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Chandra Conzett
Mrs. Stoynoff
English Comp. One
October 17, 2012
There is Always Hope
“Things usually work out in the end.” “What if they don’t?” “That just mean you haven’t
come to the end yet” (Walls 259). In the novel, The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls, hope plays
an import role. Throughout the whole novel the Walls’ family comes across hardship. They had
to deal with scenarios most of us never encounter. With a little bit of hope throughout each
difficulty, the Walls’ children made it out with a bright future. The meaning of The Glass Castle
that comes to my mind is hope because without hope they would have never gotten through
Arizona, Battle Mountain, Phoenix or 93 Little Hobart Street.
In Arizona the Walls’ family lived in a small trailer park. Rex and Rose Mary, the
parents, never paid attention to Lori, Jeanette or Brian, their kids. One time when Jeanette was
three she was rushed to the hospital for severe burns. When the nurses asked Jeannette what had
happened Jeanette said that she was cooking hot dogs over the stove. Jeannette enjoyed living in
the hospital, she said, “You never had to worry about running out of food or ice or even chewing
gum. I would have been happy staying in that hospital forever” (12). This gives the audience an
idea of how the Walls’ children suffered. Jeannette had very little hope while living in Arizona.
Without food, parents who cared, and nice clothing as a little girl, there was not much to look
forward too. Luckily, the Walls’ family did the “skedaddle” and moved to a new state, where
they hoped their lives would get better.
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Battle Mountain was a town everyone made fun of. “A big newspaper out east once
held a contest to find the ugliest, most forlorn, most godforsaken town in the whole country, and
it declared Battle Mountain the winner”(81). Rex chose to live in a gold mining industry to
potentially make the family rich. When Rex lost his job, there was no income coming to the
Walls’ residence. At one point Rose Mary accused Lori and Jeannette of eating the last edible
object in the house, a stick of margarine. Jeanette then complained, which was rare for any
Walls’ child to do, saying, “I was hungry” (69). That statement led the parents to fight, which
forced Rose Mary to get a job teaching at Mary S., the black elementary school. This brought
steady income into the Walls’ residence, leaving hope in the children’s eyes that they would
survive.
Phoenix was a luxury compared to their last two hometowns. Rose Mary had inherited
her mother’s house and some cash after she had past away. “We kids ran through the house and
counted fourteen rooms, including the kitchens and bathrooms” (94). Rex had a job, which gave
the family a steady income. With all this money, Rex purchased bikes for all the kids. The kids
were put into a high rated school called Emerson. There, Lori, Brian and Jeanette were put into
advanced reading groups. Brian and Jeanette would ride their bikes down to the library every day
and borrow a basket full of higher-level books to read. “We filled up the wire baskets on our
bicycles and pedaled home right down the sidewalks, as if we owned the place” (99). In Phoenix,
the children had high hopes that they had finally settled down, instead of doing the “skedaddle”
as they usually did. As always, they ran out of money and the family was on the move again.
Life on 93 Little Hobart Street, in Welch, was not even close to the luxury house in
Phoenix. Brian and Jeanette dug a foundation for the Glass Castle that Rex promised to build in
place of their house. The family had no steady income, forcing them to use the hole Brian and
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Jeanette dug as a trash-pit. “But that’s for the Glass Castle” Jeanette said. “It’s a temporary
measure” her dad replied (155). With no steady income, the children had to find their own food
to eat. This made Lori, Brian and Jeanette reminisce of the past. They realized their parents were
never going to give them the life they wanted. On 93 Little Hobart Street, they lost all hope in
their parents and decided they were moving to New York on their own. There, they would start
their lives with one last bit of hope.
New York was a place where the Walls children could fulfill their dreams. Lori
became an illustrator at a comic- book company and Brian was a warehouse foreman with a
family of his own. Jeanette went to college and became an author, writing The Glass Castle, as
well as other novels. Life in New York gave the children many opportunities. It was a place
where they could finally settle down and realize that all they had hoped for could come true.
Growing up, the Walls’ children constantly hoped each place they would move to would
be better. After continual let downs from the time they lived in Arizona, until they moved to
Welch, Lori, Jeannette, and Brian finally took their lives into their own hands. They saw New
York as a great opportunity to get everything they had always wanted. "I think that maybe
sometimes people get the lives they want" (256). They left Welch with all the hope in the world
and created the life they had always imagined.
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Work Cited
Walls, Jeannette. The Glass Castle: A Memoir. New York: Scribner, 2005. Print.