Jeannette's Character Analysis

Describe Jeannette’s childhood, specifically her socialization or the process by which she acquired family values, information about social expectations, and survival strategies.

Think back to your own childhood. Could you imagine being a child, and not having a care in the world, but then, as quick as the snap of a finger, that all changes because of a thoughtless mistake made by your parents? In The Glass Castle it is revealed that as Jeannette grew up, she endured hardships inflicted upon her by her own parents. However, if Jeannette had not gone through these things, she never would have gained the characteristics that she values present day. Although Jeannette Walls faced hardships and endured suffering during her childhood, these obstacles formed her into a self-reliant woman who proves that just because you do not have as much money as other families, you can still achieve success in your life.

Jeannette’s self-reliant behavior is frequently shown through her refusal of help from others. On one trip to retrieve her father from a bar, Jeannette’s father is so drunk that he can no longer walk. Another man offers to drive them home, and

There was one moment in the book where she had to make probably one of the most difficult choices in her life, yet she did not hesitate to make that choice. Jeannette’s older sister, Lori, always wanted to move to New York to escape her delusional parents. However, she did not have enough money to pay for a bus ticket, wiping out any hope that she had. " ‘I'll never get out of here,’ Lori kept saying. ‘I'll never get out of here.’ ‘You will,’ I said. ‘I swear it.’ I believed she would. Because I knew that if Lori never got out of Welch, neither would I.” Then one day, Jeannette was offered $200 and a bus ticket back to Welch to take care of a woman’s two toddlers in Iowa for the summer. Instead, she insisted that the woman, Mrs. Sanders, should take Lori and her payment be a “bus ticket to New York City.” The fact that Jeannette easily made the decision of sacrificing her ticket for Lori amazes me; she knew how important the trip the New York was for her, so she wanted to make that dream happen. When Lori left, Jeannette still did not give up on her dream to go to New York and become a journalist. She joined just about “every extracurricular event at the school” to gain the attention of colleges, particularly in New York. The motivation that can be found in this is that you cannot give up on your ambitions

However, with her alcoholic dad who rarely kept a job and her mother who suffered mood swings, they had to find food from her school garbage or eat expired food they had previously when they had the slightest bit of money. In addition, when bills and mortgage piled up, they would pack their bags and look for a new home to live in, if they could even call it a stable home, since they would be on the move so often. Jeanette needed a dad who wouldn’t disappear for days at a time, and a mom that was emotionally stable, but because she didn’t have that, she grew up in an environment where she would get teased or harassed for it. Jeanette suffered so much, that even at one point, she tried convincing her mother to leave her father because of the trouble he had caused the family already. A child should be able to depend on their parents for food and to be there for them when they need it, and when that part of a child’s security is taken away, it leaves them lost and on their own, free and confused about what to do next.

The summary of the story is a memoir, which is about Jeannette and her family who are constantly low on food and money, family moving around the country a lot, and having a hard time to re-settle. The family is very dysfunctional with a multiple of stories to tell. The book is filled with much different kind of experiences that the family including Jeannette has been through together.

As a child, Jeannette doesn’t realize that she’s not actually getting what she should be getting. She thinks this is how she should be living. Jeannette doesn’t understand her parents have been neglecting her all this time. Jeannette first noticed that some things were a lot nicer than what she had when she had to be hospitalized because of her fire accident. She was just so amazed about how neat and organized everything was. For instance, “The hospital was clean and shiny. Everything was

As the book follows the life of Jeannette, her dream starts out as a fantasy of hope for her father. When her father was sober he was her best friend. Yet he developed a drinking problem right before Jeannette was born, that developed and worsened over the span of her life. Her mother accounts that when they lost a child, his drinking started,

Connections Essay The Glass Castle is a memoir surrounding the events of Jeannette Walls’ unorthodox childhood. Among the many issues discussed in the novel, the effects of parentification, child abuse, and relocation are some of the most relevant and prominent issues in today’s society. As a result of their father’s regularized absence and their mother’s lack of motivation and responsibility, Jeannette and Lori Walls are forced to take care of the family’s budget, income, upkeep, and health.

At a young age, Jeannette’s experience with fire has showed her that the world is full of danger. She sees that the world “at any moment could erupt into fire.” Jeannette’s thought of “if the fire had been out to get me”, shows that she believes fire is a reoccurrence in her life. The element of fire serves as a symbol of how one misfortune event is connected to another in Jeannette’s childhood, like the way “all fire was related.” It also foreshadows that Peace for Jeannette only lasts momentarily. Throughout the story, Jeannette and her family encountered countless struggles. However, these struggles had trained Jeannette and her siblings to be strong individuals. It also required the children to take care of each other and appreciate what

In New York, Jeannette seems hardened when she effectively ignores her mother’s scrounging for food. Thus, there is a role reversal between Jeannette and Rosemary. As Duckworth says of gritty people: “when you look at healthy and successful and giving people, they are extraordinarily meta-cognitive” (Scelfo, New York Times). Indeed, Jeannette is metacognitive; after all, she wrote this book about her own upbringing and present life, but she is not “giving” and neither were her parents. If Jeannette’s drive was due to grit, one certainly must question what her successes were. She achieved her “singularly important goal,” but lacks successful interpersonal relationships having failed to help her family. It seems Jeannette has not changed, but simply grown further into her parents lessons and roles. Like Rosemary, she does not give. Like Rex, she has high ambitions. Granted, without the abuse of alcohol, Jeannette is able to hold a job, which may be a result of witnessing alcohol’s effect on her father. That positive effect, however, is the result of observation, not Rex’s parenting. The effect of the laissez-faire parenting style was the self-reliant ability to flee to New York and do as she pleased, but the neglectful

As the character begins to balance out her schoolwork, band, and relationships between friends and family, she also has to deal with her brother on a daily basic and worry about him than more herself. Her family is in danger with his spells of rage that happen randomly, ones that he himself do not understand is hurting him. He is calmed by his sister, who barely has enough time to be around him so often. Her parents begin to think about sending him to another home, where he would be happier and learn to be taken care of. He would get visits, but his sister has spent her life loving and protecting him, but if they do not take action, he will hurt somebody, which eventually does happen. To this effect, she attempts to become a bad girl that goes against her parent’s wishes, wears eyeliner and draws skulls and such on her sneakers, and skips class and starts having

Leigh was always afraid that someone would get so offended by one of her family members that her family would be in danger, but if she were to voice this concern, no one would listen. On days or nights when her parents argued to the point that each of them was yelling at the other, Leigh considered running away for a while,

Jeannette was an average girl, brought up in an environment where moving every few weeks was acceptable. She never had any thing stable in her life, and basically had to raise herself with the help of her brother and sister. Neither parent was loving or caring in any ways. No matter how big a struggle, they always had to act as they were living life to the fullest. Jeannette states this by saying "We were always supposed to pretend our life was one long and incredibly fun adventure." (Walls 69.) When you take a look at the abyss she was able to avoid, it should give you hope and motivate

Mom escorts Jeannette and Brain to enroll into school, even though she never acquired their records from their school in Phoenix. They meet the principal who asks them straightforward questions to test their intelligence. But since they have a different accent, the principal can’t comprehend their answer and they can’t grasp his questions, so they were placed into classes with learning disabilities. Jeannette’s first day of fifth grade goes from unsatisfactory to miserable when a group of girls, Dinitia Hewitt, attack her during recess. The bullying is now a part of her daily routine. She knows her father can’t help and her mom won’t. Jeannette then sees Dinitia’s comforting side and wonders how she can befriend her. One day when walking through the park, Jeannette sees a little black boy being pursued by a dog. She frightens the dog and gives the child a piggy-back ride home. Dinitia observed this rare act of interracial kindness and decides to befriend her. While Jeannette was getting ready to go to Dinitia’s, her Uncle Stanley offers her a ride, until he realizes she is going to the black part of town. Later, when Jeannette comes back home, Erma clamors a bunch of racist nonsense that upsets Jeannette, confronts Erma, as her parents have always advocated her to do so. However, when her mom hears about the conversation with Erma, she tells her