《玻璃城堡》美国文学分析-英文.doc

Using biographical information, determine how Walls is shaping her memoir. Are there things she is leaving out? Is she slanting information in a certain why to achieve a particular effect? Use three or more sources. Attach copies of the sources used. The Shaping of Walls’ Memoir 1.Introduction The Glass Castle written by Jeannette Walls is a memoir which recalls the childhood life of Jeannette herself and her siblings. Jeannette uses a unique narrative structure to shape her memoir.Jeannette describes the woman on the street as the beginning of the novel, and tells their stories in changeable living places among the desert, Welch and New York City, thus shows a full picture of the vagabond life of the Walls family. The novel eventually ends in a Thanksgiving Day, which makes the whole story full of sweet atmosphere, letting the readers chew and taste the words repetitively. (Zinesser, 2009) 2. Special narration order At the beginning, the author describes her mother, who was addicted to painting and writing. Her mother was unable to bear the monotonous life and chose to lead a vagrant life. She was seeking for something around the junk. She saw Jeannette but did not talk to her for the sake of so-called face. Jeannette arranged the structure with a reverse order. (Balzer, 2011) This is such a ridiculous plot that makes readers wonder why could a famous journalist have a beggar mother, and they cannot wait to know the story behind it.The theme of the novel is the wandering life, so throughout the full text is the memoir of constant stray life. The author narrates that when she was three years old, her family started the vagrant life for some strange reasons. They came to the desert from the bustling city, and left the wilderness to the town... They lived like nomadic people, constantly wandered from one place to another. (Walls, 2009) There were too much uncertainty, mysterious imagination and risk waiting for them. So the readers seem like accompany the author to be