The Path of Recovery Is for Everyone

Within this quote, the author uses point of view through Jeannette to convey the understanding. Through Jeannette’s perspective and knowledge of her current situation, the reader can infer that the family is poor and is faced with obstacles that they are shortly able to overcome even with their compact sum of money. Another example that demonstrates how point of view supports the understanding, is when Rose Mary (Jeannette’s mother) finds an old sewing machine in their new house. She, “ said it would come in handy because we could make our own clothes even when the electricity was turned off “ (153). In this quote, Jeannette’s mother is trying to make living at 93 Hobart Street seem like an adventure by finding new activities to do with her children.

She has always felt a responsibility to take care of her siblings, earn money to help with finances, and control her father when he was drunk, even taking him home from the bar. Jeannette would try to bring food home for her siblings when she found any extra. At one point she says, “I felt like I was failing Maureen, like I wasn’t keeping my promise that I’d protect her.” (206) In reality, Jeannette should not be the one in charge of protecting her siblings and making sure they have enough food and necessities but she does because her parents don’t. She also feels the need to make extra money because her parents don’t have steady incomes. By the age of thirteen, she was the head of the household for the summer and had a job that paid forty dollars a week. (209, 215) She was making more money than either of her parents and she wasn’t even old enough by law to have a job. Another example of her maturity beyond her age is when Rose Mary makes Jeannette retrieve her father from the bar when he doesn’t come home after a couple of days. (181) This a job that Rose Mary should be doing herself but instead she sends Jeannette so she doesn’t have to deal with

Early in the memoir, Jeannette is old enough to recognize the difference between the rich and poor. However, seeing herself on the shorter side of the stick doesn’t bother her when she condemns a wealthy lifestyle while star-gazing with Rex, saying, “Rich city folks,... lived in fancy apartments, but their air was so polluted they couldn’t even see the stars. We’d have to be out of our minds to want to trade places with any of them” (Walls 39). Jeannette effectively compares her poor lifestyle to a luxurious, rich one and surprisingly dismisses it. Doing so illustrates and proves the fact that at this point in her life she is satisfied with her socio-economic status, because otherwise, she would desire a rich life out of envy. Since this is true, Jeannette must not be self-conscious about her wealth, and therefore her poor lifestyle has no effect on her self-esteem. Clearly, her self-esteem is healthy enough to decline a rich lifestyle that most people crave. Similarly, while stargazing, it is revealed that Jeannette has no remorse with being poor when she mocks other children’s materialistic Christmas presents, “We laughed about all the kids who believed in the Santa myth and got nothing for Christmas but a bunch

In the novel, Jeannette makes the most out of her unfortunate lifestyle. When Jeannette was young, Rex said that Blythe was too hot, so they hit the road again. Her parents put Jeannette in the back of a U-Haul and drove across the desert. The kids weren’t allowed to talk on the way there,

Jeannette starts fending for herself by digging through the trashcans in the bathrooms during and after lunch. After finding herself food, she pulls her feet up onto the toilet and eats quietly so no one would catch her. Clearly she learns at a young age if she wants anything she will have to get it herself. Jeannette and her siblings all lower the expectations they have of their parents. After Jeannette learns to control the fire that consumes her life, she obtains her own

Jeannette is very insecure about her past life of poverty, and although she has now dug herself out of the rut of destitution, her parents’ continued homelessness is always a reminder of

Describe Jeannette’s childhood, specifically her socialization or the process by which she acquired family values, information about social expectations, and survival strategies.

By being so resilient, the reality of her father's addiction and how it affects her goes unnoticed, and Jeannette instead views something

As hard work goes, attitude is also extremely important to have when trying to achieve something. If someone’s demeanor is off, they don’t believe they can achieve something greater than them, which in turn leads to failure. However, Jeannette wasn’t one of those people who didn’t believe in themselves, she tried to do everything that she could with a positive outlook regarding her life. Even when she didn’t concur with her parents, she didn’t give up her optimism when she moved to Welch, “Seeing as how Welch was our new home, Brian and I figured we’d make the best of it,” (Part 3 Chapter 7). While Jeannette tried to make everything special for the family by including teamwork, “If we all work together, we can get it done in a day or or two,”

Jeannette, during her childhood, always looked forward to building "The Glass Castle". Her and her father would always talk about how it would be self sufficient in the desert with solar panels and made completely out of glass. This gave Jeannette hope for the future. When Jeannette is an adult, she loses sight of believing in her family and tries to push them out of her life causing her to be more unhappy. But, by the end she came to her senses and went and visited her father while he was sick.

Jeannette’s self-reliant behavior is frequently shown through her refusal of help from others. On one trip to retrieve her father from a bar, Jeannette’s father is so drunk that he can no longer walk. Another man offers to drive them home, and

And despite everything, her love for her father only accumulates for him. Throughout the story Jeannette at times has given up on her father but she somehow always rationalizes his actions and continues to see him as everything but a bad influence. For example, when Rex purposely throws Jeannette into the water forcing her to learn how to swim and saying, “If you don’t want to sink you better learn how to swim.” (Walls 66) Again this just proves that despite how reckless and inconsiderate her parents were at times eventually it taught her to be independent and survive. And in the end they needed this because living in poverty its almost difficult to make sure you will survive the next day. Regardless of Rex’s weaknesses in raising Jeannette soon enough it proved that Jeannette’s love and admiration for her father was impeccable and only proved that Rex played a huge role in her

Think back to your own childhood. Could you imagine being a child, and not having a care in the world, but then, as quick as the snap of a finger, that all changes because of a thoughtless mistake made by your parents? In The Glass Castle it is revealed that as Jeannette grew up, she endured hardships inflicted upon her by her own parents. However, if Jeannette had not gone through these things, she never would have gained the characteristics that she values present day. Although Jeannette Walls faced hardships and endured suffering during her childhood, these obstacles formed her into a self-reliant woman who proves that just because you do not have as much money as other families, you can still achieve success in your life.

Hardship is something everyone must overcome at some point in their lives. Everyone deals with hardships differently. It is harder for some people to recover from hardship because of their family, friends, or even because they can’t find the will within themselves to deal with hardships. It would be easier for someone who is naturally determined and strong willed to overcome things because they have a inbred ability to conquer their fears and leave behind whatever it was that was making their life unbearable. If parents don’t support their kids decisions, such as Jeannette going to New York, then that can make it harder to triumph over things they struggle with. If friends don’t encourage someone to go on and make something better of themselves, they will hold them back and they will be stuck in the life everyone expects them to live.

The development of the characters changed at an inconsistent rate throughout the memoir. Some of the characters who changed immensely were Jeannette and Maureen. Jeannette’s most drastic change was her attitude towards her parents. At the beginning, Jeannette was sympathetic towards her mother and father, but throughout the book, she became increasingly fed up with their games. Near the end, she states “I think that maybe sometimes people get the lives they want” (256). This is her way of saying that her parents choose to live in poverty without jobs, but she knows she doesn’t want to