Comparison of “The Glass Castle” & “The Woman Warrior”



Comparison of “The Glass Castle” & “The Woman Warrior”

In The Glass Castle, a memoir by Jeannette Walls, Jeannette and her siblings learn to be independent and self-sufficient. The transparent palace that Rex Walls often promised to build for his children functions as a metaphor for a fanciful construct, the carefree facade with which two people, who were unsuited to raise children, camouflaged their struggle to survive in a world for which they were likewise ill equipped. “I could hear mom in the next room singing while she worked on one of her paintings… I stabbed one of the hot dogs with a fork and bent over and offered it to (Juju)… But when I stood up and started stirring the hotdogs again, I felt a blaze of heat on my right side.” (Walls 9)

Jeannette and her siblings do not realize the actuality of the neglect at first, but as they nomadically relocate from town to town, they begin to understand the lack of responsibility Rex and Mary Rose have for them. "Mom and Dad rented a great big U-Haul truck. Mom explained that since only she and Dad could fit in the front of the U-Haul, Lori, Brian, Maureen, and I were in for a treat: We got to ride in the back. It would be fun, she said, a real adventure... Suddenly, with a bang, we hit a huge pothole and the back doors on the U-Haul flew open." (Walls 49)

"When dad wasn't telling us about all the amazing things he had already done, he was telling us about the wondrous things he was going to do. Like build the Glass Castle... Once he finished the Prospector and we struck it rich, he'd start work on our Glass Castle." (Walls 25) Jeannette's father has, for many years, promised to build a home for his family -- the glass castle. He draws up blueprints and modifies them on occasion. Jeannette believes her father's promise to build this enchanting structure and it is a source of hope over the years. Her trust and hope leads Jeannette to recruit her brother to begin digging the foundation, in the back yard of their make-shift house on Little Hobart Street in Welch, West Virginia, in order to help get the elaborate project going.

Despite this assistance from the children, the glass castle remains just a plan as the foundation hole sits ignored. It is a defining moment in Jeannette's understanding when this hole, that should have been the foundation for the glass castle, is slowly filled with the family's waste. As the trash piles up, Jeannette can no longer pretend that her parents are anything other than a freedom starved mother and a useless alcoholic father, who kindle the harsh realization that if she wants a different life, Jeannette will need to create that life through her own initiative. “'Dad,' I said, 'as soon as I finish classes, I'm getting on the next bus out ...