PLN #3 - Authors Tone - Revised

       In the book, The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, the authors tone is depressed. Jeannette (the author) does not enjoy her life; they have to live in a poor neighborhood, barely get food, and live in a dysfunctional family.  The Walls family lives in a neighborhood they call “The Tracks”, it is located by some abandoned train station, which serves as Jeannette’s families home. Jeannette mentions the neighborhood and school she goes to, "Battle Mountian had started out as a mining post, settled a hundred years earlier by people hoping to strike it rich, but if anyone ever had struck it rich in Battle Mountain, they must have moved somewhere else to spend their fortune... Lots of other kids lived in our neighborhood, which was known as the Tracks." “The Tracks” residents all live in whatever they can find to serve as shelter, one neighbor lives in an old shack, she owns 3 dogs and finds it very hard to feed them.  The Walls family also has to steal food to get it; Jeannette will steal from friends kitchens, her dad will steal from the grocery store, just to get food. The kids are forced to keep their hunger to themselves otherwise the family will get into a fight, "We kids usually kept our hungry to ourselves, but we were always thinking about food and how to get our hands on it." Jeannette’s family is also very dysfunctional, her dad cusses, they leave their kids to fend for themselves and they do not have the best live for their kids, nor do they wish that upon them. A good example of how the parents leave the kids to fend for themselves is when Jeannette was learning how to swim, " We started back, and this time, when we got to the middle, Dad pried my fingers from around his neck and pushed me away. My arms flailed around, and i sank into the hot, smelly water." Mr. Wall basicly takes Jeannette throws her in the water and yells, "Sink or swim!" and leaves her there to swim to the edge and get out of the water. Jeannette’s parents are perfectly happy trying to achieve their dreams by living like a homeless person, they would love nothing more in the world then to accomplish the dream of building the Glass Castle.  Jeannette is not very happy with her life, she doesn’t like being lied to, or being “homeless” and she wishes that she could/ would have a better life, but in the end she knows her parents love her.