{}The Glass Castle Analysis - ENotes.Com\\uc0\\u8221{})}","plainCitation":"(“The Glass Castle Analysis - ENotes.Com”)"},"citationItems":[{"id":30,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/YhysFANK/items/9M264R96"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/YhysFANK/items/9M264R96"],"itemData":{"id":30,"type":"webpage","title":"The Glass Castle Analysis - eNotes.com","container-title":"eNotes","abstract":"Dive deep into Jeannette Walls' The Glass Castle with extended analysis, commentary, and discussion","URL":"http://www.enotes.com/topics/the-glass-castle/in-depth","language":"en"}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (“The Glass Castle Analysis - ENotes.Com”).

The life in Wealth becomes more difficult than in the deserts. As Jeannette and Lori grow older they realize that the life with their parents is not so fun and adventure at all and that they have to move out and leave their parents to live a stable and happy life. As the family goes dysfunctional, the siblings look after each other as they all are betrayed by their parents. They support each other and endure the sufferings together. They all wanted to move out and leave their parents to live a happy and stable life. They all eventually end up living in New York, despite the efforts of their father to keep the family together and intact.

Life of the walls siblings is quite prosperous and contented in New York, as they all work and live independently. Jeannette becomes a successful journalist and her brother becomes a cop while her sister Lori becomes a successful artist. Suddenly their parents come to New York City to live with them. This time again Jeanette and her siblings face a lot of problems as the parents take advantage of the kids and do not contribute to the rent. At this point, all the siblings decide to get their parents off of the house. Rex and Mary become homeless people now. The sad and the pathetic side of the story is that the children had to abandon their parents at any cost because if they did not do so, they would have ended up like them. Jeanette's Sister Maureen loses it and stabs her own mother, for this, she is taken to the mental hospital and then, later on, she travels to California ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"u1SYUNXK","properties":{"formattedCitation":"{\\rtf ({\\i{}The Glass Castle Summary})}","plainCitation":"(The Glass Castle Summary)"},"citationItems":[{"id":32,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/YhysFANK/items/ZWIMDMHS"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/YhysFANK/items/ZWIMDMHS"],"itemData":{"id":32,"type":"webpage","title":"The Glass Castle Summary","URL":"https://www.shmoop.com/the-glass-castle/summary.html","accessed":{"date-parts":[["2019",4,15]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (The Glass Castle Summary). The life of the kid is now stable as they are successfully working in their respective fields, and no one is there leeching off of them. In the last chapter, there is a part of Jeanette's place and there is a short reunion of the Walls family.

Jeanette seems to make peace with the fact that whatever she is today is because of the life she lived and is no more angry with her parents. Everyone reconciles with each other and no half-truths are there between them. The memoir liberates Jeannette to do what she enjoys a lot, and that is writing. The Glass Castle is a captivating story, zealously conveyed ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"kQVXtIsX","properties":{"formattedCitation":"{\\rtf ({\\i{}The Glass Castle})}","plainCitation":"(The Glass Castle)"},"citationItems":[{"id":28,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/YhysFANK/items/5TGQMKFJ"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/YhysFANK/items/5TGQMKFJ"],"itemData":{"id":28,"type":"webpage","title":"The glass castle: A memoir - ProQuest","URL":"https://search.proquest.com/openview/d32376b401b5e59c361719ed1258e3cf/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=41008","shortTitle":"The glass castle","language":"en"}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (The Glass Castle). The life Jeannette had while being with her parents is not an easy life and to come out of those circumstances is also really difficult. If my parents would act as the parents of Jeannette I would probably not get to move forward in life. It is unimaginable how Jeannette and her siblings got themselves out of the situation they were in. Parents are the biggest support for anyone in their life, and if they betray and leave children on their own the child cannot trust anyone. Parents are like an umbrella for the children that protects them from the harsh weather, but the case of Jeannette was not the same. If I put myself in her shoes, I can say probably she did the right thing to get out of the house and do something for her better future, because if he had not done that she would be a freeloader just like her parents and would not reach anywhere in her life.

Works Cited

ADDIN ZOTERO_BIBL {"custom":[]} CSL_BIBLIOGRAPHY The Glass Castle: A Memoir - ProQuest. https://search.proquest.com/openview/d32376b401b5e59c361719ed1258e3cf/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=41008.

“The Glass Castle Analysis - ENotes.Com.” ENotes, http://www.enotes.com/topics/the-glass-castle/in-depth.

The Glass Castle Summary. https://www.shmoop.com/the-glass-castle/summary.html. Accessed 15 Apr. 2019.