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Forgiveness In The Glass Castle

Decent Essays

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

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