The Glass Castle

Billy Deel is a minor yet significant antagonist in Jeannette Walls's memoir The Glass Castle, appearing during the family's tumultuous time in Midland, Texas. He is the son of a troubled, neglectful father and lives in the same trailer park where the Walls children temporarily stay. About Jeannette's age, he initially shows interest in her by giving her a ring and declaring them "married" in a childlike, possessive manner. However, his affection quickly turns into aggression and menace.

The relationship escalates when Billy, feeling rejected, retrieves a BB gun and starts shooting at Jeannette and her siblings. In a remarkable act of self-defense and defiance, Jeannette grabs Rex's pistol and fires back, scattering Billy and showcasing her fierce survival instinct, which defines her throughout the memoir. In retaliation, Billy goes to the police and falsely accuses Jeannette of unprovoked shooting, leading to the Walls family's hurried departure from Midland—just one of many chaotic "skedaddles" that mark Jeannette's childhood.

Billy Deel thematically represents the dangerous, unstable environments that Rex and Rose Mary's lifestyle exposes their children to. He also acts as a catalyst that highlights Jeannette's resilience and resourcefulness: even as a young girl, she refuses to be a passive victim. His brief presence emphasizes how the Walls children must consistently defend themselves in the absence of reliable parental protection.

Brian Walls is the second-youngest of the four Walls children and Jeannette's closest childhood friend in Jeannette Walls's memoir The Glass Castle. Positioned between Lori and Maureen in the family birth order, Brian shares Jeannette's scrappy resilience and becomes her main partner in survival. Together, they rummage through garbage cans in Welch to find food, build a cardboard "fort" in the backyard, and stand up to neighborhood bullies—most notably when they confront Ernie Goad's gang with makeshift weapons. Brian's loyalty is put to the test during the Billy Deel incident, when he stands with Jeannette as she fires Rex's pistol to scare off Billy, a moment that highlights both siblings' ability to rely on themselves in tough situations.

Brian's journey parallels Jeannette's path toward stability, though he takes a different route. While Jeannette escapes to New York through journalism, Brian eventually becomes a member of the New York Police Department, reflecting his lifelong urge to bring order to the chaos of his childhood. His choice to become a cop carries a subtle irony: the child who grew up in lawless, neglectful conditions turns into an enforcer of the law. Brian is depicted as steady, brave, and practical—traits shaped by necessity. He is less reflective on the page than Jeannette, acting more as a doer than as a narrator, yet his reliable presence emphasizes the memoir's main theme that sibling solidarity can fill the gap left by failing parents.

David (mentioned by his first name in the memoir, though Jeannette Walls later publicly identified him as David Finkel) is Jeannette's first husband in The Glass Castle. He appears in the later parts of the memoir, after Jeannette has established herself in New York City. He represents the stability, respectability, and upward mobility that Jeannette strives for after escaping her chaotic, nomadic childhood. Their relationship and eventual marriage symbolize Jeannette's desire to fit into a world of conventional success and social acceptance.

David is depicted as wealthy and socially refined—a stark contrast to the Walls family's poverty and eccentricity. Jeannette is acutely aware of this divide, and much of her anxiety around him comes from her fear that he will learn the truth about her background. She goes to great lengths to hide her parents' homelessness in New York City, even while Rex and Rose Mary are living on the streets and in squats. This concealment reveals her deep shame and complicated feelings about her family identity.

In the narrative, David's role is ultimately limited and functional rather than deeply examined. He serves as a foil—his ordered, affluent world sharply contrasts with the disorder Jeannette came from. When Jeannette eventually divorces him and later finds a partner who accepts her full story, it marks a turning point in her journey toward self-acceptance. David thus becomes a transitional figure in Jeannette's path from shame and concealment to honesty and reconciliation with her past.

Dinitia Hewitt is a Black girl from Welch, West Virginia, who represents one of Jeannette Walls's few authentic childhood friendships and serves as a lens for exploring race, class, and social boundaries in a heavily segregated Appalachian town. When Jeannette first arrives in Welch, Dinitia is part of a group of Black girls who bully and intimidate her, reflecting the racial tensions and territorial dynamics of their struggling neighborhood. This friendship takes a turn when Jeannette saves Dinitia's younger brother from an aggressive dog, an act of courage that eases the animosity between them and earns Dinitia's trust and gratitude.

The two girls connect over their similar situations—both are poor and have troubled home lives—and Dinitia invites Jeannette to her home, where Jeannette meets Dinitia's mother and experiences a warmth that contrasts sharply with the chaos of the Walls household. However, their friendship is delicate and limited by the strict racial segregation in Welch; the community's biases make a visible friendship between a Black girl and a white girl socially complicated. Dinitia eventually drifts out of Jeannette's life, and a later, heartbreaking detail reveals that Dinitia ends up in prison, a fate that emphasizes the memoir's larger themes about how poverty and systemic disadvantage can limit futures. Although a minor character in terms of page count, Dinitia serves as a moral and social mirror, highlighting Jeannette's capacity for empathy and the heavy burden of circumstance on young lives.

Erma Walls is Rex's mother and the paternal grandmother of the Walls children, who are introduced when the family moves to Welch, West Virginia, to live in her cramped, rundown home. She serves as a counterpoint to the idealized image Rex has created of his upbringing, shedding light on the likely origins of his alcoholism, volatility, and emotional wounds. Erma is portrayed as cruel, bigoted, and neglectful—a woman who drinks heavily, uses racist language without hesitation, and shows little affection for her grandchildren. The most shocking moment involving Erma occurs when she is caught sexually assaulting Brian while supposedly fixing his pants. When Jeannette and Lori confront her, Erma reacts with rage and kicks the children out of her house. Tragically, Rex chooses to side with his mother instead of his children, providing a painful insight into the cycle of abuse that shaped him. Erma also openly disdains Rose Mary, treating her daughter-in-law with disdainful hostility. She dies during the family's time in Welch, and Rex's grief-fueled binge that follows her death highlights how deeply intertwined he remained with her, despite—or perhaps because of—her abuse. Erma's brief but crucial role reshapes our understanding of Rex: his shortcomings as a father become more understandable, if not excusable, once we see the environment that raised him. She embodies generational trauma and stands as the novel's clearest symbol of how dysfunction is passed down through families.

Grandma Smith is Rose Mary Walls's mother and plays a minor yet symbolically important role in Jeannette Walls's memoir The Glass Castle. She is most vividly remembered during the family's short stay at her home in Phoenix, Arizona — a time that offers one of the few glimpses of relative stability in the tumultuous childhood of the Walls children. Grandma Smith's house is clean, cozy, and well-stocked, providing a striking contrast to the hardships and neglect the children usually face. She is warm and nurturing towards her grandchildren, giving them regular meals, proper beds, and a sense of domestic normalcy that is seldom found in the chaotic care of Rex and Rose Mary.

Grandma Smith's story is largely shaped by absence and loss: she passes away and leaves her Phoenix home to Rose Mary, an inheritance that momentarily offers the family a chance at stability. However, Rex and Rose Mary squander this opportunity — Rex drinks away their money, and Rose Mary resists settling down — leading the family to ultimately abandon the house and return to their nomadic, impoverished lifestyle. This moment is crucial in Jeannette's growing disillusionment with her parents' choices.

As a character, Grandma Smith represents traditional domesticity and responsible adulthood, quietly contrasting with Rose Mary's bohemian neglect. Her legacy — the house — serves as a tangible symbol of the stability that was always within the Walls family's grasp but continually sacrificed to Rex's aspirations and Rose Mary's inaction.

Jeannette Walls narrates and embodies the journey in The Glass Castle, a memoir that explores her tumultuous childhood with nomadic and neglectful parents, leading to her resilient emergence into adulthood. She begins the story as a successful journalist in New York, who unexpectedly spots her homeless mother rummaging through a dumpster—this moment starkly highlights the contrast between her newfound stability and her chaotic beginnings.

From the age of three, when she accidentally burns herself while cooking hot dogs alone, Jeannette shows remarkable resilience and an almost stubborn optimism inspired by her father Rex's grand dreams. She eagerly learns about geology, astronomy, and self-reliance from him, defending his character even as his alcoholism worsens and the family faces hunger and squalor in Welch, West Virginia. Despite enduring sexual abuse from relatives and neighbors, near-starvation, and living in a deteriorating house, she channels her energy into journalism at her high school paper and saving money—hiding cash in a piggy bank that Rex ultimately steals to fund his habits.

At seventeen, she moves to New York City with her sister Lori, juggling multiple jobs, enrolling at Barnard College, and graduating with honors. Her story is one of hard-earned self-determination laced with guilt: she constantly grapples with the loyalty she feels toward parents who let her down. The emotional peak of the memoir occurs when she confronts Rex on his deathbed, and later, she must find a way to reconcile her love for him with a clear understanding of the harm he caused. Jeannette's defining characteristic is her ability to embrace contradictions—tenderness and anger, pride and shame—without being overwhelmed by them.

Uncle John is Rex Walls's younger brother and one of the few extended family members featured in Jeannette Walls's memoir The Glass Castle. He mainly appears during the Walls family's time in Welch, West Virginia, where Rex's family is from. Unlike Rex, John has stayed in the struggling Appalachian community, and his presence helps to illuminate the environment that influenced Rex's troubled character.

Uncle John comes across as mostly passive and ineffective—a man who sees dysfunction unfold but doesn't step in to help. He is part of the Welch household, which is dominated by his mother, Erma. Her abusive and alcoholic behavior sets the stage for the family's dysfunction. When Erma molests Brian while supposedly fixing his pants, it's Uncle John's failure to protect the children or hold Erma accountable that highlights the ongoing cycle of neglect and enabling that Rex also perpetuates. John does not confront Erma's actions, reflecting the silence and complicity that allowed abuse to continue within the Walls family.

His main characteristic is passivity: he isn’t a villain with any agency nor a source of support; he is simply a bystander whose inaction carries significant weight. His character arc is essentially flat—he doesn't bring about any change and remains unchanged throughout the story. Through him, Jeannette shows that Rex's failures were not isolated incidents but rather the result of a deeply dysfunctional family system. Uncle John serves as a subtle but important piece of evidence in Jeannette's broader exploration of her roots.

Lori Walls is the oldest of the four Walls children in Jeannette Walls's memoir The Glass Castle. She serves as both a quiet observer of her family's chaos and one of its first successful escapees. Artistic and curious, Lori copes with their nomadic poverty by immersing herself in fantasy novels and drawing—skills that reflect a vibrant inner life nurtured despite their severe lack of material resources. Her most notable physical feature—extreme nearsightedness that goes uncorrected for years due to the family's inability to afford glasses—acts as a powerful metaphor: once a kind teacher provides her with a proper pair, Lori's entire perspective sharpens, and her ambitions begin to take shape alongside her newfound clarity of vision.

In Welch, West Virginia, Lori faces the same squalor, hunger, and neglect as her siblings, but instead of confronting it, she channels her frustration into planning. She and Jeannette devise a careful escape strategy, saving money in a piggy bank hidden in the house—money that Rex ultimately steals to buy alcohol, a heartbreaking betrayal that deepens Lori's disillusionment with him. Undeterred, she accepts a scholarship for a summer arts program in New York City, and that trip marks her permanent departure. Lori settles in New York, finds work, and creates a stable apartment that becomes a refuge for Jeannette and later Brian.

Her journey shifts from the stoicism of the eldest child to a self-determined independence. Lori is practical where Rex is idealistic and grounded where Rose Mary is self-absorbed, and her early escape allows her to break the cycle of dysfunction more cleanly than her siblings—though, like them, she never entirely escapes the family's influence.

Maureen Walls is the youngest of the four Walls children in Jeannette Walls's memoir The Glass Castle, and her story is arguably the most tragic among the siblings. Born into the family's chaotic, nomadic way of life, Maureen is the most strikingly beautiful of the children. This beauty leads her to often be taken in and fed by neighbors and friends—a coping mechanism that keeps her at a distance from the family's collective suffering but also leaves her lacking the resilience that her siblings develop through their struggles. While Jeannette, Lori, and Brian cultivate a tough self-reliance, Maureen grows up relying on others' kindness, never fully grasping the survival skills that the older children painfully learn.

When the family finally settles in Welch, West Virginia, Maureen experiences the same squalor and neglect—the dilapidated house on Little Hobart Street, chronic hunger, and social humiliation—but she copes by retreating into other people's homes instead of facing the dysfunction head-on. After the siblings eventually escape to New York City, Maureen follows them but finds it hard to establish herself without a support system. Her instability peaks during a violent breakdown when she stabs Rose Mary after being refused help, resulting in Maureen’s stay in a psychiatric facility in California. Once released, she moves to California for good, cutting off ties with her family.

Maureen epitomizes the toll of neglect on the most vulnerable child—the one who fell through the cracks simply because she was the easiest to ignore. Her estrangement at the end of the memoir serves as a subtle indictment of Rex and Rose Mary's parenting.

Rex Walls is the captivating, intelligent, and deeply self-destructive father of the Walls family in Jeannette Walls's memoir The Glass Castle. A self-taught engineer and avid reader, Rex enchants his children with grand ideas—especially the "Glass Castle," a solar-powered dream home that he constantly sketches but never actually builds. He teaches Jeannette to swim by tossing her into a sulfur spring, frames her near-burning on a gas stove as her "first meeting with fire," and often uproots the family in the middle of the night in what he calls "doing the skedaddle," always staying a step ahead of creditors or the law.

Rex's journey is one of great potential unraveling due to alcoholism. In Welch, West Virginia, his drinking drains the family's grocery money, and he coerces Jeannette into acting as bait for a bar-hustle scheme, putting her at risk of sexual exploitation. His most painful betrayal is when he takes her carefully saved escape fund. Still, he plays a role in her departure, essentially nudging her toward New York, understanding that she needs to escape the life he cannot.

In his later years, Rex lives on the streets of New York, proud yet broken, sometimes showing up at Jeannette's apartment. He dies from a heart attack, and during a Thanksgiving dinner afterward, Jeannette raises a toast to him as "a character." Rex represents the conflict between visionary brilliance and devastating neglect—a father whose strengths and weaknesses are intertwined.

Rose Mary Walls is Jeannette's mother and one of the memoir's most complex and frustrating characters. A trained artist and self-described "excitement addict," she prioritizes her own freedom and creative fulfillment over her children's basic needs, creating much of the book's emotional tension. Rose Mary has teaching credentials and takes on school teaching jobs from time to time, but she often quits or loses them, claiming that a steady paycheck stifles her artistic spirit. While the family struggles to make ends meet in Welch, she is found hiding a large chocolate bar under her bed—eating it in secret instead of sharing with her children—a moment that highlights her selfishness. She clings to a stubbornly optimistic outlook, calling hardship "adventure" and viewing poverty as a form of liberation from materialism.

Her journey shifts from a free-spirited young mother in the desert Southwest to an older woman squatting in a Manhattan building, stubbornly rejecting the stability Jeannette tries to provide. Even after Rex's death, she resists a conventional lifestyle, asserting that she is "an excitement addict" who cannot change. However, Rose Mary isn't entirely villainous: she teaches her children to read early, encourages their curiosity, and sometimes displays genuine affection. Her ownership of a valuable property in Texas—which she refuses to sell despite the family's struggles—shows both her passivity and her strong desire for independence. Ultimately, Rose Mary challenges readers to consider the fine line between eccentricity and neglect, leaving Jeannette's complicated love for her unresolved until the memoir's final pages.

In The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls portrays family as both a source of support and a source of harm, showing that these two aspects can coexist without diminishing one another. This tension is introduced early on when Rex Walls reacts to a kitchen fire that severely burns young Jeannette with pride instead of panic, viewing her ability to manage the stove as evidence of her being his daughter. That pride is genuine, but it also comes at a cost to her well-being. This dual nature recurs throughout the memoir.

The glass castle itself serves as the memoir's central symbol, reflecting the family's internal dynamics: Rex's ongoing sketches for a solar-powered mansion in the desert embody both his genuine love for his children and his persistent failure to make those dreams a reality. Each time he unfurls the plans, the Walls kids feel a genuine sense of wonder, yet the foundation hole dug in Welch ends up being used as a trash pit, with their dreams literally buried under waste.

Rose Mary's approach to motherhood operates in a similar way. Her commitment to her identity as an artist over that of a parent isn't simply selfishness, according to Walls; it represents a form of self-ownership that the children ultimately need to survive. However, this same attitude leaves them scavenging for food while she keeps chocolate hidden under her blanket.

The emotional peak of the memoir occurs when Jeannette, now thriving in New York, sees her parents living homeless on the street and feels shame before concern. This sequence of feelings—and her candid acknowledgment of it—illustrates the book's central idea: family influences identity so profoundly that even its shortcomings become integral to who we are, impossible to erase and impossible to fully embrace.

In Jeannette Walls's memoir The Glass Castle, forgiveness isn't presented in a straightforward way; it builds through small, mixed signals that defy simple conclusions. The theme finds its strongest footing in Jeannette's relationship with her father, Rex Walls, whose brilliance and damaging neglect coexist throughout the story.

The tension arises early on: Rex makes repeated promises to construct a glass castle for the family, a shining dream home powered by solar energy. Each time he brings up the plans, Jeannette chooses to believe him, and that choice reflects an ongoing, tentative form of forgiveness — a daughter deciding time and again that her father is more important than his shortcomings. Yet Walls avoids sentimentality. When Rex steals from Jeannette's carefully saved money jar to buy alcohol, the betrayal is depicted with quiet heartbreak, and her silence afterward feels more like exhaustion than acceptance.

The memoir's most profound exploration of forgiveness takes place during Jeannette's adult years, when Rex and Mary find themselves homeless on the streets of New York while Jeannette navigates the polished circles of Manhattan. Instead of severing ties, she continues to show up — bringing food, engaging in arguments, and sharing laughter. The poignant deathbed scene with Rex, where they play cards and exchange jokes even as he is dying, encapsulates the book's perspective: forgiveness here isn't about absolution but about maintaining presence, refusing to let resentment define their relationship.

Mary's artistic self-absorption gets a more subtle reckoning. Jeannette's growing awareness that her mother prioritized painting over her children's needs reshapes forgiveness into something that comes from understanding rather than obligation — a difference the memoir emphasizes without explicitly stating.

In The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls's memoir, freedom serves as both an enticing promise and a source of neglect. The Walls family's constant movement is framed by Rex and Rose Mary as liberation, yet it consistently robs the children of stability, safety, and opportunities.

Rex's belief in self-reliance drives this tension. He often takes the family out of towns in the middle of the night — what the kids call "doing the skedaddle" — framing their escape as an adventure instead of a way to avoid debt and consequences. The Nevada desert becomes a classroom for Jeannette, who learns to care for her own injuries after burning herself, a moment Rex spins as evidence that she can handle anything. His refusal to maintain steady work is couched in the idea of not being tied down by a system, yet the freedom he claims for himself comes at the cost of meals and warmth for his children.

Rose Mary's commitment to her art operates on the same principle. She fiercely protects her painting time, claiming that giving it up for a job would mean losing her soul. While Jeannette and her siblings scavenge for food or pool their lunch money, their hunger becomes the hidden cost of their mother’s self-chosen freedom.

The glass castle itself — Rex's eternally unbuilt dream home — encapsulates the theme. Its blueprints symbolize a freedom that is always postponed, always just out of reach with the next move. When Jeannette finally escapes to New York, her departure mirrors her father's skedaddles, but with a crucial twist: she is moving toward stability instead of away from it, implying that for the children, true freedom requires the very limitations Rex spent his life rejecting.

In The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls's coming-of-age is marked by abrupt, forced changes that strip away her childhood innocence rather than a slow, safe transition. Growing up here is less about development and more about survival, thrusting children into the role of capable adults long before they are ready.

The pattern starts early: at just three years old, Jeannette is cooking hot dogs when her dress catches fire. Instead of seeing this as a reason to keep a toddler away from flames, Rex interprets it as a sign of his daughter’s self-reliance and bravery—a reversal that appears throughout the memoir. The children learn to hunt for food, manage the family’s limited budget, and adjust to new schools every few months, each move requiring them to quickly adapt socially in ways that most kids never experience.

Rex's swimming lesson in the smelly hot spring—where he repeatedly tosses Jeannette in until her panic subsides—highlights the memoir’s core conflict: a father who truly thinks he’s building resilience while inflicting trauma. Jeannette accepts his perspective for years, sharing her struggles with a sense of pride that gradually shifts to sorrow.

The move to Welch, West Virginia, sharpens this theme. Living in a cold house with holes in the walls, Jeannette and her siblings create a self-sustaining unit, shielding each other from both the harsh conditions and their parents' dysfunction. When Jeannette finally escapes to New York at seventeen, her adulthood doesn’t feel like an accomplishment but rather a delayed acknowledgment of a reality she has already been living.

In Jeannette Walls's memoir The Glass Castle, illusion acts as both a means of survival and a slow poison, intricately woven into the family's everyday life through Rex Walls's grand promises and the children's eager desire to believe him.

The title encapsulates the memoir's main illusion: Rex's vision for a self-sustaining solar home he plans to build in the desert, featuring glass walls and a design he continually refines but never starts. In their early years, Jeannette and her siblings regard this blueprint as a cherished object, studying it as evidence that their father's brilliance will eventually lift them out of poverty. The glass castle is more than just a building plan — it represents the shape of Rex's self-mythology, and the children embrace that mythology as completely as they would any physical home.

Rex keeps the illusion alive through dramatic gestures: naming stars as Christmas gifts, framing their constant evasion of creditors as thrilling "skedaddling," and portraying hunger as a character-building challenge instead of neglect. Each reframing encourages the children to view deprivation as a mark of distinction. Jeannette internalizes this so deeply that she initially defends her upbringing to friends in New York, crafting an idealized story about her parents even while her mother sleeps homeless in Central Park.

The emotional turning point in the memoir occurs when Jeannette stops upholding that façade. She realizes that the glass castle is a dream that can never come to fruition — because achieving it would mean Rex has to let go of his fantasy. She mourns not the house itself but the father that the house symbolized. Ultimately, Walls presents illusion with a sense of ambivalence: it fostered childhood wonder while also causing adult harm.

In The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls's memoir, resilience emerges not as a proud stance but as a survival instinct shaped by constant upheaval. The opening scene, where a young Jeannette catches fire while cooking hot dogs alone due to her overwhelming hunger, makes it clear that her endurance stems from necessity rather than heroism. Instead of processing her trauma, Jeannette absorbs it and pushes ahead, a pattern that continues as the family moves chaotically from one desert town to another.

The Walls children cultivate a shared toughness that acts as a substitute for parental protection. When they land in the crumbling mining town of Welch, West Virginia, Jeannette and her siblings make their own furniture, forage for food, and stand up for one another against local bullies—practical actions that gradually build a picture of self-sufficiency. The recurring motif of the "Glass Castle," the dream house Rex Walls constantly promises, serves as a complex symbol: it fuels the children's imagination while revealing their father's failure to provide stability. Jeannette's enduring belief in this dream for years showcases her ability to find meaning amid disappointment.

Her eventual escape to New York, carefully planned and initiated with a secret savings jar, illustrates a shift in resilience from reactive coping to intentional self-creation. However, Walls complicates any neat narrative: even after achieving professional success, she feels shame instead of pride, implying that resilience comes with psychological costs the memoir does not glorify. Ultimately, the theme serves as a candid reflection on what it truly takes to survive a chaotic childhood—and the quiet toll it exacts.

In Jeannette Walls's memoir The Glass Castle, social class is depicted not as a static state but as a dynamic and contested space that the family both occupies and tries to escape from. Rex and Rose Mary Walls present their ongoing poverty as a philosophical choice—an act of defiance against middle-class norms—yet Walls's reflective narration gradually reveals the truth behind that narrative through specific, tangible details.

The family's transient lifestyle in desert towns like Battle Mountain and Welch highlights the harsh realities that ideology often overlooks. In Welch, West Virginia, the Walls children live in a dilapidated house lacking heat, with a hole in the floor and walls stained with soot. Jeannette and her siblings scavenge through school trash bins for meals while Rex squanders grocery money on alcohol, blurring the line between a chosen lifestyle and imposed hardship.

Feelings of class shame emerge in tense social interactions. When Jeannette's classmates notice her worn-out clothes and dirty hair, she internalizes a humiliation that her parents refuse to see. The contrast becomes even clearer during a visit to a friend's warm, well-furnished home, where she realizes for the first time what stability looks like—a realization her parents would dismiss as a sign of weakness.

The memoir's chapters set in New York completely shift the class narrative. Jeannette moves up into Manhattan's professional scene while her parents choose to live in the city's homeless encampments, claiming they are free. This contrast prompts the reader to grapple with a difficult question: when parents choose poverty but impose it on their children, who ultimately pays the price for that ideology? Walls doesn't provide a straightforward answer, allowing the systemic inequity to resonate through the disparity between her parents' beliefs and her siblings' hunger.

In The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls's memoir, survival is not just a backdrop but the central theme of her childhood. From the very first scene—when three-year-old Jeannette accidentally catches fire while cooking hot dogs because she's hungry—it becomes clear that physical safety is never a given. Rex and Rose Mary Walls approach the incident with a detached attitude, checking Jeannette out of the hospital early to dodge the bill. This sets a pattern where the children learn to navigate their parents' neglect by being resourceful rather than expressing anger.

The family's frequent moves, which Rex calls exciting "skedaddles," are really just escapes from debts and responsibilities, compelling the children to adapt their survival tactics in each new location. In Welch, West Virginia, the struggle for survival intensifies: the Walls kids rummage through school trash cans for food, wear insufficient clothing during harsh winters, and sleep in a house with a leaky roof and no heat. Jeannette and her siblings quietly create their own system—pooling lunch money and hiding their savings from their father—showing that survival demands not just endurance but also collaborative problem-solving.

Importantly, Walls does not depict survival as a form of heroism. In the "Piggy Bank" episode, when Rex steals the children's carefully saved escape fund to buy alcohol, the narrative shifts to show that survival is something the kids must pursue against their parents as much as in tandem with them. By the end of the memoir, Jeannette's relocation to New York feels more like a continuation than a victory—her survival morphs into self-creation, with the Glass Castle still unrealized, standing as a symbol of unfulfilled promises that couldn’t support life.