Jeanette And The Struggle In Yellow Wall's Children

The story of Jeannette Walls begins one cold March evening when she comes across a homeless woman, which is then revealed to be her mother. It is there that her troubled past comes into light in, “The Glass Castle”. But through her disastrous childhood and dysfunctional family, she manages to turn it around and and by education, expectation, and most of all environment, Jeannette grew from her experiences and came out successful and stronger than ever.

There was a time (not so long ago) when a man's superiority and authority wasn't a question, but an accepted truth. In the two short stories, "Desiree's Baby", and "The Yellow Wallpaper", women are portrayed as weak creatures of vanity with shallow or absent personalities, who are dependent on men for their livelihood, and even their sanity. Without men, these women were absolutely helpless and useless. Their very existence hinged on absolute and unquestioning submission…alone, a woman is nothing.

Not having a safe car and many other things show the parents didn’t do much to support their children in anyway either. They barely got a roof over their heads, and recurrently weren’t able to feed them. To the point where “When other girls came in and threw away their lunch bags in the garbage…”, Jeannette would dig them out and eat anything that they didn’t (Walls 173). Feeling abandoned and scavenging for food shows many signs of an abusive family. The Walls children should not have had to go through as much as they did, just to

Jeannette Walls was a young girl. Moving around constantly her entire life always on an adventure. Her family never had much money, and she had a hard time finding food. She was a skinny, tall girl with red hair, pale skin, and buck teeth. She was very optimistic in every hard situation she was put in and never gave up faith in her father, for a while anyways. Her father was who she had to put all her faith into. He made the decisions and he was the one who made all these empty promises to janette and her siblings. Janette lived life to the fullest, always being positive and never complaining and to be grateful of what she had, like her parents had taught her. She rarely cried, she was tough. She tried not to care what people think, because her mother taught her that it didn't matter. She stood up for herself, and her family, even in rough times. Even if it was up against someone that isn't in her favor. Through the rough times in her

While Jeanette is preparing to leave for New York and her father, Rex, attempts to talk her out of it by showing her the updated plans for the Glass Castle, Walls, through Jeanette, uses an implied metaphor to show how all her father’s promises are a Glass Castle without the use of like or as. Walls uses this to illuminate how her father’s promises are broken easily like how a Glass Castle can be broken easily as it is made of glass, which is fragile. Walls also highlights how throughout the memoir her father promised to protect her, not only by building her a home like the Glass Castle, but also by protecting her from men who force themselves upon her as seen when the father states, “Anyone who… laid a finger on… Rex Walls's children was going to get their butts kicked,” (Walls, 24), but the father later goes on to allow her to be inappropriately touched by Robbie just to make some money. This shows that the father makes promises he is unable to and often does not want to fulfill throughout the memoir, which leads to Jeanette having to face adversity as her father is not protecting her. As a result of her adversity, Jeanette reaches an epiphany and learns to look out for her own well-being as she understands that her father is no longer willing to do so. She also understands that her father will never build the Glass Castle and that all the promises that her father ever made to her are like the Glass Castle, easily broken. This ultimately to Jeanette developing from a character who depended solely on her father, to one that could make the decision to go to New York without her father’s permission after the 11th grade. Finally, by going to New York, Jeanette is able to provide for her own well-being by working at a job and renting an apartment and departs from the conventional means of wellbeing. Through the use of metaphor, Walls conveys the theme that often for one to persevere against adversity in his or her lives, he or she must learn to go against conventional means of well-being, like family, and find his or her individual means of well-being.

Jeanette Walls was faced with several tests where she was able to display courage despite the odds being stacked against her. Jeanette was faced with a poor upbringing in which she claims made her the resilient woman she is by the end of the novel, however, she did not feel that way at the time. The first act of courage depicted in the novel would be the instance in which Jeanette gathered the strength to confront her father about his drinking problem. Then again, Jeanette displays courage by standing up for her brother Brian and asking that Erma, her grandmother, no longer touch him inappropriately. Deciding to leave her family and chase her dreams for a better life in the Big Apple was another challenging decision she had to make, and Jeanette’s final courageous act within the novel was the moment she refused to give her mother the million dollars she asked of her.

In society, there is no “normal” but there is often a certain expectation from the member in it like holding down a job, raising children, and many other. Yet Jeannette's parents do none of these things, instead they consider it to be positive that they live outside of society. To begin with the opening of the novel Jeanette is all grown up and a full member society and a complete opposite of her younger self. Jeannette illustrates ,“ I was sitting in a taxi, wondering if I had overdressed for the evening when I looked out the window and saw Mom rooting through a dumpster” (1). This is the opener of the memoir and is setting up a large class difference between two characters. Jeanette may never have been supported in her childhood but she has made her way to a high place in society, unlike her mother who never changed in her ways. Here Walls is creating a vivid picture of what society deems as correct and incorrect drawing the reader in to find out the cause of two members of the same family being so far apart from each other in society. In the same way when Jeannette is young and, is explaining how she receives her education. Jeannette admits, “ We might enroll into school, but not always. Mom and Dad did most of our teaching” (20). Most children in society have an education from some sort of school, but since the Walls family exists outside of society in many ways. Including how they receive their education, early on in life, the children are not inside a school system. Instead they are taught how to live outside of society like their parents even if they do not want to live that way. Later on, Jeanette has moved away from her parents and has the proper schooling she is a full member of society which is everything her mother did not want. Her mother argues, ‘ Look at the way you live. You’ve sold out. Next thing I know you’ll be a Republican.’ She shook her head. ‘Where are the

The Walls parenting technique resulted in Jeannette being a more intelligent individual. Along the way, she encounters many obstacles many kids in her age group haven’t experienced, but she always seems to solve it her own no matter no occurs. For example, Rex decided to take the family to the Hot Pot where Rex uses a unique method to teach Jeannette how to swim. Her siblings, Brian and Lori knew how to swim, but Jeannette never learned, because the large bodies of water made her constantly intimidated. Previously, she always clanged on the side of the swimming pool, but the Hot Pot had no edges for that to be possible, so her dad came to the rescue. The father pushes her to the middle of water where Jeannette starts to drown, spit, cough, and even chock, but Rex just repeats the process. Then, Jeannette eventually realized that all Rex did was“rescue” but only to throw her back into the water. Jeannette recalls, “ ...rather than reaching for dad’s hands, I

In literature, women are often depicted as weak, compliant, and inferior to men. The nineteenth century was a time period where women were repressed and controlled by their husband and other male figures. Charlotte Gilman, wrote "The Yellow Wallpaper," showing her disagreement with the limitations that society placed on women during the nineteenth century. According to Edsitement, the story is based on an event in Gilman’s life. Gilman suffered from depression, and she went to see a physician name, Silas Weir Mitchell. He prescribed the rest cure, which then drove her into insanity. She then rebelled against his advice, and moved to California to continue writing. She then wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper,” which is inflated version of her

Again the danger of parenting is depicted through walls’ use of symbolism. Jeannette being a child (three years old) and having to cook and take care of herself is substandard. Having to be surrounded by hardship and

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.

The Walls children are not only raised by parents that can’t hold down a job, but by parents who are also mentally unstable. In a recent study by Princeton University it was said that “ Long work hours, lack of autonomy, job insecurity, and a heavy workload are also associated with adult mental health problems.” (Princeton). No matter how bad of a “childhood” the Walls children had it’s worse because both parents can’t hold down a job. With both parents rarely working the children are left to fend for themselves, essentially raising themselves. The Walls children have a poor quality of life and a huge factor of their quality of life is because their parents can’t keep a job. For example if Rex Walls kept a job and didn't spend his money on booze the children would have food to eat. At one point in The Glass Castle it says “whenever Mom was too busy to make dinner or we were out of food, we’d go back to the dumpster to see if any new chocolate was waiting for us.” (Walls 125). Jeanette’s parents were so selfish that the children had to go to the dumpster to get a meal, and that problem could’ve been solved if either parent was dedicated to keeping a job and putting food on the table. The children also spent most of their childhood wearing the ripped and tattered clothes because their parents were unable to afford new clothes. Not only is this extremely sad, but if their parents had steady

Her Mother seemed to be more put together than her father at times, even getting a job at one point helping the family out. Though her mother was a hedonist and did not contain the motherly love and sacrifice for her kids, this job helped Jeanette’s future. She helped grade papers which increased her knowledge of the outside world and “...the world was making a little more sense” as she read the papers and projects of her mother’s students (Walls 205). Her parents had such an opposition to the outside world that she hadn’t gotten every aspect of

In the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” written by Charlotte Stetson, the narrator, a woman whose name the reader never learns, struggles with nervous depressive disorder causing her to be confined to her and her husband’s vacation home for the summer. The lofty home, although romantic in her description, leaves her feeling aberrant. Stetson describes her husband and doctor, John, as an overbearing and almost tyrannical man that tells her that she is forbidden to work or write until she is better to save her strength. John’s relentless restrictions on his wife and uncaring actions towards her emphasize the theme of patriarchal marriage and can be analyzed using the gender/feminist lens. Despite his regimented rules, the narrator feels writing

The short stories “Boys and Girls” by Alice Munro and “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman are both stories that focus on the roles women are forced to play. However, the difference between the stories is how the author chooses to address these roles. Both of these stories are told in the first person from the perspective of a girl who struggles with accepting the expectations that have been forced upon them. Even though the stories were written at a different time, they both focus on the main struggle that women had at both time periods. However, the way that the roles are addressed in each story is very different and create different outcomes for each.