Mahatma Gandhi once stated, “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” Jeannette Walls is a best selling author known best for her personal memoir “The Glass Castle” where she describes her unconventional childhood, negligent upbringing, and her struggle to defy all forces and break the cycle of deprivation. Their alcoholic father, Rex and their narcotic mother, Rose Mary raised Jeannette and her three siblings with no steady income and lived in a state of absolute instability. Despite his many flaws, Jeannette managed to keep faith in her father when everyone else had abandoned hope. After many broken promises, drunken riots, and complete desertion Jeannette’s confidence in her father vanished and she moved on …show more content…
Rex Walls was a constant source of comfort to Jeannette as a child and he made her feel exceptionally special. A perfect example of this incomparable feeling of significance is demonstrated by one Christmas night in the desert. Rex took each of his children out into the barren wasteland to give them a special gift. “‘Pick out your favorite star,’ Dad said that night. He told me I could have it for keeps. He said it was my Christmas present” (Walls 40). That night, Rex gave Jeannette the planet Venus for Christmas, and it was the finest present she could have received. In spite of their financial struggles, Rex Walls did always made his children feel the importance and worth he felt they contained. Jeannette always felt an intense connection to her father because of his ability to make her feel special, but he was also a spring of unlimited …show more content…
Even though he didn’t provide for his family to the best of his ability, he still showed a genuine sense of love and affection. Rex Walls ended up contracting a rare tropical disease from a street fight and he wanted to see Jeannette one last time before he passed. “‘But you always loved your old man didn’t you?’ ‘I did, Dad,’ I said. ‘And you loved me’” (Walls 279). Out of all the horrible events that Rex Walls forced Jeanette to suffer through, they will always have an intense connection of a mutual honest love between a father and a
It still holds true that man is most uniquely human when he turns obstacles into opportunities. This is evident in Jeannette Walls’ memoir, The Glass Castle, which reiterates the story of Jeannette who is raised within a family that is both deeply dysfunctional and distinctively vibrant. Jeannette is faced with numerous barriers throughout her life. Despite the many obstacles set forth by her parents during her childhood, Jeannette develops into a successful adult later in life. One of these obstacles is the lack of a stable home base moulds her into the woman she grows up to be. Throughout her life, Jeannette must cope with the carelessness of her
In The Glass Castle, author Jeannette Walls was a perfect example of resilience. Her life was not an easy one. Her parents didn’t have
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
Jeannette’s mother did not like strict rules so all of the children could pretty much go and do whatever they wanted. Rose Mary felt that children should not be burdened with a lot of rules and restrictions. The only rule was that the kids had come home when the streetlights went on. Jeannette’s mom thought that it was good for kids to do what they wanted because they learned from their mistakes. However, if one of the kids back talked or disobeyed a direct order, they would be whipped but a belt but that was very rare. Also afterwards, Rex and Rose Mary would forgive them for what they did. Forgiveness is one of the main themes in the novel “The Glass Castle” and appears very often throughout the book. Jeannette always found a way to forgive
Thematic Statement: Forgiving someone for their mistake can make yourself free of anger and bitterness.
Colson Whitehead once said, “Let the broken glass be broken glass, let it splinter into smaller pieces and dust and scatter. Let the cracks between things widen until they are no longer cracks but the new places for things”. In the memoir “The Glass Castle,” author Jeannette Walls faces despair and turmoil as a result of her impoverished and dysfunctional upbringing. As Jeannette grows up, she watches her father Rex fail to reach his full potential and his dream to build a Glass Castle shatter as his alcoholism takes control. Aware of the devastation her father was causing, she begins to slowly lose faith in him but doesn’t fail to escape her destructive household and pursue her dreams of becoming a journalist. Due to her parent’s lack of parenting and being forced to fend for herself, Jeannette developed a sense of responsibility to care for others and make amends to improve the family’s lifestyle. Despite the turbulence and destruction her parents had caused over the years, unlike her father, Jeannette was able to find the strength to overcome obstacles, developing characteristics that ultimately lead her to achieving her dream, thus illustrating that adversity has the power to shape one’s identity.
The Glass Castle. Sounds like a story about some fantasy kingdom with a castle made of glass, but it’s not. This is a story about the early life of a young woman, Jeannette Walls. From drinking to living in the desert to running to New York, her life is a roller coaster ride. However, there is one thing you notice in the story: forgiveness. This happened many times in the Walls family. The act of forgiveness ultimately led the family to peace.
Jeannette Wall’s memoir, The Glass Castle, displays Jeannette’s life growing up as a child living in an impoverished family. It is surprising to see that Jeannette is truly loving and caring towards her family despite how completely irresponsible and negligent both her parents were. Rose-Mary and Rex Walls are unfit parents to their children.
“If you don't want to sink, you better figure out how to swim”(66). Jeannette Walls, the author of The Glass Castle, became the best swimmer in all types of water, rough, deep, shallow, calm, and stormy. The book The Glass Castle is an autobiography about Jeanette’s, traumatic life growing up in an alcoholic and abusive household. Rose Mary and Rex Walls raised their children with tough love and never spoonfed them. Jeanette, the second oldest child, ended up facing multiple deathly and scarring situations during her childhood. Through all the adversity, Jeannette Walls learns that forgiveness and self sufficiency are key for success, which demonstrates, which demonstrates the power of independence and mental strength’s ability to create life-changing
Rex Walls, a character in The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, is an abusive, manipulative parent. He exhibits many traits that are classified as neglective, abusive as well as endangering to the general well being of his children. This book tells the heartbreaking story of Jeannette Walls childhood into her adult life. As a child she was exposed to the worst and most sickening aspects of the world due to her parents incapabilities. It emphasizes the struggles of growing up in an underprivileged as well as dealing with her abusive and mentally ill parents. Tried in the court of law, Rex Walls would be charged guilty, due to the countless examples of evidence against him.
Therefore Rex Walls is uninvolved in his children’s lives because of one example when Jeannette has been injured in the hospital for six weeks and her father comes to the room for the first time when she is supposed to stay in the hospital to rest and keep under supervision by the doctors. Most parents would stay at the hospital with their children but instead, Rex takes her out of the hospital. Jeannette is still hurt and is trying to heal, yet he comes in with the smell of alcohol on his breath and leaves without paying the doctors for the safekeeping of Jeannette. Jeannette’s father tells her to trust him when he hasn’t been there for her for what probably seemed like forever to Jeannette, when she needed him the most.
After being rushed to the hospital, which uses the white archetype to represent uniformity, sterileness, and artificiality, Jeannette's father, Rex Walls, who is quite the opposite, first challenges her physician’s ways, and then scoops her out of bed and rushes her out of the hospital. This shows that Rex is opposed to medicine and gentle care, preferring rather harsh and natural ways of healing.
The Glass Castle, a memoir by Jeannette Walls reveals one look into a dysfunctional family. This personal memoir is full of lessons of redemption and reliance for all. Jeannette and her siblings thrived with parents whose beliefs and stubborn ways of life, changed their children’s’ lives forever. Though their parent’s dreadful actions, the children tried to fend for them. Rex, a very brilliant man, when sober and Rose Mary, an inspirational artist, when not a panhandler risked their own lives daily. Even though Rex and Rose Mary’s lives were unstable at times, they would instill lessons into their children. Their philophies in life I believe relied on one another, which taught their children some
The Glass Castle, a memoir by Jeannette Walls, tells the story of Jeannette's upbringing and her road to adulthood. Jeannette, and her siblings, were raised by dysfunctional, poor, and sometimes homeless parents, Rose Mary and Rex Walls. The Walls children were pretty much abandoned by their parents and in some cases they were forced into making their own money, or stealing food just so they would not starve. Rose Mary and Rex Walls allowed the children to do anything they wanted, whenever they wanted to do it, but that did not stop Jeannette from being successful. She recognized that she did not want to live her life the same way her parents have lived their lives. In The Glass Castle Jeannette Walls believes that sometimes people are actually
Jeannette’s father is clearly portrayed as one of the most stubborn of the family. It’s shown that Rex does not change by the way his family reacts to the way he lashes out. In the beginning of the story he gets in an argument with the doctor because he didn’t think Jeannette should be wearing bandages because “Burns need to breathe” (13). Even though Jeannette insisted on listening to the doctors he does not have much sympathy when it comes to his childrens wants or needs. Towards the end of the story Rex can’t accept Jeannette’s thoughtful gift because he’s not “some sort of charity chase” (263). He can’t get over his head of the house role and accept the help from his daughter. Rex doesn’t realize Jeannette morals we’re only to be generous because she loves her father.