Jeanette Walls recounts her memoir from a child like innocent manner, she has away of describing the neglect of her parents without straight up condemning them for how she was raised. Through out her memoir, Walls is straight forward and lets us judge her parents for herself. Despite her parents challenges and neglect, Jeanette loves them and her forgiveness to her parents is shown in her writing style.

Jeannette uses personifications throughout her memoir The Glass Castle, on page 9, Jeanette claims "[T]he flames leaped up, reaching my face” when she was burnt at age three while cooking hot dogs. Jeanette personifies the fire as leaping up and reaching her face to describe how the fire had burnt her face and quickly became out of her control causing her physical harm.

Another example of Jeanette using personification is on the families car. Jeanette explains that when she was little, she would name the families car so that it was part of the family. Considering her family's nomadic lifestyle, Jeanette spent a lot of time in the families car. On page 130, while the Walls family were skedaddling once again, Jeanette describes their pit stop to stretch their legs as time to let the "Oldsmobile" catch it's breath, "Finally, we entered hill country, climbing higher and deeper into the Appalachian Mountains, stopping from time to time to let the Oldsmobile catch its breath."

Situational irony is an literary element Walls uses in her memoir. In most families, it is expected for the parents to take on the parental role and be the financial and emotional provider in the family. In the Walls family, Jeannette takes control of the budgeting in order to leave some money for food and basic needs. In addition to budgeting Jeanette and her sister take on as many part time jobs to contribute financially because her mother refuses to get a job. In financial desperation, the Walls sibling speak up and force her mother to get a job but even then, it is the Walls children that wake their mother up, feed her, provide a way of getting her to and from work and will create the lesson plans for her students, grade the classes work and tidy the classroom to prevent her from being fired.

The Walls children are also the ones that provide each other with emotional stability. While her mother is very inmature and her father takes on a jekyll and hyde personality, the Walls children have always stood up for each other and will fight for justice. Case in point, when Erma, the Walls grandmother throws herself on her grandson Brian and attempts to molest him, Lori stands up and puts an end to it, whereas Rex, their father is furious that she would talk back to his mother and Rose Mary just states that rape isn't that big a deal and that they are being drama queens.

Futhermore, it is the Walls children that decide that they need to remove themselves from a dysfunctional home setting, move to New York and learn to provide for themselves.

I. A Woman on the Street

A woman on the Street is a brief scene which takes place in the present. Jeanette is on her way to an award ceremony in a taxi and is worried she may be too fancy for the occasion. While driving to the event, Jeannette sees her mother digging through the trash out in the cold. She is worried about her mother’s wellbeing but notices how perfectly content her mother is, while digging through the trash. Her mother enjoys being homeless and considers it an adventure. It is brought to our attention that she has no care what others think of her. The next day, Jeanette invites her mother for lunch concerned about her wellbeing. Being concerned for another's wellbeing shows an act of caring , empathy and love towards her mother, but Rose Mary, Jeanette's mother interprets her concern as an insult to her self-sufficiency  and offended suggest that her daughter Jeanette has her moral values mixed up and is not at all how she raised her.

The Desert

The dessert segment of Jeanette's memoir truly captures the neglect and carelessness her parents have for their children. The beginning of the chapter starts with Jeanette at age 3 roasting a hotdog on the stove unsupervised and her tutu catching on fire. Instead of being concern or traumatized by her child’s injury, Rose Mary shows her character by commenting that next time she cooks hotdogs, she will have to be more prudent, enforcing her thrive on neglect parenting style. Jeanette needs to stay at the hospital for a few weeks. At the hospital; we gain a glimpse of insight that things at home are chaotic when she compares the calm, peaceful hospital setting to the opposite of her family norm. As Jeanette recalls her family visiting, her peace at the hospital was disrupted. Her family shares with her how they entered her name in a raffle and how they went on a vacation without her to the zoo. Rex and Rose Mary, Jeanette's parents show no remorse to the fact that she is burnt, in fact. Rex is upset and offended that Jeanette needs to be bandaged and vocalizes his regret for bringing her to the hospital. Rex breaks her out of the hospital before her attended release.

Rex's and Rose Mary's lack of care for Jeanette wellbeing becomes more evident and not even two days after Jeanette's escape from the hospital, the Walls skedaddle out of town. "skedaddle" is the term Rex uses when the family has to do a sudden move in the middle of the night, taking only the things necessary for survival. The Walls family is used to "skedaddling" in order to escape, what Rex exaggerates as the FBI when in reality, they are hiding from the bill collectors for refusing to pay the bills. While "skedaddling" from town to town, Jeanette never has a sense of home except her cat. Rex demonstrates his abusive nature when he throws the families cat out the window on a busy highway because the cat was "complaining". In addition to physical abuse towards the innocent animal, Rex's action shows emotional abuse towards Jeanette and sends out a message of fear if she ever disagrees with him. As Jeanette's train of thought progresses, we learn of Mary Charlene, Jeanette's younger sister that died at 9 months while in her crib. While the death of Mary Charlene caused much grief to Rex and cause him to drink away his problems by becoming an alcoholic, the death of Rose Mary's child didn't seem to affect her. Rose believes that God must have had made an mistake by giving her Mary Charlene and so God decided to kill her. Example, after example shows that Rose Mary never takes any responsibility for her actions and will never hold herself accountable for her mistakes. The truth being that Mary Charlene died at 9 months because she was neglected. Neglect and carelessness is also shown when the Walls family was "skedaddling" to Los Vegas and Jeanette was thrown from the car, onto a railway track on the side of the highway. The tragic part of this incident is the neglect that neither parents noticed that their child was thrown out of the car until Jeanette's brother brought it to their attention. Jeanette was left on the side of the road bruised up for hours, long enough for all the blood to dry before the Walls had noticed her disappearance  and returned back to retrieve her.

After living in Los Vegas, Rex developed a gambling habit and after being caught cheating in a card game, the Walls "skedaddle" once more to Sans Francisco, where Maureen, Jeanette's younger sister is born. Skedaddling a few more times to Blyth and Battle Mountain, Jeanette finally feels a sense of home. Jeanette states that she was happiest in Battle Mountain, despite a lack of money, being deprived of food and the manipulation and abuse present in Battle Mountain; Jeanette found her love for journalism and took on the schools newspaper role as an editor. In Battle Mountain, Rex found a steady job that paid the rent and quite drinking, although he was still gambling. And with much pressure from the Walls children, Rose Mary took on a job as a teacher to support the family financially. Rose Mary's selfish, self-absorbed character is drastically shown in Battle Mountain when Lori, Jeanette and Brian push Rose to wake her up in the morning, drag herself out of bed, make her breakfast for her and organize a ride for her to get to and from work, create the lesson plans, clean her classroom, grade all the assignments and do everything in their power so that their mother could keep her job. During the Walls time living at Battle Mountain, Jeanette met and befriended a boy named Billy; Billy was a juvenile delinquent and was always getting into trouble. When Billy started to form a crush on Jeanette, Jeanette quickly stood her grown. Billy attempted to rape her. When Jeanette confronted her mother on the issue, Her mother did nothing on the topic and told her to stop being a drama queen. Lori and Brian, took matters into their own hand, and just like their father had taught them, they got the shot gun and warn Billy to never come back. In Battle Mountain it is without saying that the Walls children were the ones to step up like adults and provide stability. Instead a facing court for the misdemeanor, Rex packs the bags and they skedaddle.  Jeanette is then informed that Rose Mary's mother passed away, to Jeanette, this is heart breaking. Jeanette had loved her grandmother’s house and was her only escape from the dysfunction. Grandma had a beautiful house and provided Jeanette with some stability growing up in the summers. Rose Mary's lack of empathy of even mentioning her death caused Jeanette much grief, her grandma passed with no real recognition or funeral. Rose Mary did however inherit a nice house in phoenix, their next move. It is later revealed that Rose Mary had also inherited a million dollar property in Texas but never mentioned it to her Family. Once in phoenix, all seemed to be going well, they did not need to pay rent because they owned the house and the Walls children were all placed in an elite school in the gifted class.  Once again however, when all seemed to be going well, there's a turn in events, Rex lost his job and turned to heavy drinking. To escape from bill collectors they have no choice but to live with family in Welsh, West Virginia.

Welsh, West Virginia

Jeanette and the Walls family have no other choice but to move in with Rex's parents in Welsh. Rex comes from an abusive home, raised my perverted alcoholics. Jeanette's suffers many hardships in Welsh. Her Grandmother is an alcoholic that doesn't feed the children for school and once again they are forced to fend for themselves, digging through school trash bins to find food. Jeanette and her sibling were living in constant fear of Rex's parents Erma and grandpa Walls; they weren't allowed to make much noise and were very racist towards all blacks in the community. Her grandmother's racist remarks caused Jeanette to be jumped at recess and her and her siblings would often get bullied. Welsh were very impoverished yet the Walls siblings were still teased for going to school dirty.  Despite being very intellectual, Jeanette and her siblings were thought to be mentally disabled and were placed in "special “classes because no one could understand there accent. While in Welsh, Jeanette did make one friend named Dinitia Hewitt. Dinitia Hewitt was one of the bullies that jumped her when they first came to Welsh, but when Dinitia helped her lost brother get home safely, Dinitia gave Jeanette another chance and became friends, despite her grandmothers racist wishes. While in Welsh, Rex and Rose Mary had to go back to phoenix to pick up some furniture and left grandma Erma and grandpa Walls with them for a few weeks. But as soon as the Walls parents left, Jeanette had a taste of what her father experienced as a child. The grandparents became very abusive, neglecting to feed them and leaving them locked in their room. When Erma sexually abuses Brian, Lori, acts as a parental figure and steps up to stop the assault. As a result, Erma kicks them all out and the Walls buy the smallest shack of a house they could afford. This house was rat infested, with no indoor plumbing, heating and barely a roof. Rex becomes very upset with Lori for being rude to her Grandmother and we learn that Rose Mary doesn't care if her children get sexually abused. At their new house, Rex keeps his dream of the glass castle alive by digging the foundation and putting the first steps in place to make his dream a reality. It’s not more than a month later that Rex gives up on his foundation and uses the whole in their front yard as a place to put their trash so they don’t need to pay the fee to remove their weekly garbage. Erma passes away due to Alcoholism and the Walls family is invited back to the Grandparents house when they need to bath because unlike the Walls, they have running water. One day in Welsh, while Jeanette is taking a bath, Stanley, Jeanette’s brother who lives with her Grandpa, sexually molests her. Later on in the school year her friend  Dinitia drops out of school, she had become pregnant by her mother’s boyfriend who had raped her and was sent to jail for stabbing him. Once again, Jeanette joins the schools journal club and is taught by Rex’s old English teacher. Jeanette decides she wants to become a writer and wants to go to school.  Once settled in Welsh, Rose Mary leaves for the summer to renew her teaching degree, while her mother was gone, Jeanette was in charge of budgeting. For a while, all seemed well and they were no longer going over budget and struggling. Rex then starts to manipulate Jeanette and she felt like she had no choice but to hand over the money to Rex for drinking. Rex starts drinking heavily and when Rose gets back, she decides to go back to being an artist and won’t help provide financial help for the family.  In a rage, Jeanette talks back to her mother and expresses her frustration of her mother’s lack of care about the family’s wellbeing. Rex then beats her with his belt and Jeanette fires her ambitions to leave Welsh, move to New York and start fresh as a journal. Lori and Jeanette talk and decide to raise all the money they can to leave Welsh. Lori babysits all day after school, and Jeanette was lucky enough to find a job in a jewelry shop. Jeanette losses all hope and trust in her father when they find out that he had taken all their money they saved to go on a drinking binge. Luckily, Jeanette is offered a babysitting job from a well-off family in Iowa and Jeanette gives the job to her sister Lori. After that summer, Lori made it to New York and saves enough money for Jeanette to follow her to New York.  Once Jeanette finished the school year, she says her goodbyes and leaves to New York.

New York City

Jeanette and Lori unite in New York where Jeanette finishes her schooling. Lori fins a job at a bar tender and Jeanette has a job working at a fast food stand in order to pay rent. After finishing her schooling, Jeanette finds a co-op at a newspaper company where she works for free, after working there a year, the Company hires Jeanette and she writes for a newspaper called the Phoenix. Jeanette quits her job at the fast-food place and is enjoying her life in a settled apartment. Lori and Jeanette decide to bring Brian to New York after finding out that Rex is in a downhill spiral of drinking and that Rose Mary, their mother is doing nothing but painting and neglecting Brian and Maureen. Together they raise enough to bring Brian and Maureen over to New York in a settled environment but Rex is furious and claims his disowns Lori for stealing his children away from them.

Years later, with little communication, Rex and Rose Mary show up in New York so they can be a family again. Lori doesn’t

 want to say no, so they stay with them in the apartment but very shortly wear out their welcome. Rex has gone back to

drinking and Rose Mary keeps hoarding in things she buys with no care. When Lori kicks her parents out for good, The

Walls parents become homeless and they take Maureen, who is still under 18 with them. Jeanette has finally saved enough

to go to college and starts her college at Benards in journalism.

Soon after, Rex is diagnosed with Tuberculosis and has to stay at the hospital. While in the hospital, Rex sobers up and acts like a real father towards his children. When Rex finds out that Jeannette can’t continue her education at college because she doesn’t have enough money, Rex gives Jeanette a thousand dollars to cover the cost and tells Jeanette how proud he is of her. Rex truly loves Jeanette even if it’s sometimes hard for him to show it. Jeanette graduates from college and finds herself a husband and a well-paid job as a journalist. Lori becomes a well-known artist in the area and Brian becomes a police officer. Maureen on the other hand, dropped out of college and when asked to move out from their home, stabs their mother. Maureen spends some time in prison then decides to move to California, her dream destination. Despite never hearing from her again, Jeanette believes Maureen is happy to get away. Sometime later, Rex had a heart attack and passed away and Rose Mary continues her adventure being homeless in New York.

ThanksgivingAll the walls children are all grown up with families of their own and decide to reunite for thanksgiving. Together they reconnect and reflect on the happy adventurous times they had with their father Rex. Together they toast to the fact their time with Rex was never a dull moment.