In her memoir The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls explains all the hardships she faced when growing up. Walls unfortunately had deleterious parents and this caused her to lose her childhood innocence quickly. Jeannette Walls, along with her siblings: Lori, Brian, and Maureen, all had to find ways to ultimately care and protect themselves. Walls’ parents Rex and Rosemary could never hold down a job.Even when both parents had jobs, the Walls would often find themselves without money. Her father Rex Walls would always use his money on some type of liquor and would spend days at a local bar. Whenever Rosemary could, she have a wouldn’t job. She prefered to sit at home and enjoy one of her hobbies of painting or writing. Walls states, “Miss …show more content…
From grandmother Erma touching Brian’s private bits to Uncle Stanley placing his hands on Jeannette’s thighs. From Rex and Rosemary Walls comes no support for their children. Instead, Walls recounts being told, “ sexual assault was a crime of perception” (Walls 184). Rosemary explains to Jeannette she feels sorry for Uncle Stanley who had just finished groping her thigh. Rosemary takes Uncle Stanley’s side when she should comfort her daughter throughout all the sexual assault she has been put through. This causes Jeannette to give up her showering at her grandpa’s house so she would no longer need to encounter Uncle Stanley. This was her way of growing up to protect herself from another incident. Jeannette and her sibling were often neglected, which forced all of them to promptly lose their innocence. Any virtuous parent would understand attempting sexual assault is never okay and a stable home with loving parents is needed. Walls needed comprehensive parent to help her with all these situations she faced throughout her childhood.
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The authors help to inform reader as to why child abuse is such an important issue that needs to be taken care of. Funk and Wagnall list the forms of child abuse and the impacts they have a children’s lives. The article is organized in a straightforward style with little to no opinion involved. Although the article is solely based on facts, the authors stray away from making the article monotonous.
Connection
The Glass Castle and “Child abuse and neglect” share the same theme. They both deal with the lose of innocence in a child’s vulnerability. In the article the author states, “although in many circumstances a parental failure to provide appropriate medical care for a sick child might be cited as evidence of neglect…”(Child abuse and neglect). This directly relates to Rex Walls not wanting to keep Jeannette in the hospital for her burns from cooking hot dogs. Instead, Rex Walls decides to check out his daughter early without the full proper treatment. This leaves Jeannette with a scar she will carry with her forever.
Part III
“The tragedy of orphanages”
Jeannette Walls, Shows in the book The Glass Castle that there are a lot of situations that happen in life where people make countless mistakes, but it is very important to forgive her father and her mother for many mistakes. She has to cope with many obstacles without her parent's help. In the author's memoir, we become attracted with Jeannette constant struggle between protecting her family and the pleasure that her family is based on the same hopes and senseless falsehood with her unbelievable storytelling method. The feelings of forgiveness hold the Walls family together. Jeanette was able to describe her family's childhood, relationships with one another. The children of the Walls family are forced to begin the independent life at an
In a passage from “The Glass Castle,” Jeannette Walls describes what life was like growing up with her broken family and how she felt about it. Jeannette writes about how she feels about her younger sister, Maureen, and how she believes that she is failing Maureen. Jeannette promised Maureen that she will protect her, but with her manipulative, alcoholic father and selfish, depressed mother, it is a challenge to maintain that promise made at Maureen’s birth. She also includes how she was made the head of the household because her dysfunctional family couldn’t maintain their lives properly. At 13 years old, Jeannette had to create a budget of $200 over the course of two months for her two younger siblings while her mom and older sister were
Jeanette Walls and her out of the ordinary family live their lives surrounded in pure craziness and poverty. Jeanette has been raised to be as independent as her age allows her. At age three she could make herself a hot dog and by the age of eighteen she had started a new life in New York away from the craziness that followed her parents throughout the kids nomadic childhood. Jeanette and her siblings Lori, Brian and Maureen live their childhoods with almost nothing. They were always wondering where their next meal would come from and where there parents had mysteriously disappeared to. Rex Walls, the father and husband was a severe alcoholic who spent most of his money on gambling or a beer from a local bar. Rose Mary Walls, the mother and wife was not better, never being to hold onto a job for long enough to get paid and support her family caused many problems for Rose Mary, Rex and most importantly… the kids. The kids all had the dream of escaping the prison their parents called home and heading to New York or California where they could feel endless happiness. The kids grow up with almost no parents, which forces them to become independent from the day they were born. In The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, Jeanette's parents teach her to only rely on herself and never get attached to something you can lose, forcing Jeanette to become strong and independent throughout her childhood.
Nevertheless, Erma was always there, through her poverty, to make sure everyone was fed, clothed, and had a bed to sleep in. Her family depended on her. Even when she showed some caring, however, she still knows no difference from her low class ways, like when she packed a school lunch for the kids, it consisted of lard between two slices of Wonder bread. Another time, Erma cooks dinner, stewing green beans in fatback and a huge handful of salt, which was so salty and overcooked that Jeannette had to pinch her nose just to get it down. Upon seeing this, Erma slapped away her
Jeannette Walls has always been moving from place to place. Her father, Rex Walls, is a raging alcoholic who is constantly running from the police in order to keep his kids. They have lived in houses, their van, even outside. Imagine sleeping outside because the police are looking for the children of the parents who haven’t paid a
American writer and journalist, Jeannette Walls, in her memoir, The Glass Castle(2005), narrates her personal history. She tells the good, bad, and ugly of her childhood. Walls’ purpose is to encourage her readers that anyone can overcome adversity and be great. She kept her positivity and humor even in the roughest of times and kept her family together even through all their movement from place to place. Walls’ pushed herself through her challenges and hardships to become prosperous and happy.
There are various components of Walls’ traumatic autobiography that are significant. To begin with, throughout her narrative Walls uses the trauma she has gone through to show that she has learned to take nothing for granted and is appreciative of what she does have. This is a significant portion of Walls’ autobiography because it shows that a traumatic upbringing can either cause a person to fall into the same patterns that brought on the trauma, such as falling back into poverty, or the person can rise above the challenges in their lives and become determined to change their future. Another significant portion of her narrative includes different incidents when Walls and her siblings go to extreme measures to simply survive. A specific incident of this occurs when Walls describes how at lunch she would hide in the bathroom stall with her feet up and girls would come into
Undeniable Love Jeannette Walls, an American writer and journalist, recounts her most loved childhood memories she went through with her father, Rex Walls, in the novel The Glass Castle. Jeannette Walls, comes to adore her father even after all his recklessness and comes to realize that these are portions of the best times in her life. In spite of many occurrences in which her father neglects to ensure his kids, declined to assume liability for them, and even stole from them, Jeannette still adores him until his diminishing days for two reasons: his consistent capacity to make her feel special and his ceaseless source of motivation. Walls purpose is to express the atmosphere she experienced childhood in and demonstrates that a harsh adolescence,
Jeannette Walls had an extremely unique childhood that included tons of adventures, fun, and interesting events. However, it was not all good. It was full of confusion, suffering, hunger, pain, and hardships. Rose Mary and Rex Walls were not exactly ideal parents, but they cared for their children deeply and Jeannette, Lori, and Brian would not be the people they are today without what happened to them years ago. To some extent, Rose Mary and Rex are not awful parents.
There are various components of Walls’ traumatic autobiography that are significant. To begin with, throughout her narrative Walls uses the trauma she has gone through to show that she has learned to take nothing for granted and is appreciative of what she does have. This is a significant portion of Walls’ autobiography because it shows that a traumatic upbringing can either cause a person to fall into the same patterns that brought on the trauma, such as falling back into poverty, or the person can rise above the challenges in their lives and become determined to change their future. Another significant portion of her narrative includes different incidents when Walls and her siblings go to extreme measures to simply survive. A specific incident of this occurs when Walls describes how at lunch, she would hide in the bathroom stall with her feet up and girls
In her younger years, Jeannette was an smart and imaginative child. At first, she enjoyed moving around, and had a lot of faith in her father, which created a good relationship between them. “All we had to was find gold, once we’d struck it rich, he’d [Rex] start work on our Glass Castle” (Walls, 25). The tremendous faith that she has in Rex creates a strong bond because she is the only family member who trusts his ideas. Unfortunately, he is a raging alcoholic who can’t hold a job, so most of his promises are broken. As Jeannette gets older, he lets her down more and more. One time he brought her to a bar where she was then sexually violated. When the two had a talk after, he said “I knew you could handle yourself” (Walls, 213,) instead of defending her. It was upsetting to watch their relationship grow apart and to see how poorly he provided for his family, yet they still loved him.
Author Jeanette Walls is an example of someone who has preserved and made something of herself despite the fact that she has a less-than-normal childhood. Her parents Rose Mary and Rex Walls struggled at time to parent efficiently, as shown in Jeannette Walls’ memoir of her childhood The Glass Castle. In the recalling of her unique and sometimes disturbing childhood, Walls paints a picture of inadequate parenting, dangerous techniques used on her siblings and herself, and events that may have inflicted permanent damage on the Walls children. Not only Jeannette, but her other siblings Brian, Lori, and Maureen Walls were also negatively affected by the way they were raised and the things that happened to them under their parent’s watch. Rose
Throughout her life, starting from childhood, Jeannette Walls suffered through multiple hardships that could lead her away from a successful adult life. Since she was young, her parents put her through things that a child should never be exposed to, which could lead her to make these same mistakes as she grew older. For example, her father was an alcoholic, and from this many problems sprouted. Furthermore, her mother never wanted to be tied down, and loathed the idea of family life, as she did not want the responsibility of raising a family. Rose Mary was depicted as self-centered in the novel, and did not think of her children, as she only thought of her own needs. This can be shown when she keeps the diamond ring her children found for herself.
“Life is a drama full of tragedy and comedy. You should learn to enjoy the comic episodes a little more.” The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls has very important life lessons that will teach everyone to laugh at tragedies sometimes. In the memoir, one will learn these and accept them. There will be a lot of struggles thrown life’s way, but everyone will find a way to get through it and realize it makes one who they are.
Jeannette Walls’s memoir is the heart wrenching story of her past. Walls had a very troubled upbringing which consisted of her alcoholic father, careless mother, malicious schoolkids and abusive extended family. The horrible things that Jeannette Walls went through in her childhood are important social issues that should have more light shed on them by the media.