Going beyond the text: a look into the glass castle and educated

Abstract

This thesis focuses on simply going beyond a text and instead analyzing and researching the cultural and historical prevalence occurring during the text’s timeline. This process examines how a text moves around time and space and correlates how this movement is illustrated by geographical locations, cultural practices, and the specific time period. It pushes the idea of movement beyond the text itself. Through this research, two memoirs will not only be measured through the historical critic lens but the geographical lens as well. The Glass Castle written by Jeannette Walls, detailing events in the 1960s and 1970s, provides insight on the unconventional upbringing of Jeannette and her three siblings under the hands of their dysfunctional parents. The timeline, geography, and history will be examined throughout the memoir. Along with The Glass Castle, Tara Westover’s memoir Educated, detailing events taking place in the 1990s and early 2000s, will be examined in the same aforementioned context. These two memoirs in correlation with their timeline, historical prevalence, and geographical locations will offer in-depth and new insight into these women, their families, and the memoirs themselves.