The Glass Castle

Walls opens the memoir not with her childhood but with an adult scene of shame — spotting her homeless mother from a taxi. Why start there? What does this framing choice tell you about what the book is actually about?

Jeannette returns to the stove immediately after being burned badly enough to be hospitalized at age three. The narrator doesn't comment on whether this is brave, sad, or wrong. Should she? What is Walls's restraint accomplishing?

Rex Walls gives his children stars for Christmas and steals his daughter's escape fund for alcohol. Both things are true at the same time. Is Rex a good father, a bad father, or is that the wrong question?

Rose Mary Walls is sober, educated, and aware of what she is doing when she prioritizes painting over feeding her children. Is she more or less culpable than Rex? Why does the memoir not answer this directly?

The glass castle is never built — the excavation becomes a garbage dump. But Walls names the memoir after it anyway. What does the glass castle mean, and why is it the right title?

Walls's prose is deliberately plain — short sentences, almost no metaphor, no self-pity. How does her style serve her subject? What would be lost if she wrote with more emotional expressiveness?

When Rex steals Jeannette's escape fund, she doesn't rage or collapse — she immediately starts recalculating how to rebuild it. What does this tell you about what the Walls childhood produced in her? Is this admirable, heartbreaking, or both?

Maureen is the only Walls sibling who is not 'okay' by the end. Why does the memoir include her story, and what does her trajectory argue about the limits of the resilience narrative?

Jeannette spends years in New York lying about her parents to social contacts. How does this compare to Rex's lies? Is Jeannette, in this respect, her father's daughter?

Rex and Rose Mary are not poor by circumstance alone — Rose Mary owns land worth $1 million and refuses to sell it. How does this complicate your understanding of the family's poverty?

The memoir is written with Rose Mary's knowledge and initial approval. How does that affect your reading? What might Walls have written differently if her mother were not alive to read it?

Rex teaches Jeannette physics, geology, and arithmetic. He also steals from her. How does Walls ask us to hold both of these as equally true without excusing him?

When Jeannette is sexually abused by a neighbor, Rex gives her a jackknife and teaches her to fight rather than removing her from danger. Is this parenting? Is it worse or better than doing nothing?

Walls grew up to become a journalist — someone whose professional identity is built on telling true stories. How does the memoir's style reflect her professional formation? Did the Walls childhood make her a journalist, or did becoming a journalist allow her to write the memoir?

Rex dies of a heart attack. Rose Mary is still alive. Brian and Lori are okay. Maureen is in California. This is not a tidy ending. Why doesn't Walls try to make it one?

The memoir has been criticized for 'romanticizing neglect' and praised for 'refusing to pathologize an unconventional childhood.' Both critiques engage the same passages. Which do you find more persuasive, and why?

Jeannette says at the end she's not sure what she would change. Is this a satisfying conclusion, an evasion, or an honest answer to an impossible question?

Rex's parenting philosophy — let children learn to swim by throwing them in deep water — produces capable, resourceful adults. Does the end justify the means? Use specific examples from the memoir.

Compare Jeannette's escape from Welch to the typical immigrant narrative of self-invention in America. What does The Glass Castle have in common with the immigrant success story, and where does it diverge?

Rex tells Jeannette she will be a 'great success' at the bus station when she leaves. He also acknowledges he's had little to do with making it happen. Can someone be proud of something they damaged? Is Rex's pride at Jeannette's departure complicated or straightforward?

The memoir is narrated from adulthood but uses a child's perspective for most scenes. Find a passage where the adult narrator's understanding bleeds through the child's voice. What is Walls doing there — and is it a flaw or a feature?

Rose Mary Walls calls the family 'houseless, not homeless' when they are living in a South Bronx squat. What does the choice of word reveal about her? Is her refusal of certain words a strength or a delusion?

The Christmas poker game is the memoir's most complex scene. Rex wins back some of Jeannette's money — probably by cheating — and laughs. She laughs too. What is happening emotionally in that scene?

Walls has said she was ashamed of her parents for years before writing the memoir. Write a brief analysis of what role shame plays in the book's structure — how does the shame function narratively, and where does it go by the end?

If a social worker had intervened in the Walls children's lives — removed them from their parents, placed them in foster care — would that have been better or worse for Jeannette? Use evidence from the memoir.

How does The Glass Castle handle the question of educational access? What role does schooling (and the lack of it) play in the children's trajectories?

Compare Rex Walls and Willy Loman from Death of a Salesman. Both are fathers who promise their children a dream they can't deliver. How are their failures similar, and where do they diverge?

The memoir was written in 2005, about events in the 1960s-1980s. How do you think reading it differs depending on whether you grew up in poverty or not? Is the memoir equally accessible to both readers?

The Walls children — Lori, Jeannette, Brian, Maureen — respond to the same childhood in four different ways. What does that variation argue about resilience? Is resilience a character trait, a circumstance, or a choice?

At the Thanksgiving dinner, Jeannette raises a glass to her father. Is that gesture forgiveness, acceptance, love, denial, or something that can't be reduced to any one word? Make an argument.