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Foreshadowing
Part 1: A Woman on the Street
Explanation and Analysis:
The Glass Castle is a memoir, meaning it’s a nonfiction narrative based on author Jeannette Walls’s personal experience. When writing memoir, authors draw primarily from their own memories rather than external research. For Walls, this means telling the story of her journey from childhood to adulthood using vivid memories of her unconventional upbringing and complex family dynamics. Another distinct feature of memoir is that the author typically functions as the narrator; this is true of Walls, who writes in the first person and, in this way, filters the book’s events through her own thoughts and emotions.
The Glass Castle can also be read as a coming-of-age story, or Bildungsroman, since the memoir chronicles Jeannette Walls’s life from age three until adulthood. A typical Bildungsroman describes the trials and tribulations a character faces as they grow older, usually culminating in a crisis of faith that propels them into maturity. The Glass Castle fits this structure well. As Jeannette ages, the way she understands her family and the world around her changes. In losing the innocence of childhood, she gains the ability to distinguish her parents’ brilliant, adventurous attributes from their tendencies toward destruction and neglect. This recognition allows her to build a life of her own. In fact, one of the memoir’s central themes is the shedding of childhood illusions and the formation of new, mature dreams.
Related Themes:
