Resilience In The Glass Castle By Jeannette Walls

Resilience means the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness. It is being able to come back from a terrible situation in good spirits. In the book Unbroken, the theme of resilience is used many times. It is used most all throughout Louie’s time at the POW camps. Laura Hillenbrand has developed the theme of resilience through describing how Louie and the other POWs survived at the POW camps, which included his speaking out against the actions and trying to prove the Bird wrong, and also showed what the Japanese were going through during this time.

Here is my personal story about resilience. When my dad left my mom she had it hard,we had it hard she worked more and we never saw her that much. She was depressed she never ate and she never looked happy. She saw that we were upset and said “ even though it’s rough now we will bounce back don't let this situation stress you and I didn't. And that day my mom changed,we changed we were happier we went out more.

Resilience is the ability to recover quickly from difficulties. In the book Night by Elie Wiesel, Elie and his dad did not have the best relationship in the beginning, but at the end of their very long journey they were inseparable. In the book Boy In the Boat by Daniel James Brown Joe did not really have a family until he made the rowing team, and until he met Joyce who would later become his wife and they would start a family. Human resilience is affected by family in both of these books.

Perseverance is steadfastness in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success. In The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls illustrates the beneficial effects of perseverance through the use of figurative language, symbolism, and imagery. The Glass Castle is a memoir written about the dysfunctional family of Jeannette Walls. Being that her family situation was one of neglect, irresponsibility, and poverty, Walls had to endure many hardships which shaped her as a person.

People have learned to be resilient in order to overcome serious hardships. A person’s resilience can be seen through how they handle bad experiences; to be resilient in the face of adversity. People who never give up and always fight back even when it gets hard are resilient. Some believe that resilience is a trait that can be learned.

Nearly 1/2 of the world's population more than 3 billion people live on less than $2.50 a day. Jeannette Walls the quiet, tall red haired girl, daughter of the town drunk, neglected by her own parents and bullied for the way she is. Jeannette Walls quick witted, creative, and kind to everyone. These girls that I explained are the same person but separated by different personalities. In the book The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, it describes the development of the Walls family and how they are growing up. Despite Jeanette's struggle as a child she has persevered through hard work and self sufficiency, which demonstrates overcoming hard times leads to amazing goals.

Resilience is about how an individual deals, resists, recovers and learns from adversity’s in life. If a child is resilient they are less likely to be damaged as a result of negative experiences and are more likely to learn from and move on. In order for a child to be resilient they need to believe in themselves and have others they can rely on in their lives.

To begin, self-sufficiency is represented through symbolism. When Jeannette was little there was an incident where she was burned in a stove fire and when she was recovering her father, Rex says,”You can't live in fear of something as basic as fire.”(15) Rex says that Jeannette shouldn't let things in life scare her and she needs to overcome them. Jeannette’s need to overcome her hardships symbolizes her self-sufficiency because it shows that Jeannette is determined to support herself. Further, when the Walls family lived in Phoenix they could survive in harsh conditions with little to nothing, so Jeannette says ”We were sort of like the cactus”(22). Jeannette’s independence and how she can survive when she can't depend on other shows her self sufficiency. Jeannette’s self sufficiency is relatable to the reader because society is established in a way where in the end of it all, people can only depend on themselves to survive.

It doesn't matter what lies behind or before us, what matters is what lies within us. Self love is to believe in ourselves that we are valuable which  indirectly builds up from the independence and freedom we get from our family, culture and believe. The text shows Independence and self love which includes the following texts. The memoir “The Glass Castle” by Jeannette Walls represents the struggles  the way  she overcome them in various self independent ways. The song “I ” by Kendrick Lumar represents the affection and self love towards oneself  and “The Other Family” by Himani Bennerji shows the complexity of a daughter who is struggling to achieve her own self love and independence. Firstly, childhood struggles and difficulties can be overcome if one loves them and they are passionate to achieve their goals and dreams. Secondly, our experience of the family can help to shape our independence and to halt our progress as we are reliable on them. Finally, accepting ourselves and investing in self love makes us capable to achieve something in life. By examining the impact of  struggles, family and acceptance, this essay will demonstrate that finding self love regardless of family status influence our perspectives on ourselves and what we are capable of achieving.

Everyone encounters obstacles in life that they feel like they can't overcome. People that have 'resilience' can take these challenges head on, stay calm in any situation, and use their problem-solving skills to take advantage of the situation and get themselves out of it. In a section of "Unbroken" by Laura Hillenbrand, a biography of war hero Louie Zamperini, Zamperini is adrift at sea after his bomber crashed in the ocean. He is left with just the remains of the plane and two others, Phil and Mac. Louie Zamperini's key characteristics of resilience and the differences between all three men allow them to overcome adversity, and Louie and Phil make it out alive.

Individuals can be seen responding to the circumstances they endure in many different ways. The way they choose to respond to issues can determine whether the effect of their exposure will end up to be a positive strengthen to their character. In the memoir The Glass Castle written by Jeannette Walls, we see the effects of past experiences on Jeannette and we see how she uses those situations to shape the person that she becomes. Jeannette is a focal point to the life of success that a person can live even after growing up in an unorthodox family. She goes to prove that even with the strangest life she lives, she had the passion to pursue her goals is significant and her desire achieves the life she wants while her dreams were being

Reading a book that is similar to The Glass Castle by Jeannette wall can help build a student’s resilience especially if that student is in a tough moment in his/her life. The article The Importance Of Resilience has some what similar problems like The Glass Castle. In the article the author discussed, about a man named Quashone. When Quashone was younger he lived in a bad neighborhood, from living there it lead to some bad decisions that he made. After telling his mom, those bad decisions they moved to a different neighborhood (Gorman, et al). Just by that one change in his life, it turned upside down from getting into trouble to graduating from college and having a family of his own. From reading books that are like The Glass Castle it can teach people, especially students, on how to build resilience accepting support, drive, and hard work.

In the novel The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls there are many moments in which you notice the struggle that the family and family are going through. By constructing this response to the proposed question; it forces you to look deeper into the stories character and see their resilience. Now of course in this novel there were characters that showed very little resilience or never sprung back from the situation they were in at a younger age. In this essay I will be explaining resilience and use examples from The Glass Castle to prove my points.

Resilience is the power or the ability to return to the original form. “Resilience is born by grounding yourself in your own loveliness, hitting notes you thought were way out of your range” (94). Father Gregory Boyle says this because he knows that resilience is needed in order to change. Resilience is important because we can become better people by doing things, we thought we couldn’t do. In the book, Tattoos on the Heart, The Power of Boundless Compassion, Boyle claims resilience is essential in our lives because it is the key to do better.

Resilience is a term that is often applied to those who have faced hardship and viewed the experience in a positive light as an opportunity to grow and change for the better (Wagnild & Collins, 2009). The definition however seems to vary from place to place. Ungar et al. (2008) stated “definitions of resilience are ambiguous when viewed across cultures" (p.174) which is why the understanding of resilience may be difficult to capture (as cited in Windle, Bennett & Noyes, 2011). Although the literature agrees on several common themes about resilience there are many varying opinions on how to define the concept or the attributing factors. Earvolino-Ramirez (2007) and