TOW #12 - The Glass Castle

Children have an innocent view on the world that is almost impossible to imagine. How can one child love their parents even after they have, from almost anyone’s perspective, ruined their childhood? Jeannette Walls explains how familial love is unconditional, and even in the worst of times parents and children find love.

The Glass Castle is a memoir written by Jeannette Walls who has instant credibility as she writes all of the events from her point of view. She grew up in a dysfunctional family, constantly moving around with a father who was a dangerous drunk and a mother who doesn’t always act as responsible as a mother should. She wrote this book after growing up to show the unwavering love of family. The audience she writes to is pretty general because it was published so that anyone could read it. It probably appeals most to those who need inspiration or have a loving family because it shows the strength of love.

Walls utilizes narration and point of view very well. Through narration she shows how her father makes extremely harmful decisions to the family, but he makes the decisions as an attempt to maintain his pride. For example, when his daughter was in the hospital he took her out of the hospital and drove her to another town because he didn’t trust the “heads-up-their-assess med-school quacks.” However, without these doctors Jeannette would most likely have died from her burns.

The narration is aided by first person point of view. It is very important that the story is told through first person because it shows the innocence of Walls. She thought that her dad was perfect and that everything that he did was just. However, as a reader it is very easy to tell that her dad was not perfect, and that he acted differently around his children than he actually was to keep up an image of a perfect father. The point of view shows how easy it is to convince children to trust their parents, and how one can love their dad unendingly even though their dad caused their homelessness growing up. This is important with her purpose, because both the narration and point of view show how the author can love her parents unconditionally. The book shows the true strength of love, and that love trumps all, even homelessness and near-death experiences. I think that purpose was achieved and that I could understand how the daughter of an unstable man like Rex Walls could love him.