What Are Rose Mary Values?

Rose Mary Walls is far from being a caring mother or a positive role model to her children. She is unable to provide the basic necessities required for survival and even resorts to stealing what little resources the family has for herself; “I wondered if she had been looking forward to

Rose Mary Walls acts as a person who focuses on herself only. In the novel, she loses or quits her jobs to peruse a career as an artist. In doing this, the family is not making money. Due to her actions, Rose Mary Walls is adding to the poverty of the Walls family. At times, she acts more like a child then a mother. You catch Mrs. Walls throwing tantrums, skipping work, etc.

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

Coming to the first point most kids from the start of their life have been taught that you will only achieve success if you work hard. This advice had been portrayed in the book The Glass Castle. Ever since the beginning of the book Jeanette go through different obstacles and also many different types of struggles. Although this had come in the way to achieve the final product she fought through it and did not let her drive towards success fade. For example, in the book, Jeannette says” No one expected you to amount to much… You never had much going for you except that you always worked hard “(270). Jeannette's mom is seen questioning the gifts that her own kid has and is even hesitant to acknowledge that her little girl has turned out to be successful by her own hard work and self-independence. Throughout the book, Rose Mary always thought that

Throughout her life, starting from childhood, Jeannette Walls suffered through multiple hardships that could lead her away from a successful adult life. Since she was young, her parents put her through things that a child should never be exposed to, which could lead her to make these same mistakes as she grew older. For example, her father was an alcoholic, and from this many problems sprouted. Furthermore, her mother never wanted to be tied down, and loathed the idea of family life, as she did not want the responsibility of raising a family. Rose Mary was depicted as self-centered in the novel, and did not think of her children, as she only thought of her own needs. This can be shown when she keeps the diamond ring her children found for herself.

At the Republican National Convention in 1992, no one was aware that Mary Fisher was about to alter the viewpoints of thousands of Americans. During the 1980’s and 90’s the public’s view on AIDS was uninformed, skewed, and ignorant. The purpose of Mary Fisher’s speech was to open up the conversation on AIDS and to inform the public of the deadly disease. Fisher’s speech came from a place of sorrow and passion because she and her newborn son were both diagnosed with AIDS. At this time, society deemed AIDS as only associated with homosexuals and that no straight person could contract it. Mary Fisher’s speech persuaded people to change their viewpoints on AIDS by the use of ethos, pathos, and logos.

In the stories of “Mary Queen of Scots” and “Elizabeth I”, it is known that Mary and Elizabeth I are two different people, but also the similar in some ways. Both Elizabeth and Mary lived within the same time period and were even related, although their lives ended up completely different. Elizabeth was a well-respected queen with an interesting personal life. Mary on the other hand was convicted of aiding a homicide and had many problems in her personal life. Therefore, Elizabeth and Mary both had some similarities and differences between their early lives and their personal lives.

Readers are first introduced to the character of Rose Mary Walls in the beginning of the memoir and over the course of book come to understand her personality and her struggle due to a possible mental illness. Jeannette states, “Sometimes, things just got to her. She retreated to her sofa bed and stayed there for days on end, crying and occasionally throwing things at us. She could have been a famous artist by now, she yelled, if she hadn’t had children… The next day, if the mood had passed, she’d be painting and humming away as if nothing had happened” (Walls 186-87). It becomes apparent that Rose Mary is suffering from depression. On multiple occasions, she is unmotivated to leave her bed and fulfill her daily routine, leaving her children to make up for her absences. These bouts of depression presumably occurred all of her life and have prevented her from developing into a mature adult, thus keeping her from fully nurturing her

The father cared more about where he was going to get his next drink or his next pack of smokes verses holding down a steady job to provide food or a non-leaking roof over their heads. Instead of paying bills he would just leave or live without power etc. Rose Mary was educated and had the certification to teach, yet she hates working and only wanted to be a famous artist. She did work when she had too but instead of using her money to provide food for these kids she would buy a little here and there. But she mainly used her income to buy more art supplies.

As I read the Glass Castle, the way Rose Mary behaves, thinks and feels vary greatly and differently throughout the memoir. The immediate question that pops up in my mind is to ask whether Rose Mary carries some sort of mental illness. Fortunately, given the hints and traits that are relevant to why Rose Mary lives like that in the memoir, we, the readers, are able to make some diagnosis and assumptions on the kind of mental illness she may carry. To illustrate, one distinctive example is when Rose Mary blames Jeannette for having the idea to accept welfare. “Once you go on welfare, it changes you. Even if you get off welfare, you never escape the stigma that you were a charity case.” (188). In my opinion, Rose Mary is being nonsense and

To the mother, her family beliefs are “as deeply felt and incontestable … as Catholicism,” giving up on them would be similar to giving up on herself as they play a large part in shaping who she is as a person. Without a sense of herself, Rose-Mary Walls would be left a mere shell of the woman she used to be: a woman with no hope. Her beliefs give her a reason to keep living so in turn give her a sense of optimism, and though forsaking her family views guarantees her and her family an easier life, it would leave her with no sense of person as she would have to compromise her values to reach the goal. Rose-Mary Walls chooses instead to hold her way of thinking and her values above her survival which in turn spurs some readers and Jeanette herself to begin questioning whether or not basic survival comes before principles and values and the ethics behind the mother's situation. What those readers fail to see and what Jeanette comes to term with later on in the story is that her mother's willingness to sacrifice her and her family's well-being to "keep [the land] in the family" is what gave her the strength to continue in her dire times.

Throughout her life, starting from childhood, Jeannette Walls suffered through multiple hardships that could lead her away from a successful adult life. Since she was young, her parents put her through things that a child should never be exposed to, which could lead her to make these same mistakes as she grew older. For example, her father was an alcoholic, and from this many problems sprouted. Furthermore, her mother never wanted to be tied down, and loathed the idea of family life, as she did not want the responsibility of raising a family. Rose Mary was depicted as self-centered in the novel, and did not think of her children, as she only thought of her own needs. This can be shown when she keeps the diamond ring her children found for herself. Instead of thinking of her starving children, she states that, “‘self-esteem is even more vital than food’” (Walls 186). In this moment, Rose Mary shows that she is not thinking of her children and what they need to survive, but only cares about herself and what she has. Under these circumstances, any other parent would use the ring to buy food for their children, but instead she shows her inconsiderate nature by keeping the ring for herself. Another example of an event that could scar Jeannette far into her life would be when her father brought her to a bar and allowed a strange drunk man to take Jeannette to his apartment. When she told her father that she had almost been raped, he does not listen to

In addition, Rose Mary suffers from mood changes. Jeannette reports she could be happy for days due to positive thinking however when the negative took over, she wrapped herself in blankets and cried. Jeannette reports her mother rarely got angry however her mother once stated she hated her life. There was a time her children felt responsible for getting her out of bed so she could get to work on time. Also, there is indication Rose Mary involved herself and her family to withdraw money from a bank.

I really like how Rex and Rose Mary think. It’s great that they teach their kids to be who they are rather than listening to what others have to say. Surrendering to fear, prejudice, or close-mindedness can be a confidence dropper to who we are, and unfortunately a lot of people let these things get to them. It’s important to help, and teach others that nothing is considered “proper”; different places have a dissimilar meaning of proper. In the memoir, I believe the way Rex and Rose Mary made their kids think, at an early age, was a very smart move on their part. It helped their kids get through a lot of the things people have said about them about the way they were all living. Along with that, I think it gave them the confidence to be who

Mary, whose husband owns their farm, is one of the better-off people in colonial Long Island. How good is her life compared to the average working American’s today?