Analysis Of Jeanette Wall´s The Glass Castle

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Throughout Jeanette Wall’s memoir The Glass Castle, the author utilizes diverse and creative language, diction, and style to convey themes about nonconformity and self-sufficiency, while teaching strong lessons on individuality, endurance, and strength. Although both of Jeanette’s parents, Rose Mary and Rex, are irresponsible, selfish, and reckless, they did instill valuable life lessons and reflect meaningful sentiments onto their children, Lori, Jeanette, Brian, and Maureen. Rex Walls creates false pretenses to replicate a lifestyle of wanderers or explorers and to make up for insufficient income; however, he inspires young Jeanette radically and becomes a catalyst for her hopes, dreams, and uniqueness. The parents manage to teach their kids to be thoughtful, intelligent, brave, and hardworking, despite suffering and unfavorable conditions. The enigmatic mix of simple, straightforward writing structure and word choice and innocent delivery of harsh, shocking ideas spill allow the novel to be emotional and resilient. Through these choices, the author mirror’s her purpose of explaining her life, and the impact of the novel takes shape. Walls ushers in the themes of the nonconformity and rugged individualism right from the beginning, and she writes with a believable, conversational style whilst doing so. While having lunch with her homeless mother, Jeanette expresses her discomfort with her for being a squanderer, which leads to Rose Mary commenting “’You’re way too easily embarrassed. Your father and I are who we are. Accept it’” (5). Walls is the establishing grounds of the unorthodoxy that causes turbulence for the family throughout the book. The embarrassment outwardly exhibited by Jeanette makes the situation notable for how her parents did not cave into living normal lives in an ordinary fashion; this supports the an attribute of stubbornness in them. Furthermore, Rex chiefly maneuvers rebellion in lifestyle through his thoughts and actions. Rex manipulates the financial irresponsibility to inform the kids that “we’d have to be out of our minds to want to travel places with any of them, which is directed at the “rich, city folks” (39). He sanctions with an impeding opinion about regular people who can afford to spend money, which reinstates the nonconformity he submits. Also, the use of “folks’ stands with vernacular. Moreover, Rex allows Jeanette to pet a cheetah at the zoo, which is normally regarded as dangerous and for practical reasons. The author writes, "Dad took my hand and slowly guided it to the side of the cheetah's neck. It was soft but also bristly. The cheetah turned his head and put his moist nose up against my hand. Then his big pink tongue unfolded from his mouth, and he licked my hand" (108). The style of the excerpt is written as if a young child is describing the events, which is why the book feels truthful. “Soft,” “slowly,” and “big, pink tongue” are precisely the words that a small girl would incorporate in her sentences for this occurrence. Walls did not exaggerate the event because it would deter rather than add to the meaning. Continuously, the Walls family breaks traditional molds and display an insurgence for independence, which gives the author the capacity to introduce a running theme of self-reliance. The author presents short syntactical structures and pithy, simple word choice to release the effects of the descriptive writing on the reader. For example, Jeannette is given …show more content…
The amount of love she exhibits and the positivity she keeps is sincere and incredible. She refused to mimic her parents’ selfish nature, and she did not give up on her dreams, despite her obstacles. The adversities are inspiring, and it remarks that boundaries are incapable of stopping those who work hard and believe. Jeanette escaped poverty and deleterious parents, which proves how just having goals impacts a person.
Conclusively, The Glass Castle channels realism and spirit in the writing, and it relies on memory and character for the narrative. The universal themes of nonconformity and self-sufficiency are amplified by the modest operation of diction and syntax by exposure to their raw, natural sounds. The novel struck cords that resonate in profound manners, and it reveals that words do not have to be imaginative, romanticized, or glamorous to be beautiful and

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