So far in The Glass
Castle, by Jeannette Walls, many examples of a more than imperfect
upbringing have been shown. Through the actions of Jeannette’s parents, it is
obvious that she endured many abnormal and difficult situations as a child. Her
father who struggles to maintain a job causes her and her siblings to worry
about food and where they will be living the next day. Constantly having to
move causes the children to have a difficult time leading a normal life and
struggling to make friends. Examples of parental irresponsibility that young
Jeannette had to overcome was Jeannette being burned while making herself a
hotdog, her father throwing their cat out of a car while moving, her falling
out of the car, not informing the children of their grandmother’s death and
many more. At one point, Jeannette using a simile to compare her family to a
cactus, (Page 22) to show that they survive on necessities and have an
irregular and inconsistent lifestyle. It is a shame that a young girl must see
her family as unable to eat regularly and provide for one another. Asides from
the parenting she endures, Jeannette was attacked by kids from her school and
sexually abused during the night by a stranger. Despite the mothers inheritance
of a nice home, the family still moves about nomadically throughout this
section. Jeannette is writing to encourage less privileged children and students
that despite upbringing, the world is still full of opportunity and childhood
struggles do not designate your future. I believe she achieves this by
providing numerous examples of childhood struggles as well as including her
success in the very beginning of the book when she describes seeing her mother
picking through a dumpster as she heads to a sophisticated party. By including
this she shows the readers that she is a successful woman that overcame all of
the disadvantages she had as a child.
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| The Glass Castle URL: http://www.amazon.com/The-Glass-Castle-A-Memoir/dp/074324754X |
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