Rhetorical Strategies

-Antithesis: “I was embarrassed by them, too, and ashamed of myself for wearing pearls and living on Park Avenue while my parents were busy keeping warm and finding something to eat” (Walls 4).

-Pathos: “Mom told me she had entered my name in a raffle at the fair, and I’d won a helicopter ride. I was thrilled. I had never been in a helicopter or plane. ‘When do I get to go on that ride?’ I asked. ‘Oh, we already did that,’ Mom said. ‘It was fun.’ “ (Walls 13).

“I breathed in his familiar smell of Vitalis, whiskey, and cigarette smoke. It reminded me of home” (Walls 14).

-Situational Irony: “Mom hated being the teacher’s daughter” (Walls 91) [Ironic because mother becomes teacher despite this hatred.]

“But I believed she thought of her paintings as children and wanted them to feel that they were all being treated equal” (Walls 154).

-Parallel Structure: “He was bathing in it, wallowing in it, positively luxuriating in it, his flickering tail hanging over the side of the bowl, flinging sugar across the table” (Walls 155).

Rhetorical strategies play an instrumental role in Jeanette Walls’ novel to convey the terrors of her childhood, yet the hope and strength it instilled in her. Antithesis and irony play a major part in displaying the uniquely defined roles of the parental forces and children in her family. Utilizing antithesis, Walls explains that instead of living a normal carefree childhood, she and her siblings were forced to take on the roles of guardians and decision makers. With an alcoholic father and selfish mother, there was a gap of guidance in the Walls household, leaving the children to invade their youthful years with maturity. As the years went on, Jeanette and her siblings managed to rise in means of success, while the parents continued to drive themselves lower and lower into homelessness. This factor of the novel, as interpreted by Walls, is ironically significant in that parents should be role models for their children’s future, yet the surprising and heartwarming success of the Walls children clearly outshined that of the parents. Through pathos, Walls brings to life the unspoken abuse that the children underwent. Although she barely ever literally retells the pain, she suggests a reflection on the hardships. However, it is what is not stated that invokes the most emotion from the reader. As Walls physically grows up throughout the novel, she parallels her writing style and emotion in unison-injecting more pathos and deeper glimpses into her heart at her most mature phases.