Expository Essay on ‘The Glass Castle’ – Free Essay Example

“An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.” (Plutarch, Greek historian) In the memoir, The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, poverty, mal-education, and homelessness all contribute to the struggles that she and her family had to endure. Many people across the world experience the same types of things, and it affects them in all ways, as well as physically and emotionally.

Save your time!
We can take care of your essay

• Proper editing and formatting
• Free revision, title page, and bibliography
• Flexible prices and money-back guarantee

Place Order

Poverty is a huge factor in the well-being of anyone. Poverty restricts people’s access to basic things that are essential to living a successful life. In The Glass Castle, Jeannette and her family experience extreme poverty. They not only lack the basic luxuries of life but even things that are vital to survival, such as food. One example of this is when they have run out of money once again, so Rose Mary says “Mom told us to savor it because we had no money for dinner the next night. ‘Mom, what happened to it all?’ I asked as we ate our ice cream slices.’ Gone, gone, gone!’ she said. ‘It’s all gone.’” (Walls 197). Their poverty makes it so they can’t even afford food. A study in 2016 about poverty showed that a lot of people have food insecurities due to poverty “Approximately 28.3 million adults (11.5 percent of all adults) and 12.9 million children (17.5 percent of all children) lived in food-insecure households” (Fsrac.org). When one does not have access to something as crucial to life as food, then how are they going to be able to maintain other fundamental aspects of living, including their home?

Homelessness can become a reality of either poverty or just bad luck. But either way, it unconditionally impeded one’s ability to function as a part of society. In The Glass Castle, Jeanette’s parents fail to keep a home for long, either getting forced out of the area where they’re staying or even moving for no logical reason. There are some cases (namely welch) where even when they have a “home”, it most certainly doesn’t provide the shelter a home should provide, such as warmth and protection from the weather. The house is so bad at being a house, that the roof doesn’t even work “The house was getting worse. One of the supporting pillars was starting to buckle. The leak in the roof over Brian’s bed had gotten so bad that when it rained, he slept under an inflatable raft Mom had won in sweepstakes” (Walls 237). The house that they had in Welch was so dysfunctional that it is the equivalent of living on the streets. Joy Junction Homeless Shelter has an article that says “Warmth, dry clothes, water, and food are never guaranteed each day. Without basic human needs being met, those experiencing homelessness might their situation more difficult to overcome. A home provides so much more than just a place to sleep, because not only does it house people, but it also is a place to keep your possessions. A home also keeps unwanted things out, such as weather and other people and creatures that you don’t want around.