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Personal essay on forgiveness
Personal essay on forgiveness
Jeannette walls memoir the glass castle essay
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Introduction In Jeannette Wall’s memoir The Glass Castle, she gives a riveting account of a childhood plagued by an alcoholic father, a nomadic lifestyle, and extreme poverty. Throughout the hardships that Jeanette is forced to overcome, she continues to love and forgive her parents. While there are many compelling themes presented by Walls, there are three themes that are of particular interests to educators. By analyzing the themes of the effects of alcoholism on family life, forgiveness, and nonconformity, educators will deepen their understanding of the effects of poverty on the lives of students, the importance of incorporating community in the classroom, and their role as a guardian for their students. Theme One: Alcoholism Alcoholism is a debilitating disease that affects an entire family. Alcoholism can cause physical and chemical changes in the diseased person, which in turn can lead to poor life choices. Jeannette's father was an alcoholic. While growing up in poverty, Jeannette's father made decisions that caused the family to suffer greatly. When Jeannette was a young child, Rex's alcoholism was better controlled. Jeannette's father could hold a job for months at a time and provide for his family the basic needs, such as food, required to survive. At one point it their lives, all the kids “lived the high life” when Rex brought home new bicycles for them. However, as Jeannette grew older, her father's disease took control of his life. Soon Jeannette's father began to lose his jobs more often, until he finally refused to maintain a job in any sense. Due to the lack of income, the family suffered greatly financially and emotionally. Jeannette and Brian were forced to eat out of garbage cans at school to combat their... ... middle of paper ... ...e another for support because of the parent/child role reversal in the home. The most mature and responsible people in the family were the children. However many times the children were left to their own devices to manage their lives, the children always welcomed Rex and Rose Mary back into their open hearts. This can be explained in part by a hidden rule of poverty being that people are possessions. In Ruby Payne’s A Framework for Understanding Poverty, she explains, “In poverty people are possessions, and people can rely only on each other” (Payne, p. 23). The Walls children relied on their parents to hold the family together, if only in a physical sense. Jeanette and her siblings forgave their irresponsible parents repeatedly. This teaches an important message to readers: by forgiving others you free yourself of festering anger, bitterness, and judgments.
Alcoholism. A disease that not only affects one person, but others around them. Alcoholism is defined as a chronic disorder characterized on the dependence of alcohol all the time. In The Glass Castle, alcoholism affects many characters, but the one it truly affects is Rex Walls.
The Glass Castle is a memoir of the writer Jeannette Walls life. Her family consists of her father Rex Walls, her mother Rose Mary Walls, her older sister Lori Walls, her younger brother Brian Walls and her younger sister Maureen Walls. Jeannette Walls grew up with a lot of hardships with her dad being an alcoholic and they never seemed to have any money. Throughout Jeanette’s childhood, there are three things that symbolize something to Jeannette, they are fire, New York City and the Glass Castle, which shows that symbolism gives meanings to writing.
Jeannette Wales, author of The Glass Castle, recalls in her memoir the most important parts of her life growing up as a child that got her where she is now. Her story begins in Arizona in a small house with her parents and three siblings. Her parents worked and didn’t do much as parents so she had to become very independent. Her parents and siblings were the highlights to most of her memory growing up. She is able to recall memories that most small children wouldn’t be able to recall with as much detail.
As well as the long last effect that alcoholic parents have on a child and a loved one. Moreover, McCullers writes his story incorporating the reality of alcoholism to allow people to visualize the effect of addiction and how it a very serious life changing issue that can deteriorate and break apart families. Mucllurs also indirectly emphasizes the sacrifices that parents must do to ensure the happiness and wellbeing of their children and how being disconnected from your social circle can lead to very serious mentally draining issues. As well as how he emphasizes Martins own intentions and how Matin suffers his own dilemma throughout the story for specific
One in every twelve adults suffer from alcoholism in the United States, and it is the most commonly used addictive substance in the world. The World Health Organization has defined alcoholism as “an addiction to the consumption of alcoholic liquor or the mental illness and compulsive behavior resulting from alcohol dependency.” Reiterated themes encompassing Jeannette Walls’ father’s addiction to alcohol are found in her novel, The Glass Castle: a memoir, which displays instances of financial instability and abuse that hurt the Walls children for the rest of their lives. The Walls’, altogether, are emotionally, physically, and mentally affected by Rex’s alcoholism, which leads to consequences on the Walls children.
I can still remember the day, June 2, 2013, my cousin took his own life due to alcohol. This is not the first time alcoholism has taken a family member from my family. I lost my uncle ten years ago to the same things, but running his truck into a tree. Like Scott Russell Sanders’ my family has suffered from the pain and disease that alcohol causes. Although Sanders’ case was much different than mine, my families is more unknown until all of a sudden one of my family members is gone. In Sanders’ essay, “Under the Influence: Paying the Price of my Father’s Booze,” he discusses how it was growing up around him, his father’s life being taken, and his life now.
Children these days have a variety of needs, often being surrounded by the ideas of freedom and security. While some people seek complete freedom from society’s rules, others seek the comforts of security that a normal life provides. Children’s preferences on freedom and security are reflected from their Mom and Dad’s parenting style. In The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls, the characters Brian, Lori, and Jeannette show that while growing they would rather have security over freedom because they repeatedly find themselves in a state of danger due to their parent’s lack of security. For example, if Jeannette’s parents were accountable while Jeanette was in proximity to fire she would not have been traumatized and severely burnt. Another reason the children want security is Rex is an excessive alcoholic who is very dangerous to be around while he is under the influence of hard liquor, they would rather a father that responsibly handled alcohol. Rex’s surplus of expenses on booze led the family into poverty because instead of using the family’s rare profit to pay off bills Rex uses it to buy alcohol and items that were not a necessity to their survival. Therefore, their parents struggled to give even the simplest things for them such as food and clothes.
This grim situation is depicted in the writings of Jeannette Walls. In the autobiography The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls accurately portrays homelessness by explaining its causes, its impact upon daily life, and its effect on victimized families. Walls’ autobiography establishes that there are several causes of homelessness. More specifically, she discusses how poverty prevents one from affording life necessities. As reported by the National Coalition for Homelessness, “Homelessness and poverty are inextricably linked”.
While Jeannette’s father acknowledges that he is harming his family and tries to better himself, her mother never once tries to improve. She ignores all of her and her family’s problems, often times contributing more to the problem to benefit herself, worsening the situation for her children. The mother copes in selfish ways, disregarding her family in order to make her life more enjoyable. A perfect example is when the family is sitting in the living room without any food, trying to keep their minds off of hunger, when Brian, Jeannette’s brother, sees that the mother is discretely eating a chocolate bar. The mother tries to defend herself, saying that she’s a “sugar addict, just like [their] father is an alcoholic.” (Walls 174) The mother has never showed any signs of an addiction to sugar, and she’s clearly trying to get the kids sympathy for being selfish. She has behavior that is completely destructive for her family, and she needs to learn and practice better coping
While both alcoholism and child abuse are prevalent issues in today's society, alcohol is a more prevalent issue at hand. The Glass Castle clearly illustrates the reality of the effects when we as adult abuse our children, and the everlasting effects it has upon our children’s children; domino effect if one must, or vicious cycle that is difficult to break free from. Whatever the case maybe alcoholism and child abuse go hand in hand like fuel and fire, when both combined and united, both are extremely combustible, and deadly. Thus, as we go into depth into the effects of alcoholism and child abuse, we will analyze how people’s lives are impacted from a social, emotional, physical, psychological, and economical standpoint by relating our personal effects to successfully analyze a controversial topic.
Considering she is still uncomfortable to discuss her personal life, she is not at peace with herself; she’s determined to keep her past a secret. Even later, she continuously sugar coated her past into something that didn’t seem so harsh. But then, something alters her feelings towards her parents. When she needed money for college, her father provided nearly all of it. Jeannette wouldn’t take it at first but once her father insisted and her mother agreed, she couldn’t say no: “So, when I enrolled for my final year at Barnard, I paid what I owed on my tuition with Dad’s wadded, crumpled bills” (Walls 264). Here she sees the redeemable qualities of her parents. It’s another one of those small moments where her parents prove Jeannette wrong of how they aren’t always awful parents. This is where the line between acceptance and forgiveness is disturbed. Despite those small moments of redeemable qualities, Jeannette still struggles to find her own peace. Forgiveness leads to peace, acceptance does not, this is the ultimate
Imagine yourself as an alcoholic. Would you act violent? Burst out laughing? Most likely it will be one or the other. However, an alcoholic also lies about his/her whereabouts or apprehend whatever funding he or she can get their hands on to answer the call of the bottle. They do not want to do this, but they have been taken by the disease of alcoholism. Alcoholism is the addiction to consume alcohol. Some people are able to let the phone keep ringing. Some though cannot and will answer the phone call from the bottle. In the case of Rex Walls, he did what he could to answer that call. As such, David Sheff’s statement about alcoholics is related to the behavior of Rex Walls. Rex’s behaviors and actions is that of a typical alcoholic; violence due to being under the influence, stealing to feed the addiction, and lying to get the bottle.
Wall’s memoir The Glass Castle accurately portrays her horrifying life of growing up in extreme poverty. The memoir unravels a true story about Jeannette Walls’ brutal childhood as she grew up homeless and often lacked even basic necessities such as food, clothing, and shelter. Walls’ father Rex raised his children irresponsibly, leaving them with many mental and physical scars while compromising their safety. Similar to the way Walls was raised, human cruelty remains evident in the Mac Davis song “In The Ghetto,” where the lyrics describe an endless cycle of poverty and crime. However, the movie Les Miserables depicts the
throughout her childhood with an alcoholic father and a selfish mother who cared more about her art and happiness than that of her children’s. Alcohol misuse can affect all aspects of family functioning: social life, finances, good communication, relationships between family members, parenting capability, employment and health issues, It also has a strong correlation with conflicts, disputes and domestic violence which can leave a damaging effect on children. Alcohol misuse often times changes the roles played by family members in relation to one another, and to the outside world as well.... ... middle of paper ... ...and agencies designed to meet the physical, intellectual, and social-emotional needs of individuals and families.”.
For Adult Children of Alcoholics, surviving their families becomes the point of existence. The fortunate may be able to draw support from a supportive adult, and may emerge with fewer difficulties than their brothers and sisters. The majority, however, have to “make do.” Some spend lonely hours in their rooms wishing only to vanish behind the woodwork. Others attempt to rescue the foundering vi...