Theme Of Self Reliance 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

There are many different kinds of parents. There are parents that are nice to their kids, spoil them and give them anything they want. On the other hand, there parents that are mean to their kids, make them do all the house work and provide bad living conditions for their children. The Walls parents would fall on the bad of the parent scale for many reasons. First both of the Walls parents are out of touch with reality. Second the parents act like kids and the kids have to act like responsible adults. Finally the parents are selfish, and care more about themselves than their own children. Both Rex and Rosemary Walls are unfit to be parents to the Walls children.

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

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

A. Jeannette Walls, in her memoir The Glass Castle, demonstrates Erikson’s eight stages of development. Through the carefully recounted stories of her childhood and adolescence, we are able to trace her development from one stage to the next. While Walls struggles through some of the early developmental stages, she inevitably succeeds and has positive outcomes through adulthood. The memoir itself is not only the proof that she is successful and productive in middle adulthood, but the memoir may also have been part of her healing process. Writing is often a release and in writing her memoir and remembering her history, she may have been able to come to terms with her sad past. The memoir embodies both the proof

With no limits or boundaries, Walls is thrown in a big body of water without knowing how to swim. Rex and Rosemary has a sense of doing it by yourself or not at all asserting “But the Hot Pot didn’t have any ehat edges like that swimming pool. There was nothing to cling to. I waded up in my shoulders. The water above my chest is warm and the rocks i was standing on felt so hot [...] Dad who watched me unsmiling[..] “you’re going to learn today”(65). Rex, in athrows Jeanette in water with no edges, knowing she can’t swim.He puts Jeannette in a live or die situation. Rex shows the faults of parenting because the parents have no regards on Jeannette’s safety or life and wall states”You’re going to learn today’ declaring “Dad pried my fingers from around his neck and pushed me away. My arms flailed around and i sank into the hot smelly water. Water surged in my nose and down my throat. My lungs burned[...] He pulled back and did it again” (65-66).Putting a child in a dangerous situation to show them a lesson shows bad parenting.Rex and Rosemary causes the reader to reflect on their lack of responsibility as being a parent so that they can understand from both sides of view of the poverty situation.

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

Self reliance is a transcendentalist concept advocated by Ralph Waldo Emerson. He famously said, “What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think”(364). When practicing self-reliance, In the Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls grows up depending on no one and is forced to practice self-reliance; however, this belief is detrimental to her self-confidence and self-esteem. She damages her dignity when she denies aid from others when she is not capable of relying on herself, and she damages her self-confidence when she attempts to improve her life in Welch but is not able to change anything.

Darryl’s life is worth fighting for. “You can’t buy what I’ve got.” ‘The Castle’ directed by Rob Sitch, about one man, his family and neighbours on the verge of being homeless. Darryl Kerrigan, the “backbone of the family” won’t stand for that. Of course no one can buy what he has. He’s spent almost his entire lifetime building what he has, why should he give it up? Darryl’s way of life is simple yet filled with family values. 3 Highview Crescent is the home to Darryl, his wife Sal and their 3 children: Wayne, Steve, Tracy and Dale. (Wayne currently being in jail.) The house is made up of love, and simple family values. Darryl’s also added bits and pieces to it. He’s added on so much to the house, his own personal touch. His neighbours,

Poverty is a main part of life for many people in the world, more importantly the United States. Jeanette Walls shows how big of a problem poverty is in her memoir “The Glass Castle”, with her stories of how she grew up and her family’s struggles. How her family was treated along with what the people living around them found important clearly shows their economical class. The problem of food scarcity, or not having the bare necessities are some of poverty’s main problems. In “The Glass Castle”, the issues of poverty are displayed through not having the basic necessities, not being able to provide for children, and how there is not always enough food to feed everyone in the family.

Self-sufficiency is the ability to support oneself without external assistance. In The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls depicts the importance of self-sufficiency through the use of, symbolism, motivation, and characterization. Jeannette Walls battles poverty, addiction, social exclusion, and irresponsibility. She overcomes this by being independent and self-sufficient.

A child can end up with a troubled future if they were neglected in the past. This can be seen in The Glass Castle and in multiple other cases today. Jeannette Walls’s youngest sibling Maureen is an exquisite example of what can happen if a child is neglected during childhood. When the Walls family had been living in New York, a disastrous event happened. Jeannette says, “Six months later, Maureen stabbed Mom. It happened after Mom decided it was time for Maureen to develop a little self-sufficiency by moving out and finding a place of her own” (Walls 274-275). Maureen stabbing her mother seems like the effect of drugs and alcohol at first, but it is indeed the product of neglect. Maureen always practically lived with different families during her childhood because her neighbors felt responsible to raise her correct because they knew her parents would not be able to. This led to Maureen becoming reliant on other people while the rest of the Walls family were learning how to be self sufficient. This self sufficiency immensely helped the other Walls kids when they moved to New York, but Maureen was under a lot of new found stress because she could not fend for herself in a city full of people that do not care about you. This stress led to her taking drugs, smoking cigarettes and ultimately stabbing her mother. Maureen is not the only case of this happening. In

With parents like these, succumbing to anger and revenge proves understandable, but instead the author bypasses all of this. Although her childhood is surrounded by less than inspiring figures her optimism allows her to make something of her life. Wall's even ends up maintaining excellent grades and

They picked her up and ran out of the hospital without looking back while the nurses tried to stop them. It was irresponsible of them to take their daughter with severe burns out of the hospital without having the nurse’s permission. The parents were only thinking of themselves and how this would affect them; they were not thinking of their daughter. These were just the beginnings of the neglect and selfishness of the parents.

“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.