Forgiveness In The Glass Castle By Jeannette Walls

Although most people would not be able to give someone so much forgiveness for such dishonorable acts, author Jeannette Walls and her siblings knew it was the only way out. Throughout the book The Glass Castle, Walls writes about hardship in life and overcoming most things through forgiveness and constant love for family. Therefore, it is evident that the memoir The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, makes it clear that being able to let go of things for the better is a tremendously important trait to possess when living with a dysfunctional family. These ideas that Walls shares throughout the novel heavily rely on the appeal of pathos and attaining sympathy from the reading through writing about all of the hardships she had to face at such

a young stage in her life.
Growing up, Jeannette and her family were very underprivileged; some would even consider them to having lifestyles closely related to that of hippies. The Walls family was never able to settle down in one spot for more than a year or two, they always seemed to be moving to a new home. Her mother and father were always coming up with foolish ideas that would get the family into a bit of trouble, causing them to have to pack up and go. Something she referred to as “The Skedaddle.” (Walls 19) Jeannette and her siblings were never able to have any luxuries growing up, but their absentminded parents made up for it by teaching them to find the good in things, even when all was bad. This admiration and understanding of the children to their parents due to their chosen lifestyle shows that with family and love, you can get through just about any challenges life comes up with.
One of the various different points in the memoir that can be used to prove that forgiveness is an overall theme throughout the novel are the numerous amounts of times the family had to relocate, leaving everything behind. In the text, Walls writes “We were always doing the skedaddle, usually in the middle of the night.” (Walls 19) As young as Walls and her siblings were, moving around in different living situations that were not at all safe, was not exactly a swell idea on their parent’s behalf. As parents, they should have been more concerned that their children were going to have a safe, stable, place to live and grow up. Even though Walls and her siblings weren’t always in school, they were still very intelligent kids and were able to understand everything that was going on around them. Even though the kids were very clever, it should still have been important to their parents that they received a stable school education to learn and grow from. Having that knowledge of how things worked and how their parents were with money and commitment, the kids constantly went along with the moves whether or not they wanted to go. This understanding shows a great amount of forgiveness for all of the uncalled for actions that their senseless parents made. Moving the children around so much was not only detrimental to their education, but also to their emotional state.
Aside from being on the move most of the time, Walls and her family were also going hungry. The kids were so skinny that they would be teased at school and have to seek out immeasurable ways to find food for themselves to eat. She states “When other girls came in and threw away their lunch bags in the garbage pails, I’d go retrieve them.” (Walls 173) It is very appalling that their own parents would let them get so hungry that they would have to resort to such measures. Walls parents were egocentric people, they would rather devote their earnings on unnecessary things like alcohol and art supplies than necessities like food to feed their family. The children would even call them out on the fact that there was no money being provided for them to live off of, and the parents took great offense to it. Walls’ also writes “She told us we should forgive her the same way we always forgave dad for his drinking.” (Walls 174) Even though the kids should not have forgiven their mother or father for their foolish acts, they did because they understood how tight money was. They also simply knew that this was just the way their parents were, and that there was nothing they could do about it other than try to forgive them for what they’ve done and move on. Having parents who worried more about their own emotional and physical state than they did their children’s was most likely very rough for her and her siblings to deal with.
Eventually, Walls and her older sister Lori decided that the only way out of their misery was to move away from their family.

The girls decided to start a traveling fund before they left for New York. They got little jobs around the town they lived in and were payed little money for doing a lot of work. They put their time and effort into making that money so that they could start a new and enhanced life for themselves. However, as written in the memoir, Walls talk about how one night their piggy bank, Oz, was robbed and all of their hard work in earning money and dedication was a complete waste of time. She writes “One evening in May, when we’d been saving our money for almost nine months, I came home with a couple dollars I’d made babysitting and went into the bedroom to stash them in Oz …I knew it was Dad, but at the same time, I couldn’t believe he’d stoop this low.” (Walls 228) Knowing that their own father had stolen their hard-earned money for something like alcohol, and still being able to talk to and be around him shows a great amount of forgiveness. They forgave him and that allowed them to move on with their lives rather than sulking about what he had done. Walls’ yet again shows another amazing example of a traumatizing experience with having parents who were selfish and were more concerned about themselves and their own petty

needs.
Forgiving their parents for so many different, ridiculous things, shows that the Walls children were extraordinary kids who always saw the light at the end of the tunnel. They were able to forgive and forget things that were so extreme, such as being hungry, being completely stuck in unsafe living conditions, and loss of hard-earned work and money, that most people would never think of forgiving someone for. These examples are major reasons as to how the novel is based on the ideas of forgiveness and love for family, no matter what happens in life. Family is forever so, there is no use in being angry or holding grudges with any of them if all it is going to result in is more conflict and complication.