Analysis Of The Glass Castle By Jeanette Walls

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In “The Glass Castle”, the author Jeanette Walls describes her childhood and what motivated her to chase her education and move out to New York City with her siblings and leave their parents behind in West Virginia. The main struggle Jeanette and her siblings had was the conflicting point of view that they had with their mother on parenting. Despite their father Rex Walls being an alcoholic, constantly facing unemployment, and being a source of hope for his children, Rose Mary Walls had her list of attributes that shaped her children’s life. Rose Mary had a very interesting view on parenting in Jeanette Wall’s memoir and this perspective of parenting influenced her children both positively and negatively. The earliest evidence of Rose Mary …show more content…

Rose Mary was able to get her family to live with her husband’s parents but the children’s security was now jeopardized. This is because Rose Mary fails to acknowledge the negative acts of sexual abuse committed against her daughter Jeanette by her husband’s brother Stanley. In the book it states, “Mom asked if I was okay. I shrugged and nodded. ‘Well, there you go,’ she said. She said that sexual assault was a crime of perception. ‘If you don’t think you’re hurt, then you aren’t,’ she said. ‘So many women make such a big deal out of these things. But your stronger than that.’ She went back to her crossword puzzle.”(Walls 184). In this unexpected share of dialogue, the collision between perspectives begins and tension builds between Jeanette and Rose Mary Walls. Not only does Rose Mary Walls disregards Jeanette’s feeling and trauma, she sets up her position on sexual abuse for any hypothetical future situations with her other children. The acts within these moments of the memoir demonstrate Rose Mary’s unreasonable and detrimental perception on sexual abuse and ultimately she provides no support for Jeanette and places a harmful neglect on Jeanette’s feelings.. As the narrative progresses, Rose Mary Walls decides to share more of what she believes and her perspective on …show more content…

From being able to save up money to buy a car and move out to West Virginia and then leaving the responsibility of finances and income to her children, Rose Mary Wall’s helped put Jeanette and her siblings through a hard and tough childhood. Although, a debate could be made that with all the awful impacts that the mother had on her children, all she really did was actually positively influence them to be able to conquer any hardship that they may face in their life. In the end, Rose Mary Wall’s character of being independent, unreasonable, and stubborn did both positively and negatively impact her children’s lives through the hardships they all faced

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