Neglect, emotional abuse, and sexual abuse are some of the most impactful types of childhood trauma, but are often the most overlooked. The Glass Castle is a great example of how these types of traumatic experiences, and many others, can affect someone throughout their life and how it shapes them. Challenges can shape a person’s identity in many different ways, such as how they respond to future struggles, how they view themselves and others, and what beliefs and values they hold. One significant part of how challenges shape one’s identity is coping mechanisms and trauma responses. When someone faces a challenge, they have a specific way of getting through it. Coping mechanisms are heavily influenced by parental figure(s) and past experiences. …show more content…
For example, the upper-class experience is vastly different from the lower-class experience, which creates a much different set of values. Upper-class people tend to view lower-class people as beneath them, while lower-class people usually don’t view someone as different than them because of their situation. This can be seen in The Glass Castle many times. In particular, once Jeannette had moved to New York City and was doing well financially, she didn’t want to confess to her parents’ situation when it came up because she knew it would make her people look down on her (Walls 256). This mentality of her peers made her ashamed of where she came from and caused her to deny her family’s situation. Experiencing ridicule for being lower-class throughout her life made her value her family, but when she was doing better financially she became ashamed of her family and valued her position in society more. In summary, struggles throughout one’s life, especially when related to a caretaker or who they are, have a huge influence on one’s beliefs and values. Coping mechanisms, trauma responses, world views, beliefs, and values are all parts of one’s identity that are shaped by
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
Just like Tom Joad, Jeannette Walls must learn the power of community and its importance on perseverance. However in the Glass Castle, the aspiration of leading better lives leads the children to unimaginable goals. “He carried around the blueprints for the Glass Castle wherever we went, and sometimes he 'd pull them out and let us work on the design for our rooms. . . (Walls 25).” This drive to lead more promising and fulfilling lives results directly from the abusive living conditions Jeannette grew up in. In this way, the Glass Castle differs from the unfortunately difficult lives of the Joads in Grapes of Wrath. “No child is born a delinquent. They only became that way if nobody loved them when they were kids. Unloved children grow up to be serial murderers or alcoholics. . . (Walls 83).” With this realization, Jeannette learns that she must strive to get out of the metaphorical
The Glass Castle is a memoir written by Jeannette Walls about her family. In this story she tells about her adventurous and dangerous childhood that shaped her to be the person she is today. Which is a strong, optimistic, responsible woman who knows how to roll with the burns and the punches literally. Brian, who is younger than Jeannette was her partner in crime in all her childhood memories. Maureen was the youngest she was not too close with the family and if I had one way to describe her it would be lost. Lori was oldest sibling and the total opposite. She was more reserved and very into her art. Which she took after their mother, RoseMary. RoseMary was a selfish woman, she would constantly put herself first. She was also, very weak and
Jeannette Walls, American writer and journalist, in her memoir, The Glass Castle, shares her vividly stunning childhood growing up with her family. Due to her misguided and dysfunctional parents, Jeannette and her siblings had to suffer through poverty, negligence, and abuse. Jeannette Walls states, “Some people think my parents are absolute monsters and should’ve had their children taken away from them. Some think they were these great free-spirited creatures who had a lot of wisdom that a lot of parents today don’t [have].” Although a handful of individuals believe that the Walls’ parenting style was justified and has led to the sibling’s success, their children should have been taken away to be raised properly because their parents were unfit, and they experienced an immense amount of physical and sexual abuse and neglect throughout the process.
In the book The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls goes through more than enough traumatizing events in her childhood. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” is an accurate cliché describing her childhood. Many times, in each of our lives, this cliché has been said to us or we have thought it when something hard is happening. In April, I moved out of my childhood home and into my cabin which was forty-five minutes away from school. For Jeannette, simply moving houses wasn’t a big deal and more of an excitement; for me it was a big step in my life. Many times, throughout this experience of moving out of my house, then into my cabin, and then into a new house a couple months later, I thought of the cliché “what doesn’t kill you
Is self reliance beneficial to children's survival? Self reliance is beneficial to survival for many children around the world. In the memoir The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls the parenting style of Rex and Rosemary Walls taught the children to have self reliance which is beneficial to the children's survival.
Jeannette Walls has lived a life that many of us probably never will, the life of a migrant. The majority of her developmental years were spent moving to new places, sometimes just picking up and skipping town overnight. Frugality was simply a way of life for the Walls. Their homes were not always in perfect condition but they continued with their lives. With a brazen alcoholic and chain-smoker of a father and a mother who is narcissistic and wishes her children were not born so that she could have been a successful artist, Jeannette did a better job of raising herself semi-autonomously than her parents did if they had tried. One thing that did not change through all that time was the love she had for her mother, father, brother and sisters. The message that I received from reading this memoir is that family has a strong bond that will stay strong in the face of adversity.
Jeannette and her siblings learn to provide for themselves and try to avoid the continuous problems caused by their parents and others around them. The effects of poverty, as witnessed through The Glass Castle, are still felt throughout America today.
There are several different social issues presented in Jeannette Wall’s memoir “The Glass Castle.” These issues included neglect – medical and education,
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.
Social class has always been a controversial issue in America. This idea, that individuals are defined by their wealth, is explored by Jeannette Walls in her memoir, The Glass Castle. Walls shows, through a manifold of personal anecdotes, how growing up in a dysfunctional household with financially inept parents affected her and her siblings. Growing up in this environment, Jeannette was exposed to a very different perception of the world around her than those of higher social status. However, despite the constant hardships she faced, Walls makes it clear that a lower social status does not define an individual as inferior to those in a higher class.
In this world there are many types of abuse or neglect that aren’t always noticed and no one really talks about. We never notice that there are many different types of abuse because we do think that it is so bad that we don’t want to look into it. Social workers specialize in removing the children from the home because they have these things in their lives. Some parents would never dream of abusing their children, and some would never call it abuse. There were several different types of abuse present in the book The Glass Castle, even evidence that the children should be removed from the home.
Everyone has to deal with struggles during their everyday life. Some people’s problems are more serious than others, and the way that people deal with their problems varies. Everybody has a coping mechanism, something they can use to make the struggle that they’re going through easier, but they’re usually different. Some people drink, some people smoke, some people pretend there is no problem. There are healthy and unhealthy coping mechanisms, and people will vary the one they use depending on the problem they’re facing. In The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, the author and her family deal with their struggles in multiple different ways as time goes on. However, the severity of her situation means that the methods she uses to deal with it are very important. That’s why it’s bad that Jeanette’s and her family have such unhealthy coping mechanisms, such
Jeannette Walls reluctantly wrote Glass Castle in an attempt to show that even those with very different backgrounds and cultures really aren't all that different after all. Walls wrote of ridiculous situations and her experiences while growing up with a family that lacked the regular structural culture of other families, which included qualities such as morality, integrity, and a basic knowledge and feeling of obligation to follow the law of the land. Her parents both held values that were unique to each one of them as they lived their lives strongly expressing, through actions and words, that the normal values of other people simply weren’t right. Jeanette’s parents, though unconventional, were just as loving, if not more loving towards their kids as other parents. I think the reason the family was so strange, was simply because of the parents’ values that they taught their kids. The values your parents raise you with can greatly affect your future, and who you become as a person; this is what I can relate to. I’ve become conscious of how the values I grew up on evolved into more of a belief system, if not a stubborn pride-driven ability to deny handouts or help from people. Add this characteristic of mine to the fact that my parents wouldn’t allow me to drive until I turned eighteen, the fact that I lived on an isolated
Childhood Trauma is defined as “The experience of an event by a child that is emotionally painful or distressful, which often results in lasting mental and physical effects.” (The National Institute of Mental Health). Childhood trauma is an epidemic that seems to be running its way throughout the world. Childhood trauma is a worldwide problem that can affect anyone and everyone. People tend to just try and help the problems that occur due to the childhood trauma, but not the problem itself. Many of these issues will also follow the child into their adult years and will cause negative effects. This paper will discuss the negative outcomes for a child who suffers from childhood trauma, and the negative outcomes that can follow them into adulthood.