Glass Castle Summer Assignment

Michael White

American Lit.

Consider the Role of Class and Gender:

Walls has grown up in poverty her whole entire life until she made the move to New York to start her life on her own life she experienced most of her child undernourished and hungry Walls mentions one of these instances where she is going through the trash at school and getting the leftover from others lunches, “I began smelling the bologna. It seemed to fill the whole room. I became terrified the other kids would smell it, too, and that they’d turn and see my over stuffed purse,”(Pg. 173). This is a difficult time for Walls because she was raised to not rely on others when she could probably tell one of her friends and they could give her some food with no problem. This eventually helped Walls later on in life, like when she moved to New York, she needed to be able to live on her own and she was pretty good at it because that’s how she lived her whole life.

Examine Family Dynamics:
Walls’ parents played a very important role in shaping her views as an adult. There are many moments in the memoir where Walls comes to realization of the way her parents were going about things. Even though her parents were not raising them in the best way her mother helped her always look on the bright side of things. She tries not to say bad things about anyone. When Walls was a child she asked her mother “'Oh Yeah?' I said. 'How about Hitler? What was his redeeming quality? ''Hitler loved dogs,' Mom said without hesitation”(Pg. 144). Her mother can find good in someone as bad as Hitler who killed millions of people. Even though they are living a very poor lifestyle she teaches her kids to not think badly about others. The children could easily be jealous and angry with the other kids and what they have but instead they are taught to look for positives in what they have. One example of how they do this is they find even though their house is small and run down they think its cool how they built their beds by themselves. This theme applies to everyday life as well. Humans shouldn’t go around just looking for the bad things in their life, if you do this you will end up miserable. If Walls went her whole life going on about how terrible her life is she might not have ever made it to New York to have such the successful career she ended up with, she could have ended up living her entire life in Welch.