Essay on the Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

Words: 1141
Pages: 5

The Glass Castle The Glass Castle, written by Jeannette Walls, is an autobiographical novel that shows how hard life can be when you have little to no money and highly deteriorated parents. During the whole memoir it shows how hard it is to live in poverty while at the same time trying to raise a family. The exposition of the novel is how having parents that cannot support their children because the lack of a stable income. The rising action is when Jeannette was in a taxi cab going to a party when she sees her mother digging through the trash can and feels embarrassed and tells the taxi driver to take her home. The major conflict in the novel is a man vs. man because Jeannette, her brother, and her sister are all affected by her …show more content…
The novel is told in first person by the narrator Jeannette who talks about her life experiences. Jeannette recalls memories that happened when she was a child and describes her life in poverty. She overcomes personal problems to succeed in life and proves that if she can do it, then anyone can do it. Jeannette makes this novel ambiguous because she makes poverty seem like it’s nothing. She does this to show the reader that not everything will go your way but you have to make the best out of every situation. Life is hard and things happen but you will overcome life’s obstacles if you really set your mind to it. These are the new words I learned while reading this novel: shimmery: glistening tremulously; epitomizes: be a perfect example of; reiterates: say something again or a number of times; perplex: complicate or confuse; reluctant: unwilling and hesitant; tentatively: in a tentative manner; invariably: in every case or on every occasion; snide: derogatory or mocking in an indirect way; rendition: a performance or interpretation; retrospective: an art exhibit showing an entire artistic phrase or representative examples of an artist’s lifework. I think the theme of the novel is to never lose your hope and never give up no matter what. This was a very universal theme which makes it so