The Glass Castle Jeannette Walls Analysis

The context for the argument inherent in this novel is that Jeannette Walls conveys her argument through her narrative of her life in a rather dysfunctional family. Her father, Rex, is a paranoid alcoholic and her mother, Rose, is an often self-involved artist that can’t keep a job. Jeannette herself is the second child, right after her sister Lori, who begins questioning their lifestyle at the start of the book. Jeanette also has a younger brother, Brian, who often sticks to her side through the trials and tribulations the family faces. Jeanette also has a younger sister, Maureen, who isn’t referenced a lot in the book because she often stays at her friends’ houses, and her major role is attacking her mother with a knife when Rose tried to …show more content…
9, The Glass Castle) is Jeannette’s child-like phrase she uses to describe how they were running from “FBI agents who were after [Rex]” (pg. 9, The Glass Castle), but the audience learns that the father did not pay taxes, and used that as an excuse to constantly move and not be tied down. The lack of stability in Jeannette’s life leads to a sense of lacking, especially for Lori. Lori often feels out of place and unable to “fit in” with the rest of the family, as Jeannette and Brian find it to be an adventure. However, once the family moves to Welch, Jeannette takes on clear responsibility through how she “looked after his kids all summer, kept him in beer and cigarette money, and helped him fleece that miner Robbie” (pg. 136, The Glass Castle). After her father doesn’t acknowledge how much she did for the family, Jeannette decides, “like Lori, [she] was going to get out of Welch” (pg. 138, The Glass Castle). Through the constant movement of her family, persistent episodes of her father’s violent, abusive alcoholism, as well as her mother’s inability to provide for her family and act like a mother, Walls establishes an environment in which the audience can truly perceive the hardships she went