Jeannette Walls’ memoir The Glass Castle recounts her life through a collection of short entries. The rawness is portrayed through a collection of short entries. Her rags to riches story creates an interesting twist on classic racial issues and classism. Throughout her riveting narrative, Walls focuses on the events rather than the anger and pain that they caused.
Her humble story follows her from her earliest memories to adulthood, as the novel is both a memoir. The nomadic family never settled, moving in the middle of the night for “adventure.” Yet the most highlighted story begins with when the precocious protagonist, Jeannette, burns herself to the point of hospitalization. Parts of her are already scarred from her youthful start, as it shows a continuation of the Cycle of Poverty. She is from an impoverished family, and while it was a lifestyle choice, her entire life is determined through her family’s wealth. Speculatively, Jeannette does not focus on the pain in the situation, and this thematic element is embedded throughout her life. The family values finding the adventure in the anguish. She tells a harrowing tale about her most terrifying moments. Facing sexual assault and its dismissal by her mother, she was always in charge of protecting herself, her siblings, and bearing the silence with it. Her silence was a coping mechanism with the struggle and fear --consenting with a fortuitous life she deliberately chose to fantasize in order to feign the pain. Her writing uncovers her relationships facing wealth, race, and rape culture.
When in West Virginia, she delineates the stark racial contrast, but never the emotions and tensions of it beyond her blatantly racist grandmother’s remarks. The de facto segregation is evident as she describes the public pool as separated. When the pool is free, the morning, all the African Americans go swimming, and when it is 50 cents all the whites go. Just from that remark, one can conclude this is yet another response to the causation of unequal opportunities. After being invited by her friend that was African American to go swimming, she recounts it as one of the best times in her life with more accepting women in the locker room. However after that one day, they stopped meeting up as the town detested it. Yet again personal relationships are pulled apart by the societal factors.
The so-called “glass castle” is really a representation of Walls’ father’s vow to provide for his family. However, that vow was broken time and time again, with the family often unable to make ends meet. Her father always expected fidelity and forgiveness, asking his daughter “When have I ever let you down?” The reader is left feeling the confusion that Jeanette may have felt. Her amazing story is one that readers cannot put down. Following her life, readers get a sense of the shockingly true story. The book has ruined reading for me, because I will always be searching for another story that is so captivating.