They live this dichotomy out in their lives as Rose Mary drags the family to church to “do this in remembrance of me,” while Rex emptied bottle after bottle hoping to forget.

Being of no particular religious background and critical of his wife Rose Mary’s affinity for the Church and the miracles of Jesus, Rex looks to alcohol as a solution. Rex’s woes, according to the account given by Jeannette, begin with discovering the dead body of his infant child. They never seem to escape their woes as their father’s issues reappear wherever he decides to temporarily plant his family. Each time purging their lives of any worldly attachments for the sake of freedom. When dad loses a job or is bored with his work then it is time to skedaddle. When bills stack up, their dad Rex decides to skedaddle. This type of conflict management will reappear throughout the memoir and speaks to how parenting and responsibility is to work in the Walls household. Always critical of kindness, Jeanette’s family decides to rescue her from the ward in their famous “skedaddle” methodology. Jeannette’s accident leaves her under the care of hospital nurses who treat Jeannette with dignity and pamper her with what other children might view as bare essentials. This event introduces the family’s emphasis on the ideal of self-reliance, but also reveals the sheltered and paranoid way the Walls chose to raise their children.

Jeannette Walls begins the memoir with the scalding of her own three-year old body while cooking her own “easy” hot dog meal.

The book is also a commentary on the restlessness of the counterculture movement of the second half of the twentieth century, where families moved away from traditional social values and challenged the materialism of their age.

She explores how parents can influence the direction of their children’s lives and how her own sensibilities were formed. Walls explores the decisions her parents made raising her, her father’s alcoholism, and her mother’s un-involved parenting style. In The Glass Castle, Jeannette records her childhood memories and moves all the way through her adult years while she describes the many different cities their family escapes from. The Glass Castle: A Memoir: Jeannette Walls Background

The glass castle a memoir