In the Glass Castle there are many horrible things going on. One thing that is great that you see throughout the story is the children's perseverance to want to live and to get out of the messed up lifestyle their parents put them into. Whenever something brought them down the Walls children knew how to get right back up. The kids go through so many devastating things which is pretty sad that at very young ages they have to go through many things that could have been prevented. I believe that if the ‘tax collectors’ would have ever gotten them they would have gotten the kids taken away. Sadly im pretty sure that they would have gotten separated from her siblings as well. The kids had an alcoholic father and a crazy mother that always had enough money but never used it. Even when they were broke as can be and had no food for days they had to suffer through that. These children especially Jeannette shows you that you can see the best in the people you love even when they've let you down many times. It also demonstrates how you you need to take a stand for yourself & that you can change your life if you put the effort. If you don't like something about yourself or your life choices you can make a difference for yourself. It also really shows that it doesn't matter where you come from if you strive to do better you can do better and no one or nothing can get in your way. You should be proud of where you came from and the hard work that paid off in the end.
Maureen Walls is the daughter of Rex Walls and Rose Mary Walls. Never being around her sibling or parents, Maureen Walls was always with her friend's family, sleeping over, going out with them and eating with them. Not much spoken of within the book until the very end, the youngest member of the Walls family ended up being in the worst situation out of all of them. She started using drug substances when she dropped out of high school in New York. Her mother, who insisted that she was fine at the time, said all she need was fresh air and sunshine, while Jeannette looked for people that would help her sister. But they only said that if she was a danger to anyone and by court order, it would be the only way they would be able to help her. Jeannette pretty much got what she wanted because 6 months later, Maureen stabbed their mother when she suggested that she should go out and find herself a life instead of being locked up and smoking cigarettes all day. Jeannette finally realized that all Maureen ever wanted was someone to take care of her since she was always being taken cared of when she was little. Something that her sisters and brother never had. They have always tried to take care of themselves. When Maureen arrived to New York, the Wall siblings never even had the chance to take care of her since they were busy taking care of themselves to be noticing other people's struggles.
-Erika Diaz In the book The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls, pulls you into the book with the imagery of the places the Walls family went too. She describes many things with details that make you seem like you're there witnessing the things happening right there next to the Walls family. The use of imagery makes you seem like a part of the Walls family and lets you join into their adventures through the happy and the bad times during their life. She makes you experience the difficulties of their life and the pain they had to endure throughout their childhood. She gives background details about the people living around them to know what it was like to be living at that place. “We fought a lot in Welch. Not just to fend off our enemies but to fit in. Maybe it was because there was so little to do in Welch; maybe it was because of all the bloody battles over unionizing the mines; maybe it was because mining was dangerous and cramped and dirty work and it put all the miners in bad moods and they came home and took it out on their wives, who took it out on their kids, who took it out on other kids”(164). This gives you a brief look at what usually happens in the city of Welch. The words she uses makes you see the image right in front of you. “ This rat was not just eating the sugar. He was bathing in it, wallowing in it, positively luxuriating in it, his flickering tail hanging over the side of the bowl, flinging sugar across the table” (155). She brought us back into her past through words.
-Arielle Louie Rex Walls was a selfish unruly man who couldn't take care of his family. He could never hold down a job and the majority of all the money he made he spent on alcohol. In the book The Glass Castle he is continuously moving his family because he messed up with his employer or the police. In the book, it says he took his son to a hen house for his seventh birthday. "He told me that Dad had taken me out for his birthday awhile back.... Then they went to the Nevada Hotel, which was near the Owl Club.... The had dinner with Ginger, who kept laughing and talking real loud and touching both Dad and Brian. Then all three climbed the stairs to one of the hotel rooms.... Dad and Ginger went into the bedroom while Brian stayed in the front room and read his new comic book." (Walls, 79). Even after they all left each other and were living separately in New York, he relied on his family to hold him up. "No, no, honey. I do need to talk to you. But I would appreciate some vodka."(Walls, 277). He never gave up the bottle for more than a month. And he would use his children to get him more liquor. His youngest daughter ended up with a drug and alcohol problem in her twenties and was court ordered to leave New York and attended a Treatment center in California. He ruined his family and himself.
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