Examples Of Idealism In The Glass Castle By Jeannette Walls

In the novel, The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls recounts her childhood as a tale of harsh struggle and of conflicting viewpoints. The set of ideals which she developed as an individual along with those instilled within her by her parents seemingly rival those purported by society and the developed world, creating an internal struggle greater than any of her physical conflicts. Examples of such conflicts involve the abstract areas of race, wealth versus poverty, and idealism versus realism. Race manifests itself as a key challenge to Jeannette’s views on freedom and immaterial love. She never truly saw people of other races in a different light until the family arrived in the small town of Welch, West Virginia. In Welch, racial divides were

In fact, the glass castle, itself, is the true symbol of Jeannette and her father’s colluded idealism. The perfect fantasy, an escape from authority and responsibility, exists as the goal for Rex Walls and his daughter. When sleeping under the stars, Jeannette remarks, “We could live like this forever.” Clearly, her own childhood innocence has given her idealism a firm ground to be planted in. Later on, as she grows older, Jeannette’s illusions begin to fade, and reality takes root. No longer could she simply dream: she would have to take life seriously and recognize her desires, her obligations, and her own reality. Her idealism became first cracked after she was scolded for rightfully standing up to Erma; after which she said, “Situations like these, I realized, were what turned people into hypocrites.” Her hopeless ideals cannot stand up to the tough nature of reality and its merciless batter of the person. The foundation of the glass castle is turned into a trash dump just as her own dreams were discarded and transformed into more pragmatic plans. While her father still lived in a fantasy, Jeannette’s clouded vision was lifted by her own maturity and awareness. Ideas of being self-sufficient and living freely gave Jeannette a sense of hope to carry on, until her dreams, the glass castle, were