Forgiveness Important Quotes

Brian and Lori, Jeannette’s older sister, lose their trust in Rex earlier on because they realize that he clearly prefers satisfying his own addiction rather than feeding and supporting his family. Jeannette does not completely lose trust in her father until many years later when she discovers he has stolen the piggy-bank money that she and Lori had been saving for almost a year so that they could move to New York hoping to make a home. “I couldn’t believe he’d stoop this low… ’Why are you doing this to us, Dad?’”(228-229) Even though Jeannette once claimed unwavering loyalty and trust to her father, any semblance of it shatters once he steals the money and blatantly lies about it.

Forgiveness is not just practiced by saints and not only benefits its recipients but have strong connection with person’s physical, mental and spiritual health. It plays a great role in the health of families, communities and nations. Forgiveness provides common ground for love, acceptance, harmony and true happiness Most spiritual and religious leaders of the world will agree that forgiveness of oneself and others is one way to clear the mind, heart and soul and may result in a feeling of increased peace and happiness.

And despite everything, her love for her father only accumulates for him. Throughout the story Jeannette at times has given up on her father but she somehow always rationalizes his actions and continues to see him as everything but a bad influence. For example, when Rex purposely throws Jeannette into the water forcing her to learn how to swim and saying, “If you don’t want to sink you better learn how to swim.” (Walls 66) Again this just proves that despite how reckless and inconsiderate her parents were at times eventually it taught her to be independent and survive. And in the end they needed this because living in poverty its almost difficult to make sure you will survive the next day. Regardless of Rex’s weaknesses in raising Jeannette soon enough it proved that Jeannette’s love and admiration for her father was impeccable and only proved that Rex played a huge role in her

Jeanette represents Rex as a reasonable and loving father through Christmas time during which he gave the presents stars to them. She describes the memory with admiration and love towards her father. Although Jeanette says “we had no money at all” her family showed no regret, she instead showed how they absolutely admire him, by capitalizing “Dad”. Rex has an ability to brave the cold times because ”the cold never bothered him” as he said ( Glass Castle 39). Jeanette holds onto her father when other people ignore him because he makes her feel unique, as it gives her one of the most important moments of her life. It's clearly obvious that Jeanette admiration is growing as she continues to describe the experience in positive terms. The final quotation at

One of the most important theme in The Glass Castle is forgiveness. Jeannette and her brother and sisters spend their whole lives forgiving their parents for their irresponsibilities. They still love them and welcome them into their hearts even though Rex and Rose Mary didn't deserve it. By forgiving them, she feels less angry and her attitude as a whole is much more positive. When she is three years old, she burns herself cooking and her mother doesn't take care of her. After being in the hospital for 6 days, she let her cook again and says “Good for you, you have got to get right back in the saddle (15). ” Another example of forgiveness, is when she is trying to learns how to swim and her dad drops her in the water making her almost drown. She thinks he did this so she can learn, so she forgives him. Jeanette says, “I figured he must be right, there was no other way to explain it(66).” This means that she thought he didn't have an intention to harm her, but he tried to make her learn. At the end of the story, she meets her father for the last time and forgives him for all the bad things that had happened in her life and all the chaos. Although all of these bad things happened to her and her brother and sister because of him, she says she knew he loved her like no one else ever had. Jeanette said she forgives him for “all the hell-raising and destruction and chaos he [has] created in [her life].” On the other hand though, she says, “I could not imagine what my life would be like- without him in it. As awful as he could be, I always knew he loved me in a way no one else ever had(279).” This means that she knew that he made all those mistakes throughout his life, but she still found a way to forgive him and look on the brighter side of things.

While her father’s dismisses his destructive nature, Jeannette becomes conscious of his actions which motivates her to make amends in hopes of leaving their desolate life. Instead of getting help for his childhood trauma, Rex immerses himself in alcohol causing him to become

Jeanette's mother, though she's always trying to have a positive, loving outlook on their life, is a selfish woman. The starvation was getting to her head, at which point she began to hide from the family and indulge herself in what little they have. "She told us we should forgive her the same way we always forgave Dad for his drinking. None of us said a thing. Brian snatched up the chocolate bar and divided it into four pieces. While mom watched, we wolfed them down" (Jeannette 174). This is one of the many moments in the novel where forgiveness is vital in the family. In order to get through their life of willingly living in poverty, they need to have trust in one another, as well as forgive each other for their mistakes. Sometimes times are difficult, and we start to lose sight and control of what's important. In this case, Jeanette's mother, though she insists their life is perfectly fine, is breaking down. She is so deprived of her own needs that she forgot of her own families needs, to the point where she hid herself from them to eat a single candy

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.

Jeannette recalls a memory one Christmas, when they managed to buy a few gifts for each other, and even a Christmas tree. Rex, angry that he didn’t get the gifts for them, and extremely intoxicated, lights the tree on fire, burning all the presents along with it. This shows his true selfish egomaniac character. If he can’t provide the family with presents, they simply don’t get any. Rex is the perfect example of selfishness ruling over someone’s life. His selfishness not only affects his life negatively, but his entire family. His wife is too afraid to lose him, so she puts up with his constant selfishness and stubborn behavior. In contrast with Amadou and William Sine, their selflessness and sacrifice makes them and others around them very blissful, whereas Rex struggles with everything around him. He can’t hold a job, and his family is in despair. Yet, when Rex does something selfless, such as when he gave Jeannette $1,000 for college, even though it’s probably all he has, he makes a great and strong impact in her life, and he is proud of

Rex seems like a father that’s trying to impress his children with his fictitious tales, absorbing their curiosities while veiling the darkness of his failure as a dad and his alcoholism. And eventually, like a bad magician, his deceit slowly becomes more and more transparent as his children grow and begin to

When Rex asks Jeannette what she wants for her birthday, she asks if he “could maybe stop drinking”(151), leaving Rex in silence. While Rex keeps his promise for several months, he breaks his promise after he and his family is helped by a stranger, who gives a ride home and provides for them. He comes home and gets in a fight with Rose Mary, which within minutes ends with the two of them “falling in love all over again”(158). However, Jeannette says she “didn’t feel like celebrating”(158) and that she “couldn’t believe Dad had gone back to the booze”(158). Through this quote, it is evident that Jeannette’s view on her father has been diminished from a heroic, trustworthy man, to somebody who is incapable of showing self restraint and keeping a

The theme of Jeannette and rex relationship is to depend on yourself. In the book this theme is showed by Jeannette and rex walls relationship when she has to save herself from drowning while rex is “teaching” her to swim, when he wastes all the money on beer instead of feeding his family so she and brian find a discarded and forgotten house, inside they find a shelf of rotten tomato cans, when she was the one that was taking care of the money that mom gave her to hide from dad when she went to college.

Jeannette is at the point in her life where she’s grown up enough to look back at her life and realize that some of the experiences she had as a child were actually scarring and dangerous and the severity of those situations were masked by her adoration for her father who she realized as she grew wasn’t everything that she thought. Still Jeannette could never hate her father as she illustrates in this quote, “As awful as he could be, I always knew he loved me in a way no one else ever had.” This quote also shows that Rex always making Jeanette feel special and always encouraging her had a profound effect on her. Jeannette definitely took notice of the way Rex held her self-worth in high regards to his own feeling of fulfillment. This exchange is especially important because there was no one else that Jeannette could have this closure with about her childhood because there was no one else that for her was at the heart of the chaos in

Rex is a strange character, He appears to have mood swings and lashes out if things don’t go his way. However he also seems to care for his family namely Jeannette. He constantly claims how Jeannette is his favorite in the family, so it would make sense that Rex would be the most influential person in her life. You can’t classify Rex as a good guy or a bad guy, because he is does so much in The glass castle and you can’t pin his actions down to one reason or another. He often does extremely horrible things that not only brings harm to himself but also his family.

Rex on the other hand, is harmful and destructive when he is drunk, which makes Jeannette’s mother