Coping Mechanisms 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 …show more content…
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
Jeannette and her siblings were all forced into completing tasks and taking on roles for themselves and their other siblings that are heartbreaking to read about and uncommon for most children to experience and tackle themselves. Much of this had to do with the lack of responsibility on their parents’ part and the ways they decided to live. As I have read the book, I have been amazed over and over again at the ways Jeannette handled the parental roles—both mother and father. She was very tough and never gave up, but you could tell there were other times she was just plain discouraged. One example we can see her using the roles to benefit her siblings was when her mom left to Charleston to “renew her teaching certificate” for 8 weeks and put Jeannette in charge of the money. She budgeted out $25 a week to provide the groceries and pay all of the bills that would need to be taken care of. Even though Jeannette gave her father (Rex) money when he asked, she
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.
For example, Victor, his parents, and his uncles hold onto painful events and memories that hinder their productivity and cause them to lack the skills needed to grow emotionally. This is a clear indication that they suffer from poor emotional health and coping skills. This is most likely the reason that they all drink alcohol and party on a regular basis. This is also why small issues in their household can blow up into huge arguments and ultimately result in cursing and fighting. Continuing to drink under the circumstances Victor and his family live in only worsen their emotional health. A viscous cycle repeats over and over until a hole is dug so deep that none of them can gain traction to pull themselves out of the misery that’s been created. Victor witnesses this cycle and locks each incident in his mind for safe
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.
Just one become only two, which then leads to number three that will be the last… so they say and apparently so will the one after that, after that, and after that until they can physically drink no more. For some, this might happen on their twenty first birthday or only once, but for many people in the world this happens every month, every week, or even every day. “Alcohol is the most commonly used addictive substance in the U.S. 17.6 million people, or one in every 12 adults, suffer from alcohol abuse or dependence” (“Alcohol”). The need and overdose of alcohol is called alcoholism. This addiction causes pain, anger, and loss of control all over the world. One might say, “I can handle myself. I am just fine,” but we all know they are not fine because most of the time they are causing hurt around them. In Jeannette Walls’ memoir, The Glass Castle, her father, Rex Walls, is an example of one of these 17.6 million alcoholics and this disease affects the family in multiple ways.
The Struggle Of Building Adversity means difficulties or misfortune. When someone's dealing with things or a situation turns out to go against them, they face adversity. Adversity is something someone comes across in life, it's like being part of a person. Decisions and actions are influenced by a lot of things. Conflicts influence all kinds of actions and decisions, depending on the person.
The Interior Castle by Jean Stafford is a very disturbing but thought-provoking story of a woman who creates a separate world within her head after being severely injured in a car accident. The conflict of the story is Pansy’s attempted escape from pain. Throughout the story she develops an incredibly intricate world within her own mind. She attempts to run from the pain she feels by retreating into this world in which she has made for herself.
The Stone children find out that their mom is dying in the movie, which is a family crisis. The book states that the death of a parent is second on the severity of life stressor with only the death of a child above it. (Lauer, 2012, pg 290) The Stone family shows they are a resilient family and have developed this label from communicating well and have worked together to develop strengths that help them deal with stressors. (Lauer, 2012, pg 302) None of the family members avoid the problem or try to find blame in something or someone for their mom dying. Avoiding the problem and finding blame in others are two ineffective coping strategies that some individuals use. Avoidance can make individuals ignore the problem and turn to excessive drinking to help keep the problem off their mind. Scapegoating is when the individual acknowledges that there is a problem, but they turn on someone else and put the blame on him or her. The Stone family learns to cope with the crisis of their mom being sick in a way that brings them closer. They balance their concern with the concern of their mother and they work together to make a happy Christmas for her. They all realize it is hard to deal with there mom being sick, but they know that together they can handle it and they know their own worth and the worth of their family. In conclusion, the family realized the problem and worked
In the memoir, The Glass Castle the main character Jeanette has a very strange family. Jeanette’s parents are delirious of the dangers that they put their children through. They are squatters who go from state to state, skedaddling from the police. The children are forced to forage for scrap metals in the desert to sell for money. The Walls live in a less than mediocre house with no food to spare. When Rex Walls worked in the barite mine, he had access to a commissary where the mine owner deducted his bill. The family had a small but steady flow of food until Mr. Walls was fired from the mine. He believes that with his tactical idea of the Prospector he will be able to make his family rich. The Prospector is an invention that Mr. Walls came
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.
Jeannette Walls states in an interview “My mother could not take care of herself, how could I possibly expect her to take care of me?” (Diversity Conversation) She never takes responsibility or has the initiative to go out and make a better life for her and her children. Rose Mary uses guilt and verbal abuse to keep the children “in line,” so to speak. Rex even resorts to physical abuse after Rose Mary snitches on Jeannette. “‘How dare you?’ she shouted. ‘You’re in trouble now — big trouble. I’m telling your dad. Just you wait until he comes home’” (219). As neglected as they are, they somehow survive the crazy conditions they are forced to live with — lack of food, water, a stable shelter, lack of personal hygiene, and even lack of parental supervision. Lori, Jeannette, Brian and Maureen resort to the worst possible ways to keep themselves alive. For example, the three older children find a stick of margarine in the refrigerator and split the stick between each other because they are so hungry. When Rose Mary finds out ,she becomes very angry — stating that the margarine was for her. Another time, the kids want to eat ham, but find it infested with maggots, Rose Mary tells them to just cut off the parts with maggots and eat the rest. That it will be “fine.” “A big green Dumpster stood in the parking lot. When no one was looking, Brian and I pushed open the lid, climbed up, and dived inside to search for bottles. I was afraid it might be full of yucky garbage. Instead, we found an astonishing treasure: cardboard boxes filled with loose chocolates. Some of them were whitish and dried-out-looking, and some were covered with a mysterious green mold, but most of them were fine. We pigged out on chocolates,” (110). This just shows how desperate they were for food. At the same time, their mother is hiding food from them, eating it on the sly. “‘I can’t help it,’ she sobbed. ‘I’m a sugar
Her Mom was ashamed of her for acting like this but Jeannette really wanted her Mom to change her ways and stop being homeless. She really loved her mother and wanted her to have a good life.
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 by Jeannette Walls is a harrowing and heartbreaking yet an inspiring memoir of a young girl named Jeannette who was deprived of her childhood by her dysfunctional and unorthodox parents, Rex and Rose Mary Walls. Forced to grow up, Walls stumbled upon coping with of her impractical “free-spirited” mother and her intellectual but alcoholic father, which became her asylum from the real world, spinning her uncontrollably. Walls uses pathos, imagery, and narrative coherence to illustrate that sometimes one needs to go through the hardships of life in order to find the determination to become a better individual.
Stress is a normal occurrence through the rollercoaster that is called life. It can make a person stronger or cause serious health issues that could potentially lead to death. Stress is like a levy that is imposed to pay for the existence of the human race. While it is impossible to get away from stress, there are ways handling the stress that life gives each person, it just takes some time to figure out what works for each individual person. In the play The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams the reader sees how three individuals named Tom, Amanda, and Laura deal with the stress and problems that they encounter every day in 1930’s St. Louis and that this might not always be the best option.