The Glass Castle Themes

In Jeannette Walls' The Glass Castle, there are many important themes that pop throughout the book. Although there are many themes, the most essential one is how a hard past forces people to learn to rely on themselves to make their life better by pushing through their struggles, this changes how a person thinks and acts ultimately defining their identity. This theme is the most prominent throughout the book. The first part of this theme; a hard past forces people to learn to rely on themselves, focuses on the self reliance theme. One important example of self reliance was how "when [the kids] wanted money, [they] walked along the roadside picking up beer cans and bottles that [they] redeemed for two cents each" (Walls 62), they had to rely

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Reading The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls was a journey in itself. As I dived deeper into the book everyday, I started feeling like I was apart of the Walls family, going through everything that they were experiencing. Reading about all their crazy experiences from one of the daughter's point of views, was incredibly intriguing. It is a personal memoir of her years of growing up with her alcoholic father, delusional mother, and three siblings. The book is full of hardships. The family continually suffers especially the children as they grow up. The amazing part of the book is how the kids, especially Jeanette, made good lives for themselves even when throughout their childhood they had just about nothing. Jeanette took all her struggles...show more content...

I have not and will never forget those series of events. This time hurt me but also helped build upon my character. It was my freshman year of high school. I had decided to play soccer, which was not a hard decision for me since I had played travel soccer pretty much my whole life. Also my brother was in high school at the time and played for the boys soccer team, and had my dad as his coach. He loved it and was having a great experience playing high school soccer so of course I like to follow in my brother's footsteps. I was very nervous at first. There were over eleven seniors on the team, and they were pretty intimidating to me. During the summer, I played with the varsity often and enjoyed it. As I kept playing with them and performing well, my nerves lessened. Finally when the actual season rolled around, I was put on full varsity. All my hard work had paid off. I was one of the two freshman put on varsity. I was ecstatic. I was actually very lucky at getting put on varsity because at this point in my life I played purely out of natural talent. I was never one to put in extra work outside of practice and be disciplined in the way I lived my life. I never really strived to be the best I could be. Making varsity made me somewhat of a threat for the older girls. Some were happy for me, others did not like the thought of a freshman on varsity. These girls were hard coore they were bound and determined to make it to state that year. They were not going to accept anything less than amazing. This put an incredible amount of pressure on us younger girls. I remember going to every practice nervous that I was going to mess up and they get mad at me. I never really felt at ease with them. In the first few games I got good playing time. I was doing really well. I was finally getting comfortable out there on the field, but that was not the direction God was taking me and with one swift kick of the soccer

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1. "We laughed about all the kids who believed in the Santa myth and got nothing for Christmas but a bunch of cheap plastic toys. 'Years from now, when all the junk they got is broken and long forgotton,' Dad said,'you'll still have your stars."| Adjective– CheapExplanation – This quote is very important because it characterizes how the Walls children are. This shows us that they are positive, by making a positive side of their situation. While small children want many toys for Christmas, Jeannette and her relatives are satisfied with their stars.| 2. "I just stood there looking from one distorted face to another, listening to this babble of enraged squabble as the members of the Wallsfamily gave vent to all their years of hurt...show more content...

'You have a point,' I said."| Adjective– Hardships Explanation – The fact that Jeannette does not admit to being underclass shows that deep down, she is embarrassed of her parents and her old way of life. She loves her family dearly, yet the fact that her parents are not as well off as other parents in New York embarrasses her. | 9. "People worried too much about their children. Suffering when you're young is good for you. It immunized your body and soul..." | Adjective– immunizedExplanation – This quote by Jeannette characterizes with the quality of being mature. By her saying suffering will be good for you she mean it will make you more mature.| 10. "I'd put in the seventy–five dollars I had managed to save while working at Becker's Jewel Box. It would be the beginning of my escape fund."| Adjective – BegginingExplanation– Even as Jeannette is in high school, she is determined to escape Welch. While she is loyal to her family, Walls is afraid that she will remain "stuck" in Welch. This characterizes determination .

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The Glass Castle was a memoir of Jeannette Walls life. Her memoir as well as her autobiography, gave a new perspective to her life that showed how she become the person she is and the most important moments in her life that changed her. The book is in first–person view, which showed a lot of what she went though. Though the book is only in her view it does give an inside on the lives of the other character. But, it doesn't show what is really going on with them. For example, Jeannette's father, struggled with alcoholism though she always has a remarkable view on him. There had been certain things in the book that show that his life was struggle. Such as on page 43 when Jeannette's mom jumped out of the moving car and ran into the darkness....show more content...

Personally I believe having security and comfort is more important than having freedom. Don't get me wrong freedom has always been and always will be important. But, security and freedom are two completely different things. You have security with freedom but as well without freedom. On the other hand, you can't have freedom and security, with freedom you never know what is going to happen. For example, having freedom in my opinion means to do whatever you please to do with no one stopping you. Security means to me is having a place you know you be safe and be able call home. Unlike the Wallsfamily, who had more freedom than security. They would move around from state to state leaving memories and loved items behind, leaving no trace of there existence. Jeannette had always been a free spirit and enjoys the freedom they had. But her two siblings Lori and Brian had always wanted the security but they were given the freedom. Over time they realized how important it was to have comfort I their lives. One moment that really showed Lori wanting security and Jeannette enjoying freedom was on page 18 where the family had stopped in middle of the desert to sleep under the stars. The two girls both look at stars where Jeannette reminds Lori how lucky they both are to be able to see such an amazing view, where Jeannette said "We could live like this forever," which to Lori responds "I think we're going to," Jeannette only around the age three an Lori around the age