Essay on Educating Rita Into the World Speech

The development of young characters can be seen throughout the novel with the shift in responsibility to be a parent from Ma and Da to Audrey and Devon. “Sometimes, as Da had done, Devon took a thing to town to pawn. He pawned the box that Grandda’s money had come in and brought home second-hand shoes for me.” (135) Further, this can also be seen with Izzy’s adjustment to the rural farming conditions from a previous rich city life and Audrey’s brave decision to work for the selfish pig farmer; even little Harper realises that the world is not just fun and games. Despite the Flute family despising Vandery Cable, Audrey, transitioning into the role of a mature and dedicated second mother, takes this burden upon herself as she values her family’s welfare over her own. The courage and bravery needed to fill the shoes of the previous dependent characters shows how the next generation is helping to ease to hardships faced by the community. Being brave and facing ones fears is the only way to achieve anything in these merciless times and by Audrey facing her fears for the benefit of her family, we can see her develop from a young and naive teenager into a mature and independent adult. The bravery and sacrifices made by the young generation to support

Experiencing further unstable environments, these children are forced to move from one foster home to another. They rarely develop meaningful relationships and constantly endure lack of care and protection by adults. Sabreen, another gifted student, was able to excel in school despite her unstable environments. She, too, became a ward of the county battling to find a stable home, constantly being placed in unstable environments, environments that do not encourage any achievement. When her situation becomes untenable, she goes AWOL, like Olivia, refusing to return to county supervision. Corwin masterfully frames the problem that wards, like Olivia and Sabreen, face when they feel that going back into the system is not an option. The additional struggles can be seen through Olivia and Sabreen accepting jobs with long hours in order to make enough to pay their bills. The responsibility on taking care of themselves financially detracts from their studies, which quickly can become a vicious, never-ending cycle.

Jeannette and her siblings adapt to self- sufficiency from a young age, from being emotionally and physically neglected by their parents. The children don’t expect anything so they learn to work with what they have and what opportunities come their way. Jeannette saw the suffering of the family and took this leadership for the family guiding her sibling in the correct path.

The drastic changes in Maris’ life forced her to reevaluate the way the thought about everyday existence. The way she goes about living is drastically different than those around her. Mairs commented on her own life saying, “Of late, I have begun to catch myself wondering how people can propel themselves without canes” (Mairs 67). She has become used to her disability and this has created a disconnect between her and the rest of the world. While others are free of even giving a thought to what she handles everyday, she has a adapted into a way of thinking that accommodates to her life. Even the way she perceived others interactions was changed and she feared that any act of kindness from others was out of pity and shame. The author has completely altered the way she interacts with the world because of just one single part of her life. People become used to thinking of their lives in a certain way, not objectively as just a part of society. Throughout her emotional journey, she had to accept who she was.

Her job and dialect optimize the way she grew up, and how the expectations of her upbringing limit her future, as being a working class woman she is expected to get married, have children and then become a housewife, ‘I should've had a baby by now. Everyone expects it.’ There were no further expectations for women and certainly no need for them to have an education, ‘Denny gets dead narked if I work at home’. Rita doesn’t like the housewife stereotype and decides to rebel against it by taking the pill and starting a formal education, ‘But I mean, I don't want a baby yet. No. I wanna discover meself first.’ Rita’s family refuse to see the benefits that this could give her and this leads her father to feel sorry for Denny and to feel annoyed at Rita’s lack of commitment to her family, ‘Denny, I'm sorry for you, lad. If she was a wife of mine I'd drown her.’ When Rita thinks about quitting the course to please her family, it’s her mother’s unintentional comment at the pub, ‘There must be better songs than this,’ which drives her forward in the course, ‘And I thought, ‘All I'm doing is getting an education. Just trying to learn. And I love it. It's not easy, I get it wrong half the time, I'm laughed at half the time but I love it because it makes me feel as

This means that Dale and Brennan will have to get jobs and live on their own. After several job interviews, they fail at all of them and end up nowhere. Just after this as a venture quest for their company called “Prestige Worldwide” they make a music video in which they crash Robert’s boat sending him over the edge causing him and Nancy to get a divorce. Because of the divorce Dale and Brennan have a falling out and go their separate ways after they are kicked out of the house, both getting jobs and starting to “grow up”. Later Brennan gets the chance to organize the company he works for’s Catalina Wine Mixer where he oranges to get Robert and his mother back together. At the event, the company Dale works for got the contract to cater so he is at the event as well. After a heated argument with a guest, the band that is doing the entertainment for the event gets kicked out, and of all people Robert pushes Brennan and Dale to go on stage and promote their company saying, “don’t lose your

In the middle of the trip to Aunt Ida's, Rayona wonders what will happen to her. Standing on a hill overlooking Ida's house, Christine runs and leaves Rayona. In a short lapse of time, Rayona has lost her mother and gained an unwilling caretaker. The treatment from both women causes Rayona to question her own value as a person; she finds herself of little worth. As life on the reservation slowly progresses, Father Tom befriends Rayona. While the priest's intentions are innocent, he ends up causing Rayona to feel more poorly about herself. So Rayona runs, she tries to escape from her difficulties at the reservation. At the lake, she decides to begin a new life. Several things happen to Rayona at the camp. The ways her co-workers behave toward her depress her further, and then the letter she finds causes her to want what is perceived as a normal life. Though also at the lake, begins a turning point for Ray

*One of the themes of “The Glass Castle” is that, although you might have a horrible and hard childhood, it doesn’t mean you’ll stay that way. Jeannette had gone through so many things, but because she tried her very best to get out of her struggle she now succeeds in life.

Rita notices his sad expression and asks him what was bothering him. Phil tries to explain to her that he was stuck on the same day, but she would not believe him. To prove that it was true, he begins stating random facts about people in the café. Surprised, Rita spends the whole day with him. At the end of the day, while they were discussing the situation, Rita tells him that he should think of this “curse” as an

For example, throughout her childhood she never had a truly stable home. Her family was constantly moving from place to place around the country, and as her father said, “doing the skedaddle” whenever inconveniences arose, like debt collectors catching up to them or getting into trouble with the law. Second, her father always spent the majority of their money on beer and other alcoholic beverages at bars, and they frequently had no food to eat and were starving. The children often had to fend for themselves to find food when they were hungry without the assistance of their parents. Jeannette often subdued her and her siblings’ difficulties by taking charge of herself and her siblings to acquire food and by standing up for herself whenever it was necessary. For example, she stood up for herself whenever her mother was being selfish and pompous. Her mother would hide snacks and eat them secretly without sharing, and she would also spend days sobbing and complaining about how she had to do everything. During those times, Jeannette often took charge and directly criticized her mother about not doing her job. After her dad whipped her, Jeannette vowed to escape Welch for good and began saving up money to leave and move away. As a result of her struggles, over the years Jeannette had become very hard-working and diligent at whatever work she did. This lead her to become very successful in the future. She

However, in the March before Lori’s graduation, they discover the piggy bank smashed, and Lori blames her father for the incident. He had gone awol for three days prior. The issue seems unresolvable until Jeannette is offered a summer long babysitting job, along with a bus ride home. Instead, Jeannette tells her employer to take Lori, and provide a one way ride to New York. While Lori discovers in New York, Jeannette occupies herself with the Wave and begins planning to leave to New York before even graduating high school. Her father makes a last minute attempt to persuade her into staying, bringing up plans of the Glass Castle and dreams to build it. However, his tactic fails and Jeannette’s mind remains unchanged. She moves in with Lori and gets her first city job at a burger joint. This is until her internship leads her to being hired for the Phoenix newspaper. Brian soon moves in with Lori and Jeannette as well, and Jeannette’s boss encourages her to go to college. She attends Barnards, and in no time at all they find themselves harboring Maureen as well. Three years later,

The story unviels its theme at this point: Mrs. Mallard, for the first time in her life, experiences a new-found freedom. Instead of dreading the future without her husband, "she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely". She could now live her life and be absolutely free of the imposing will of her husband: There would be no one to live for her during the coming years; she would live for herself. There would be now powerful will bending hers in the blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow creature.(15)

Rita Williams-Garcia focuses deeply on symbolism to represent changes in characters’ personalities, their view of other characters, and in the way they think. In the beginning, the author uses a symbol, Delphine’s Timex to represent Delphine’s personality through her interactions with that object. Delphine always checks her Timex to stay on schedule. She may behave this way due to events that happened prior to the story such as her mother leaving her and her sisters, which left her to watch them.

When his father takes him to be an altar boy, he is turned away due to the poverty of his family. This is disturbing to young Frank, and begins thoughts of discontent in his mind. Also, when he goes to look into enrolling in secondary school with his mother at his side, the Christian Brother there slams the door in his face due to his street appearance. Regardless of his high intelligence, he is denied a higher education by the Church based on his economic status. The night before his 16th birthday Frank drinks his first pint and strikes his mother; on attempting to confess to a Jesuit priest, the door is again closed to him: “He says, Go away. You’re drunk. Child like you drunk as a lord ringing for a priest at this hour. Go away or I’ll call the guards…. You’re drunk and you’re not in a proper spirit of repentance (340).” Frank is panicked about the condition of his eternal soul but is forced to remain in a state of sin because of the lack of compassion by this priest. The transformation is complete: Frank is no longer the innocent little child who runs to the Church to unburden his soul, but instead he is a cynical adolescent who has lost his faith in God.

is not quite good enough. Rita wants to be of a higher status than her