Blog #3 – Themes

Forgiveness is a theme that is constantly reoccurring in The Glass Castle. This came as quite a surprise to me, to tell the truth. When you encounter a poor family, they often search for people that they can blame their troubles on, so when someone does something wrong, they do not easily forgive. The Walls family, however, has a tremendous capacity for forgiveness. The children in particular are most forgiving. I believe that this forgiveness comes from an understanding of the other person. For example, Lori understands her mother so well that “it didn’t bother her that when Miss Beatty showed up to observe [her mother’s] class,… [she] went so far as to order Lori up to the front of the class, where she gave her a whipping with a wooden paddle” (pg 75). Even though to many, her mother’s actions may have seemed cruel and unusual, Lori understands that she means nothing by it and it’s only purpose is to convince the visiting teacher that she is disciplining her students properly. However, forgiving people have a tendency to take their forgiveness too far. In one instance later in the book, Rex, after swearing off of alcohol for months has gone back to it and was having an argument with his wife. After criticizing him for being a “ stinking rotten drunk,” Rex says, “Yeah, but you love this old drunk don’t you?” (pg 122). His wife agrees with him and the fight is over. In this circumstance, Rex had no reason to be forgiven. He returned to a hurtful addiction after promising Jeannette that he wouldn’t. However, because his wife was struggling with her own sugar addiction, she understood him and forgave him. Both such instances and that of the like occur many times throughout the memoir, and for good or for bad, any member of the Walls family does not have to search hard to find forgiveness.

Blog #4 – Symbolism

One of the most prominent symbols in The Glass Castle comes when the children are young, and Rex tells them stories. These stories always feature himself as the hero of the story, always performing death defying feats against all odds.

These stories are exhibited in the life of the Walls’. Rex feels that he needs to be the hero of the family. He is always coming up with potential discoveries that could differentiate him from the rest of the world. He also has an intense desire to keep the admiration and affection of his children, especially Jeannette. When he has no job and cannot be the ‘bread winner,’ Rex becomes very depressed and alcohol takes a stronger hold of him.

Blog #5 – Personal Review

The Glass Castle, a memoir written by Jeannette Walls about overcoming and adapting to hardships, is really a very good book. The themes were strong and the story was riveting, leaving me reading the book for hours at a time longer than I set aside. Yet despite all the put off homework and lost hours of sleep, I found myself feeling that it was entirely worth it.

The beginning of the story was very Davy-Crockett-like, pioneering and making their own in a world they know nothing bout, yet are adapting to every day. I do not know why this appeals to me so much. Must be my manly side coming out… The Walls family deals with everything that comes their way completely without the aid of anyone, and (at least in the beginning) seemed almost invincible. As the story went on, character flaws became more apparent, which disillusioned me quite a bit. Before the switch I felt like the parents were nearly invincible, teaching their children valuable life lessons in creative ways that no one had tried before. However, it became clear that their parenting style was… ahem… less than ideal.

Rex Walls’ was a character that stood out to me throughout the story. He was intelligent. He was strong. He was charismatic. But he was also a crippling alcoholic. Growing up, my parents never drank, and I was never around drunken people, which means that I didn’t really know what alcoholism could do to a person – to a family. To me, what started off as a way to cope with life became his life. It enveloped him, becoming an obsession that wrote the story of his life for him, and giving those around him little chance of writing their own story as well. Rex thought that because he was the alcoholic, that he was the only one it affected, but obviously this was not the case. With every beer he drank he became less himself and more the manipulative son money whore that pulls his entire family down with him. For the majority of second half of the book, he doesn’t even have the courtesy to earn his own drinking money; he takes it from his family, going so far as to take (and, of course, lie about taking) Lori’s money that she has been saving up so that she could make a life for her in New York.

I really liked this book. It is a phenomenal story that is intriguing the entire time. But at the same time, I hated it. I hated how the parents were never there for their kids. I hated how much hardship they had to endure. I am a little perplexed by these conflicting emotion, of liking the book and hating it at the same time, however, I think it was because it produced such strong emotions from me. One thing I did not like, however, was the ending. I know that it is a memoir, so it couldn’t have really been changed, but at the same time I just didn’t agree with it. I don’t think that the children should’ve forgiven their father so easily after all that he has put them through. He cares about them, but so what?? He continues to take advantage of them, even as they’re all grown up. He never changed his ways, and therefore should not be forgiven, even in death, or if so, then he should have had to crawl back on his hands and knees begging for forgiveness.

Blog #2 – Character

Lori is a very intriguing character. She is very complex, with deeper levels revealed with each new chapter of the novel. In the beginning to the middle of the story, Lori starts out as a hard working and intelligent, if not brilliant child. She seems to do no wrong, to neither her parents nor her sometimes-overshadowed sister, Jeannette, and this fact seems to have gotten to her head, as she dawns somewhat of a ‘know-it-all’ attitude towards her siblings. She is so smart, in fact, that her mother often relies on her to check the papers of her students. She completely admires and looks up to her mother, a teacher and unsuccessful artist. With this admiration came an appreciation of many forms of art. She becomes an “obsessive reader” (pg 168), and spends much time improving her painting skills with her mother. Because her parents are gone so often, she develops protective instincts over her younger siblings, which continues throughout the book. In one instance, a boy who has taken a very insistent liking toward Jeannette comes after her with a BB gun. Lori pulls out her father’s real gun, and when her courage to shoot the boy comes into question, she responds with the short but resolute answer of, “Try me” (pg 88).

As the story continues, the Walls family begins to become more chaotic, especially pertaining to the parents. Lori is disillusioned by her mother’s behavior, and her protective instincts become more acute. She becomes much more soft-spoken and down to earth, with language that reveals great sympathy. One quality that she retains throughout the story is devotion. Once she has chosen something, she will devote herself completely to that task, be it schoolwork, a painting, or a good book. In the case later on in the book, Lori sets her sights on New York, and she does everything she can to make that a reality so that both she and her siblings could find a way towards a more stable life. Despite a major setback induced by her father, Lori finally achieved her goal, and “never once looked back” (pg 230), eventually bringing the rest of the family with her to a new stage in their lives.

Blog #1 – Rhetorical Strategies

· Foreshadowing - “I had other things to worry about” (pg 14)

· Metaphor - “‘You’ve got to get right back in the saddle”’ (pg 15)

· Metonymy - “We were always doing the skedaddle” (pg 19)

· Figure of Speech - “‘Try not to look down on those other children”’ (pg 39)

· Personification - “The wind shrieked through the compartment” (pg 49)

· Repetition - “‘I guess we could eat less,’ I said… We did eat less” (pg 67)

· Rhetorical Question - “‘Am I not allowed to give my daughter a sock?”’ (pg 77)

· Simile - “No one met my eye except Dad, who was grinning like an alligator” (pg 77)

· Allusion - “Lori, who was bring The Wizard of Oz, objected” pg 89)

• Didactic - “‘It was like that time I threw you into the sulfur spring to teach you how to swim,’ he said. ‘You might have been convinced you were going to drown, but I knew you’d do just fine’” (pg 213)

Jeannette Walls relates her moving story of her disarrayed past through the use of many rhetorical strategies. These strategies serve to give a stronger meaning to the words put on the page. Because the story is actually a memoir, and not a fictitious story made up in the mind of Walls, many of the strategies – especially those used in dialogue – seem almost unintentional. However, there was such a wide use of rhetorical strategies that it simply could not have been an accident. The strategies not only get across the author’s message, but also aid in the development of each of the characters. For example, Jeannette’s father uses didactic in many different instances, creating his characteristic of the creative and intelligent father always teaching his children lessons. When I read the book, I was surprised at how much symbolism there was for a memoir. The rhetorical strategies at use in Walls’ writing serve to make apparent those symbols, many which would not have been able to be written were it not for the specific rhetorical strategy used in the instance.