Character Analysis: The Glass Castle

In many ways, the Walls family from The Glass Castle didn’t live like a normal family. Where a normal family might eat at a dinner table and everyone gets a portion of food, this family fights over a stick of margarine because it’s the last of the food. With a family of six and not a morsel of food to go around between them, the family isn’t the most fortunate. However, those kids will learn valuable lessons from this eccentric type of parenting that other kids won’t have. With intelligent, caring, but distant parents, Jeanette and her siblings experience adult situations before the age of ten. Jeanette herself says she was luckier than other kids, and I agree her. Jeanette and her siblings may not have lived extravagant lives, but they still lived a lucky life because of her upbringing of adult responsibility, bravery, and intellect all at her disposal. One of the author’s first memories is of herself cooking hot dogs for herself, which, considering how young she was at the time, isn’t the ideal situation for her. Because she is so little, she burns herself horribly, prompting a visit to the hospital. Weeks later, a normal child would display dread or …show more content…
The luck she is given comes with great things, but also with great prices. Other readers may argue that she wasn’t luckier, and that it was all miserable things that happened to Jeanette. At first glance, this is true. However, this also assumes that luck is synonymous with fortune as it is saying if you are lucky than nothing bad will happen to you. With that mentality, anything beneficial or simply pleasant will ward off unfortunate things, and that’s just not how things work. Jeanette is lucky with her responsibility, maturity, intellect, and bravery, but each of those qualities came with a price. She isn’t fortunate, seen by her home life and health, but it is good for her that she was able to have those