analytical essay

Devon Stanaford

English III B

Ms. Wilson

May 21, 2013

The Glass Castle

In Jeannette Walls’ memoir,  The Glass Castle, Jeannette grows up under the circumstances of poverty and not having very good parents. Their family is always traveling place to place, and they never have a stable situation. It is not very difficult to realize that traveling is a major theme of the book. Her father, Rex Walls, is always losing his job or getting into trouble, which causes the family to have to move. Jeannettes experiences and physical journeys while growing up have taught her what it takes to make it in the world, and be successful.

Jeannette living in poverty her entire childhood is what inspired to be a successful person when she grows up. The children of the Walls family are always in a struggle because their parents are always doing the wrong thing. Rex is an alcoholic which puts the family in difficult situations numerous times. Also the mother is a very selfish person, which puts the family through difficult times as well. It seems that every time Rex is able to get a decent job and that family has some stability, he finds a way to get fired and the family has to move once again. Along the Walls’ journey they find themselves out in the desert, and Jeannette says something that sums up her childhood very well. She said, “I never believed in Santa Claus. None of us kids did. Mom and Dad refused to let us. They couldn't afford expensive presents”(39). Jeannette not being able to believe in Santa expresses how different her childhood was from the normal. Her childhood being so different from most peoples’, gives her a reason to want to be successful as an adult and not have to continue living that lifestyle.

It seems that either Rex or Mary always mess something up which causes the family to have to move or else they could get into some serious trouble. At some of the Walls’ locations Mary is able to get hired for teaching positions which provide a decent amount of money for the family. Every time her selfish ways show through and she ends up quitting or not showing up for work. Her reasoning for quitting is that her mother wanted her to be a teacher and not be an artist. This shows how selfish of a person Mary can be. She won’t keep a teaching job and help out her family just because of her selfish needs. Mary’s selfishness is a major reason why the Walls have to live in severe poverty, and can’t have a stable lifestyle. Each chapter, Mary Walls does terrible things, especially when Jeannette says, “Mom told us we would have to go shoplifting”(111). This shows how terrible of a parent Mary can be. She is a very selfish person who puts herself before everyone else, also she is teaching her children to break the law by shoplifting, and making her children think that stealing is okay. Luckily, Mary’s selfishness didn’t rub off on her children and he actions in fact teach her children how not to act when they are older.

The Walls are always changing locations and are moving from city to city. At one point of the Walls’ journey they find themselves living in Las Vegas. The Walls live in a small hotel for the time being. They find themselves very cramped for most of the time, and neither Rex nor Mary are employed while living there. They struggle to make money, so Rex comes up with his own method to making money. He comes up with a gambling method that he uses at the Las Vegas casinos to make a profit. His method is actually successful for some time, until the casinos figure out what he is doing. While Rex is able to make money he treats his family to nice dinners, along with other random gifts. This shows how once again, Rex and Mary are not very good parents. Instead of conserving the money he was making, and making the money last for a long time, he put the money towards random things and actually wasted it. He also spent a lot of the money towards alcohol to fulfill his addiction, which shows how selfish of a parent Rex can be, although he is less selfish than Mary. Since Rex has been figured out with his method of making money, the Walls family is forced to move once again, and the family is back to the journey where the family decides to move out to San Francisco. The only reason they decided to go to San Franciso was because Mary thought it would be a great place to live. This once again proves her selfishness because she has to get her way all the time. While Jeanette is on this physical journey from city to city, she is able to learn that you need a stable job and can’t rely on random schemes to make money.

While reading The Glass Castle you are able to really see all of the struggles of the Walls family. There are two awful parents, Rex and Mary, who always put themselves ahead of their children. They are always showing examples of how their kids should never act through their actions. When the kids finally leave home, Mary can’t even be supportive for them, or even happy for them. She is upset because she feels as if her kids abandoned her and cannot accept them moving on with their lives. Jeannette is able to learn many valuable life lessons throughout all of the physical journeys of her life. She learns that she needs to work hard and not come up with non-genuine ways of making money. She is also able to learn that she needs to do things the right way with the shoplifting incident. Her lessons that she learned while living through her childhood is what lead her to being a very successful person, with a great job, and ends up marrying a very successful person as well.