Success And Failure In The Glass Castle

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

The memoir entitled The Glass Castle, written by Jeannette Walls is a story of the eventful life Jeannette endured growing up with her three siblings and her parents. Jeannette lived a tough life, she was constantly moving, never had nice clothes to wear, and had to grow up faster than most children. The reason for the constant struggles in Jeannette’s life led back to her parents. Her father Rex Walls was outrageous, always making spur of the moment decisions which had taken a toll on the family as a whole. He was a severe alcoholic who made way too many promises he knew he couldn’t keep. Throughout the novel, the idea of the “Glass Castle” appears quite often. The Glass Castle is

According to statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau, the poverty rate for children under age 18 was 19.7 percent between 2014 and 2015. Multiple studies and research have concluded that living in poverty results in lasting damage on a child’s self-esteem. The stories these 19.7% live are very similar to The Glass Castle, a memoir that displays the underdog tale of Jeannette Walls, which shows her battles with poverty, hunger, and child neglect. All of these battles were in her quest to prosper and live the American Dream. Due to her struggles, Jeannette realizes that growing up poor takes a toll on her self-esteem. However, after enduring a past surrounded with poverty, Jeannette learns to be less self-conscious and eventually takes pride from

In doing this, they instill her with a sense of responsibility and accomplishment. It strengthens the skills that she will need as an adult. Jeannette becomes adept at setting goals and achieving them through independence and self-control.

When I look at the word failure I didn’t see success. But that slowly changed as I read the book What the Best College Students Do by Ken Bain Chapter four. Bain, for me and I’m sure many other, have changed our view point on failure being a bad thing. He instead expressed failure as an “opportunity to learn something.” (121) As infants we grow and develop, we learn to walk by falling down a couple hundred times, and we learn to speak by babbling. By trying to walk, and trying to talk, we may fail at first. As an infant, you cannot give up when you are face to face with failure. You must get up and try again to learn. In the book, What the Best College Students Do by Ken Bain he uses people’s experiences and research to explain why failure is an opportunity to learn something new, rather than seeing failure as something bad. He asserts “people who become highly creative and productive learn to acknowledge failures, even to embrace them, and to explore and learn from them.” (100) Failure is important. If we did not get up and try again as infants, we would not be where we are today.

Bad Parenting is the act of not showing the responsibilities that should be taken as a mother or father. In The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls reveals the faults of parenting through the use of symbolism , imagery and characterization. Rosemary and Rex’s Struggles to show their children (Jeannette, Lori, Brian) the importance of the appearance and guidance of being by their side as a parent. Jeannette and Rex show their faults by destroying everything the children try to accomplish because of their personal bad habits.

Reading The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls was a journey in itself. As I dived deeper into the book everyday, I started feeling like I was apart of the Walls family, going through everything that they were experiencing. Reading about all their crazy experiences from one of the daughter's point of views, was incredibly intriguing. It is a personal memoir of her years of growing up with her alcoholic father, delusional mother, and three siblings. The book is full of hardships. The family continually suffers especially the children as they grow up. The amazing part of the book is how the kids, especially Jeanette, made good lives for themselves even when throughout their childhood they had just about nothing. Jeanette took all her struggles

Secondly, self-sufficiency is illustrated through motivation. One afternoon when Jeannette was at home by herself child services came to talk to her about her living conditions and her parents. Jeannette told the man to come back when her parents were home. When Jeannette’s mom came home she told her what happened and that she needed to do something so child services wouldn't take them away, Jeannette’s mom then said, “Jeannette, you're so focused it's scary.”(195) Rosemary says when Jeannette is focused she can get intimidating. Jeannette is motivated by the need to protect her family, which shows her self sufficiency because it's up to her to keep the family together, because she knows her parents are unreliable. Additionally, Rosemary has been known to feel sorry for herself and expresses how she hates her life. When Jeannette sees her mom wallowing she stands there in disgust watching her mother give up on life when she

The short story, The Right to Fail by William Zinsser, explains how it is acceptable to fail and learn from one's mistakes and to not go down the path society has made socially acceptable. Zinner has a positive outlook on the concept of failing, he explains, “Success can be dangerous- you feel you know it all. I’ve learned a  great deal from my failures.” As life goes on, everyone may not succeed the same way or even succeed at everything they attempt to do, but it is important to learn from mistakes and continue moving forward and to find the path that works for you. Trying new things and failing or succeeding can open new doors to something better.

As flames engulfed her dress, they burned down her stomach as she screamed for help. This was the first memory Jeannette Walls had in The Glass Castle . The plot of the story reveals her childhood of poverty as she moved around the country with her delusional family. Her alcoholic father and mentally ill mother created a very different lifestyle for their children, and raised them like no other. The unique plot, strong characters, and many settings make the novel successful. In this autobiography, she perseveres through tough times and leads the reader down the path she took to adulthood.

To be self-reliant means to rely on your own powers and resources rather than those of others. I find that Self-reliance is a recurring theme in The Glass Castle. Jeanette Walls and her siblings had to be self-reliant to make up for the lack of basic care they received from their parents. Walls was resilient, strong, and continued to grow despite the struggles she faced. While driving through the Californian desert the Walls family comes across a Joshua tree. The tree grew despite the whipping wind and scorching heat of the desert. Walls mother, Rose Mary thought the tree was beautiful because of the struggle to grow. "It's the Joshua tree's struggle that gives it it’s beauty" (Walls 38).  The Joshua tree symbolizes the struggle to grow in the midst of chaos.  Walls struggles helped her to become self-reliant, strong, resilient, and unique. Walls and the tree are great examples of the unique beauty that can come from dysfunction.

The Glass Castle is a memoir written by Jeannette Walls. In this book, Jeannette recounts her unconventional upbringing along with her three siblings. Yet, despite of it all, she grew up to have an ordinary life as an adult with a professional career in journalism. Throughout childhood, Jeannette’s family lived like vagabonds, having no permanent residence, sometimes even not having an actual home but sleeping in the family station wagon. One day they lived in the middle of the desert by Joshua Tree, the next week they lived in Las Vegas, then following week it was Welch, West Virginia. Because of all the moving that the family did, the children sometimes found themselves homeschooled, and other times were enrolled in school. The parents, Rose Mary and Rex, though flighty parents, were intellectual, artistic, and visionaries. They instilled these values into their children. Coincidentally, the children tapped into having their own traits and talents. Lori is the artist, Jeannette is the journalist, while Brian is the mediator. Unfortunately, Maureen, the youngest, never learned resiliency nor did she find herself or come to her own. As the children grew older, one by one, they moved to New York to live an ordinary life and pursue their own individual passion. Lori became a fantasy illustrator, Brian became a police sergeant, and Jeannette became a TV correspondent. Maureen was the last one to move to New

In addition, the willingness to learn through failure can help to reach the desired destiny. Nearly everybody fears failing, because it has been associated with all sorts of negativity. Although an optimistic look on the other side of tripping or falling down in life can make someone to be successful in

“After a traumatic experience, the human system of self preservation seems to go into permanent alert, as if the danger might return at any moment” (Judith Lewis Herman). The psychoanalyst Lewis Herman describes how encountering agonizing pain causes individuals to become more cautious as a result. The psychoanalytic lens is based on Freudian theories and asserts that “ people’s behavior is affected by their unconscious:...the notion that human beings are motivated, even driven, by desire, fears, needs, and conflicts of which they are unaware…” (Tyson 14-15) High schools a place where tragedy are brought upon people, but their voices aren’t heard. Melinda, a high school freshman, is the protagonist in Laurie Halse Anderson’s book, Speak.

Failure is something that we cannot go through life without experiencing. The best thing about failure is that failure can be used as a great learning experience to improve upon things in our lives and career. Using failure as a learning tool is dependent upon the person and how they view it as well as how they use it. Failure is a matter of perspective and the lessons in failure are important aspects towards growth and development. If we did not experience failure there wouldn’t be opportunities for learning. Failure can teach us about ourselves as well as provide an understanding for our