The Glass Castle
I think that the part where Jeanette is almost sexually abused by her uncle Stanley, is definitely a memory that Jeanette had to fill in the blanks when she was writing it. Even though I'm sure this was a pretty strong memory for her, because of how disgusting and creepy it was, and how she wasn't super young, she still describes it VERY specifically in the book. She talks about where in the house every person was at that moment, AND what they were doing. For example: "...and Mom was at the table in Grandpa's room working on a crossword puzzle." She says not only that her mother was in her grandfather's room, but that she was at the table, and that she was doing a crossword. Jeanette also writes not only that she herself was watching TV, but also what TV show she was watching. I think she explains all these things that were going on right before the incident (even if she didn't actually remember all of them) because she wants to show how important or memorable the event was. She gives you the details so you can imagine it more clearly and somewhat try to understand what it was like. She also, afterward describes how she went and told her mother what happened. This is another place where she probably had to fill in the blanks. She doesn't just say, "I went to my mom and explained what happened, and she told me to toughen up." (even though that's probably all she remembered), but instead she describes the conversation that they had.
I think the reason authors fill in the blanks and exaggerate, could be because they want to make it more interesting, and they want to connect the memories to actually tell a somewhat full story, and maybe get across a certain message or point to the readers. If authors just wrote down what they actually remembered, it would be a bunch of random unrelated, memories, that wouldn't quite fit together. Also, they would be very vague, and not include the little details that actually make a story, a STORY! (make it interesting.)
When writing my own memoir, I would for SURE fill in lots of blanks, and definitely exaggerate, because I have an awful memory, and I don't think I have a very interesting life (like what most people think when it comes to writing their own memoir.) But I bet even Jeanette Walls thought that, and I think if I dug deep enough and wrote my memoir more like story that people could enjoy, than an actual record of what I have done in my life, than I think I could pull of a pretty interesting, somewhat well written memoir. But the other thing is that I feel like I would want to read over MULTIPLE times, each part that I stretched a bit, or filled in the blanks for, just to make sure everything fits together and it actually makes sense, since parts of it wouldn't have actually happened.
I also think that she probably filled this part in because it may have possible been to emotional to write or to complete. I think when something like this happens to someone it leaves them emotionally scared for life and they probably can't stop thinking about it. So I totally agree with you on the fact that she filled this part in. It was to emotional for her and she had to move along in the story.
ReplyDeleteI think that you have a really good point. I didn't really think about how Jeannette might have filled in moments about her life. Thinking about the book, I think sometimes it might be kind of hard to tell truth from fiction. Her life seems so unreal, that its hard to pinpoint the situations in which she exaggerated her memories. I also really liked how you talked about using this technique in your own memoir. I think it would definitely be a great way to make our memoirs way more interesting.
ReplyDeleteIt's really interesting that she might have had to fill in details about that event, but it makes sense. A lot of people would probably want to forget what someone has done and the entire event when something like that has happened. Considering her horrible life, it must have been quite painful to write all of it out, and she probably remembered more about her life than she would ever want to.
ReplyDeleteYou made a good point about her filling in the blanks of her life and how you described how you think she may have also felt besides what she said. I liked how you told why you think she was filling in the blanks. I agree with you on how authors exaggerate details to make them more interesting to read and to make them stand out. Good job talking about how you may use similar techniques while writing your memoir. I wish you the best of luck!
ReplyDeleteI really like your point about the bridging of memories to make a complete story. I can very heavily relate to the problem off remembering this so I as well will most likely be doing a lot of connecting.
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