Alcoholism In Jeannette Wall's The Glass Castle

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...

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...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.