Literary Analysis of The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls Essay Example

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls focuses on some of the harsh truths that many families endure along with the effects lack of support and poverty can have on children. Jeannette Walls chooses to utilize specific descriptive vocabulary to highlight her views on characters in the book. Rex and Rose Mary, the author's parents, are especially hyper-analyzed throughout the story because of the very controversial parenting style they choose to enforce. Jeannette Walls suggests to the reader what emotions should be drawn from certain scenes based on the descriptions she uses for characters in the book. 

First, Jeannette’s mother Rose Mary has plenty of strong personal beliefs that she forces the family to abide by. This along with her refusal to take responsibility for her actions and selfishness make her seem to be quite an unlikeable character, however, she lives a tough life and many other factors influence the reader’s perception of her. When conversing with Jeannette about finding redeeming qualities even in enemies, Rose Mary announces, “Hitler loved dogs”, revealing her own strange outlook on the fact that no one is really flawed. Many reading this will be struck with strong emotions and lean-to believe that Rose Mary is a flawed character. Even though Rose Mary is the parent of the children she acts as if providing for them is not her issue. She states, “It's not my fault if you're hungry,” when the children ask for food which is why Jeannette writes, “We kids usually kept our hunger to ourselves”(Walls 42). Jeanette describes the hunger pains, “we were all sitting around the living room trying not to think of food,” and goes on to point out how Rose Mary is enjoying herself with a candy bar. Rose Mary makes up a bold lie to cover up her chewing, saying, “my teeth hurt”. This only raises suspicion and leads to Brian pulling his mom's blanket off to reveal a, “huge family-sized Hershey chocolate bar”. Rose Mary attempts to justify the situation by announcing, “'I'm a sugar addict, just like your father is an alcoholic”(173). This whole scene depicts an unfit environment for children and promotes a strong resentment towards Rose Mary. While her children are staving, her selfishness overtakes her, and somehow she finds it in herself to eat a “family-sized” chocolate bar behind her family’s back. That is quite a disturbing message and is only one of many times Rose Mary’s selfish attitude seeps through the cracks. When Jeannette and Brian find a diamond ring, Rose Mary’s response to selling it for food money is, “That’s true, but it could also improve my self-esteem. And at times like these, self-esteem is even more vital than food.”(186). Instead of profiting for weeks or months of food, Rose Mary wants to keep the ring for “self-esteem”. This is ridiculously irresponsible and detrimental to the family who is clearly struggling. A little later on in the book, right as Jeannette introduces her plan to leave for New York, Rose Mary chimes in with a very condescending tone, “I’m not upset because I’ll miss you. I’m upset because you get to go to New York, and I’m stuck here. It’s not fair”(237). Her word choice is similar to that of a child’s, using “It’s not fair” which immediately triggers a whiny image. She also states “I’m not upset because I’ll miss you” which is a rather harsh use of words to use for a child possibly leaving home in a short amount of time. All of these examples help contribute to the reader’s negative thoughts of Rose Mary and leave out some of the sympathetic reasoning that justifies some of her actions or behaviors. There are many instances in the book where implied abuse takes place between Rose Mary and Rex. Some instances were very serious where Rose Mary cries out, “He tried to kill me” and “Your father wants me to die”(72). These altercations along with a difficult financial situation really do put loads of pressure on a person and help the reader’s ability to understand more of Rose Mary’s questionable actions. 

Similarly, Rex has many instances where the reader has to decide or make judgments on his character and try to decipher his morals while taking in Jeannettes descriptions and feelings. Obviously, Rex suffers from a serious case of alcoholism, which really impacts the family poorly and hides his positive attributes. Rex often relies on the phrase, “Have I ever let you down Mountain Goat”, and the meaning along with Jeannette’s interpretation of this changes as the book progresses. Earlier on Jeannette thought of her father as a true role model because of his intellect and close relationship with her. Jeannette writes, “When Dad wasn’t telling us about all the amazing things he had already done, he was telling us about the wondrous things he was going to do. Like build the Glass Castle. All of Dad’s engineering skills and mathematical genius were coming together in one special project: a great big house he was going to build for us in the desert”(25). The way she describes Rex’s plans is so enthusiastic and magical, she truly is hopeful that he will follow through with these plans. This makes sense because most younger children tend to think of the fathers or parents in general as superheroes. Some events along the way help change Jeannette’s perspective of her father. The ignition for this change in perspective is during Christmas when Rex says, “Let’s really light up this Christmas” and lighted the tree on fire. Ruining all the presents the family saved up for and leaving everyone in shock. Jeannette writes, “When Dad went crazy, we all had our own ways of shutting down and closing off, and that was what we did that night”(115). This is a disheartening story that truly highlights the terrible cause alcoholism can have on a family and how family members have their “own way of shutting down” when a family member goes crazy. The audience definitely notices a shift in the tone Jeannette uses to describe her father and the hope she has for him. Later on Rex bring Jeannette along to a bar to win some money playing pool and using Jeannette as a distraction. Jeannette is obviously distressed about the situation and say, “Dad, that creep attacked me when we were upstairs,” to which  his response was, “I knew you could handle yourself”(213). This is a point of no return for Rex as a character in the book. The reader should be very concerned and disgusted of the event that just took place. If this wasn’t enough Rex goes on to steal the money that the children were saving up for Lori to go to New York. Jeannette writes, “I braced myself, expecting to hear a scream, but there is only silence and then a small, broken whimpering”(228). Rex’s actions have completely “broken” his daughter and crushed her dreams of escaping her current situation. It is hard to look past these events and locate the optimistic values Rex portrays, but even so he did raise Jeannette, Lori, and Brian to pursue comfortable careers. 

Jeannette uses different strategies to express her change of inner monologue to communicate her view of her parents to the reader. As Jeannette matures and starts to be more self sufficient she is able to pinpoint how irresponsible her parents are and retains less hope that they are trying to help the family. Her mothers selfishness and lack of a stable job along with her fathers drinking problem lead to the children seeking new lives away from home and the parents to become homeless. Poverty is definitely and environmental factor to take into account for the families financial struggle, however some personality traits and life decisions are at fault as well. In the broader sense, many families endure challenges that require unity and the ability to persevere, but sometimes these road blocks can overpower and lead to unfortunate disasters.