- 'The Glass Castle' is a memoir written by author and journalist Jeannette Walls. The book recounts, firsthand, her experiences growing up in a series of households headed by her parents, nomadic dreamers who were ill-prepared for the realities of parenthood.
- 'The Glass Castle' is a memoir written by author and journalist Jeannette Walls. The book recounts, firsthand, her experiences growing up in a series of households headed by her parents, nomadic.
Athena Glass is fragile while castle is strong. Glass castle is a metaphor for her upbringing: she had a chaotic and unstable childhood, but she also developed strengths from these experiences. Glass castle feels like an amazing promise that will never be fulfilled, but there is still beauty to it, just like all her parents' idealism.
Before reading The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, it is difficult to comprehend the true meaning of the title and its many implications. The glass castle has multiple meanings to it’s title; one literal and one figurative. Literally translated, Jeanette’s father once promised to build her family an ideal house: the glass castle. As Rex Walls, her father, aspires to build this home, he realizes it cannot be funded unless they find gold. In an attempt to find gold her father comes up with “the Prospector” a “complicated contraption” that was going to help the Wall’s family find gold. However, the more her father continued to drink, the farther the invention was from finishing and as the novel progressed, Rex Wall’s drinking habits became worse and worse. Even deeper into the meaning of the title are various thoughts and feelings on Wall’s childhood in its entirety.This glass castle would ultimately be the foundation of happiness which their family would prosper and grow up in. As Jeanette began to grow older, empty promises were left unfilled and the magnificent glass castle remained an unrealistic dream. Representing safety and stability, the glass castle was a goal that her family never reached and a rickety dream that was never fully believed in. The words “glass” and “castle” imply a home that is a comfortable and grand home that could be easily broken. Walls’ family is a reflection of this because although everyone of them clearly loves each other, the chaos of their family itself often broke them apart: “‘It’s not my fault if you’re hungry!’ she shouted. ‘Don’t blame me. Do you think I like living like this? Do you?’ That night when Dad came home, he and Mom got into a big fight”(69).Although the initial intentions were never achieved, in the end, each individual family member found the place they could call home, though it was not the glass castle.
Word count: 323 wordsFree Study Guide for The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls
Downloadable / Printable Version
THE GLASS CASTLE SUMMARY - STUDY GUIDE
QUOTATIONS - IMPORTANT QUOTES AND ANALYSIS
The following quotations are important at various points of the story (Scribner, New York, 2005):
1. “I was sitting in a taxi wondering if I had overdressed for the evening, when I looked out the window and saw Mom rooting through a Dumpster.”
(page 3; This is the striking opening line that immediately differentiates between the author’s world and that of her parents.)
2. “In my mind, Dad was perfect, although he did have what Mom called a bit of a drinking situation.”
(pg. 23; Here Jeannette begins her description of the relationship with her father.)
3. She tells them that he wouldn’t take no for an answer, and she wanted to get away from her mother. She says, “I had no idea your father would be even worse.”
(pg. 27; This shows how Rose Mary married to get away from home, but ended up in a worse situation than she already had.
Vedic astrocartography free.
4. “That’s the thing to remember about all monsters: they love to frighten people, but the minute you stare them down, they turn tail and run.”
(pg. 37; This is one of the lessons Dad taught Jeannette that she always remembered and took to heart.)
5. “Years from now, when all the junk they got is broken and long forgotten, you’ll still have your stars.”
(pg. 41; This is how Dad justifies having no Christmas gifts for the kids.)
6. Dad points to the top of the fire where the flames dissolve into an invisible shimmery heat that makes the desert waver like a mirage. He calls it the zone known in physics as the boundary between turbulence and order. Dad says, “It’s a place where no rules apply, or at least they haven’t figured ‘em out yet. You-all got a little too close to it today.”
The Glass Castle Meaningful Quotes
(pg. 61; This idea of the boundary between turbulence and order parallels the lives of the Walls children.)
7. “Mom gave me a startled look. I’d broken one of our unspoken rules: We were always supposed to pretend our life was one long and incredibly fun adventure.”
(pg. 69; This comment shows how Jeannette’s parents do not want their children to ever voice the truth about their lives.)
8. “In the pitch-black night, there is nothing to look at but the road ahead, lit by the car’s headlights.”
(pg. 90; Jeannette makes this observation as they leave Battle Mountain and head for Phoenix.)
9. “There’s no reason to grieve. We’ve all got to go someday, and Grandma had a life that was longer and fuller than most. And now we have a place to live.”
How to play gamecube games on pc. (pg. 92; This is Mom’s observation when she tells Jeannette that Grandma Smith has died.)
10. “Who cares what they think? None of them had ever had their hand licked by a cheetah.”
(pg. 109; This is Jeannette’s observation when people complain about the family jumping the barrier and touching the cheetah.)
11. “When Dad goes crazy, we all have our own ways of shutting down and closing off, and that was what we did that night.”
(pg. 115; Jeannette makes this comment in response to Dad burning down the Christmas tree.)
12. “You know you’re down and out when the Okies laugh at you.”
(pg. 129; Mom observes this when the poor Oklahomans stare at them sleeping in their car.)
13. “I have to believe they’ll come back . . . If I don’t believe, then they might not return. They might leave us forever.”
(pg. 146; Jeannette makes this comment after Mom and Dad decide to ride back to Phoenix and won’t let the kids go along.)
14. “I got in a fight with the mountain and the mountain won.”
(pg. 169; Dad comes home drunk and badly beaten and this is how he explains where he’s been and what he’s done.)
15. “That’s true, but it could also improve my self-esteem. And at times like these, self-esteem is even more vital than food.”
(pg. 186; This is Mom’s comment when she refuses to sell the diamond ring to buy food.)
16. Jeannette believes that “a newspaper reporter, instead of being holed up in isolation, is in touch with the rest of the world. What the reporter writes influences what people think about and talk about the next day; he knows what is really going on. She decides she wants to be one of the people who knows what is really going on.”
(pg. 204; This is a summary of everything Jeannette wants to do with her life.)
17. “If you want to be treated like a mother, you should act like one.”
(pg. 219; Jeannette tells her mother this when her mother won’t go to work.)
18. Jeannette “braces herself, expecting to hear a scream, but there is only silence and then a small, broken whimpering.”
(pg, 228; This occurs after Jeannette tells Lori that Dad has stolen all their money.
19. Visit tutsgalaxy com for more tutorials. “I’m not upset because I’ll miss you. I’m upset because you get to go to New York, and I’m stuck here. It’s not fair.”
(pg. 237; This shows Mom’s supreme selfishness.)
20. “. . . as soon as I finish classes, I’m getting on the next bus out of here. If the bus stops running, I’ll hitchhike. I’ll walk if I have to. Go ahead and build the Glass Castle, but don’t do it for me.”
(pg. 238; This is how Jeannette finally convinces Dad she’s leaving for New York.)
21. “The homeless sometimes get the lives they want.”
(pg. 256; Jeannette makes this observation to her Political Science professor from her own experiences.)
22. “All those years in Welch with no food, no coal, no plumbing, and Mom had been sitting on land worth a million dollars.”
(pg. 273; Jeannette shows how appalled she is to discover had had this kind of money all along.)
Castle Of Glass Meaning
23. After Maureen’s arraignment, the entire family becomes enraged with each other, “giving vent to all the years of hurt and anger, unloading his or hurt accumulated grievances and blaming the others for allowing the most fragile one of us to break into pieces.”
(pg. 276; This occurs after Maureen’s trial.)
Symbols In The Glass Castle
Downloadable / Printable Version
The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls Free BookNotes Summary
Clapsaddle, Diane. 'TheBestNotes on The Glass Castle'. TheBestNotes.com. . <% varLocale = SetLocale(2057) file = Request.ServerVariables('PATH_TRANSLATED') Set fs = CreateObject('Scripting.FileSystemObject') Set f = fs.GetFile(file) LastModified = f.datelastmodified response.write FormatDateTime(LastModified, 1) Set f = Nothing Set fs = Nothing %> |