Outside Reading, Week 1, Post A

The Glass Castle - Jeannette Walls

Vocab
prospector (25) - One who explores an area for mineral deposits or oil

sluice gate (24) - an artificial channel for conducting water, often fitted with a gate (sluice gate) at the upper end for regulating the flow.

Appeals
1) "We ate irregularly, and when we did, we'd gorge ourselves... vineyard owners let people come pick their own grapes for a nickel a pound. We drove about a hundred miles to the vineyards, where the grapes were so ripe they were about to burst on the vine in bunches bigger than my head. We filled our entire car full of green grapes" (22). I thought that this quote demonstrates both an emotional and logical appeal. The author tries to demonstrate the large gaps of hunger and the subsequent waves of food that they would receive by exaggerating measurements and trying to connect with the reader. However, it could have some logical appeals. If someone wants to take this passage literally, they could get a grasp of how many grapes they had, although it is not specific.

2) "I turned to see where it was coming from and realized my dress was on fire. Frozen with fear, I watched the yellow-white flames make a ragged brown line up the pink fabric of my skirt and climb my stomach. Then the flames leaped up, reaching my face. I screamed" (9). This passage clearly demonstrates and emotional appeal. Jeannette Walls starts out her memoir with the story of when she was seriously burned as a child. We can tell from the level of detail she puts into her descriptors and the general sense of panic in the scene that she is trying to connect with the reader. She wants them to feel the sense of urgency and fear that she was feeling at the time.

3) "Later that night, Dad stopped the car out in the middle of the desert, and we slept under the stars. We had no pillows, but Dad said that was part of his plan. He was teaching us to have good posture...we did have our scratchy army-surplus blankets, so we spread them out and lay there...I told Lori how lucky we were to be sleeping out under the sky like Indians" (18). Walls makes it clear in the very beginning of the novel that debt collectors are always after her family, and as a result, they are always on the run. However, her dad always tries to put a good spin on things and make them seem fun when they are actually quite bad. This creates an awkward sense of calmness that the author tries to convey to her readers.

Quote
"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...All we had to do was find gold, Dad said, and we were on the verge of that. Once he finished the Prospector and we struck it rich, he'd start work on our glass castle" (25). This passage describes Jeannette's dad's plan to invent a machine that would find gold and then build them a house made out of glass, or "The Glass Castle". I felt that this quote is significant because it explains the title of this book, which Walls puts a lot of emphasis on in the reading. Also, it sounds like the Dad really believes in his get-rich-quick scheme, which is most likely going to follow up on later in the book.

Theme
Right now, I'd say that the overall theme of the book is that there is always a silver lining. Although Walls' family is always on the run and has a very unstable life, it sounds like they are always having fun and no one is particularly worried.