My family is my strength and my weakness. While reading the Glass Castle, a memoir by Jeannette Walls, I found a strong recurring theme of the importance of family and the destruction of family. Jeannette Walls had a family who could not take care of her and held her from her greatest potential; however, she has repeatedly said she was grateful and loved her family. Initially, I could not believe how she could love her destructive parents the way she did, but the more I thought of it, I saw her perspective in my own life. My family who I dearly love tore me to pieces through a divorce. I would not be who I am today without my parents and what they have taught me, but my biggest hardship in life came from them. After reading the Glass Castle, I can relate Jeannette’s struggling family who was falling apart yet still undoubtedly loving and caring through my experiences in the divorce of my parents. I guess one could go back to my parents’ upbringings to find the start of the disfunction. My father grew up in a family of five; he has a …show more content…
My father was given the responsibility of supporting the children and received 60 percent of the time with the kids. This made for a very messy schedule that I still mess up every once in awhile. The only good thing that came out of the complex divorce was that the children stuck together. No matter which home we went to, we went together and never thought of separating. Eventually time healed the open wounds that were created by the divorce. I do not know whether or not I will ever completely get over the divorce of my parents, but now since it is just a memory, I can say that I have suffered through a traumatic experience within my family and lived. I have lived to tell the tale and am fortunate to proclaim that our family is stronger than ever. My parents may have separated, but my family is still
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.
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.
Individuals who are involved in self improvement ask themselves what the key to success may be. The key to success in life is, by far, self-reliance. Although there is nothing wrong with asking for or receiving help, the support of friends and family will only benefit us ephemerally. People go through their own personal journey of reaching the best version of themselves. That journey is best achieved with self-reliance. Jeannette Walls’ memoir, The Glass Castle, is symbolic of the theme survival through self-reliance.
There is no such thing as being ‘the perfect family’. Every family is unique and different in their own ways. They have their troubles, struggles, and weaknesses in their lives. The novel, The Glass Castle: a memoir by Jeannette Walls share the theme of a dysfunctional family. Firstly, the parent of the main character, Rose Walls is not an ideal motherly figure to her children. Secondly, the Walls children are not being treated the way they should be for their age. Finally, the parent of the lead character, Rex Walls is not a role model of a fatherly figure to his kids. When the family acts in a dysfunctional way it affects each individual and the family negatively.
It is commonly believed that the only way to overcome difficult situations is by taking initiative in making a positive change, although this is not always the case. The theme of the memoir the Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls is that the changes made in children’s lives when living under desperate circumstances do not always yield positive results. In the book, Jeannette desperately tries to improve her life and her family’s life as a child, but she is unable to do so despite her best efforts. This theme is portrayed through three significant literary devices in the book: irony, symbolism and allusion.
Every member of a family fulfills a specific role that allows the group to function as a cohesive unit. In most families, these roles involve traditional genders, where the father plays the role of the “provider”, bringing in money to the family, and the mother is the “nurturer”, keeping the children healthy and content while maintaining an orderly household. When these roles are left unfilled, a family can fall apart almost instantly. In Jeannette Walls’ chilling memoir The Glass Castle, Jeannette’s recollection of her childhood involves a large amount of familial dysfunction due to the lack of fulfillment of these roles. Jeannette and her siblings Maureen, Brian, and Lori grow up with their parents Rex and Rose Mary Walls. Rex and Rose Mary
...life living with yet loving parents and siblings just to stay alive. Rosemary and Rex Walls had great intelligence, but did not use it very wisely. In the book The Glass Castle, author Jeanette Walls discovers the idea that a conservative education may possibly not always be the best education due to the fact that the Walls children were taught more from the experiences their parents gave them than any regular school or textbook could give them. In this novel readers are able to get an indication of how the parents Rex and Rosemary Walls, choose to educate and give life lessons to their children to see the better side of their daily struggles. Showing that it does not matter what life throws at us we can take it. Rosemary and Rex Walls may not have been the number one parents in the world however they were capable in turning their children into well-educated adults.
While growing up in life children need their parents to teach them and lead them on the path to a successful future. In the Glass Castle Rex Walls, Jeannette’s father, neglects to take care of his duties as a father figure in Jeannette’s life. In the same way he teaches her to be strong and independent at a very young age. As we read through the story we see the special relationship that Jeannette shares with her father. Even though he, in many instances, failed to protect his children, refused to take responsibility for them, and even stole from them, Jeannette still loved him until his death for two reasons: one, for his ability to make her feel special, and two, because he is a never-ending source of inspiration.
Could the dysfunction of the Walls family have fostered the extraordinary resilience and strength of the three older siblings through a collaborative set of rites of passage? One could argue that the unusual and destructive behavior of the parents forced the children into a unique collection of rites of passage that resulted in surprisingly resilient and successful adults. In moving back to Welch, Virginia, the children lost what minimal sense of security they may have enjoyed while living in their grandmother’s home in Arizona. The culture and climate (both socially and environmentally) along with an increased awareness of their poverty resulted in a significant loss of identity. As they learned new social and survival skills in this desperate environment, there is a powerful sense of camaraderie between the older children. Their awareness, drive and cunning survival skills while living in Welch result in a developing sense of confidence in their ability to survive anything. This transition, while wretched, sets the stage for their ability to leave their environment behind with little concern for a lack of success. As the children leave, one by one, to New York, they continue to support one another, and emerge as capable, resourceful young adults.
The Glass Castle taught me one very important thing about children who are growing up in an extremely dysfunctional household- they do not always turn out as messed up as their parents or guardians. In fact, the author, Jeannette Walls, actually turned out extremely well. She is a successful writer and journalist and seems to be happy with her life. She has showed me that carrying around some serious baggage does not always stop a person from reaching the top. In the memoir, Walls’ parents are extremely selfish and have no morals. There is little to no love shown to Walls and her siblings, forcing them to mature faster than they should have. For example, she had to cook her own food at the young age of three. If I had known nothing about Walls’ success upon reading this memoir, I would never have assumed that she is a bestselling author and big-name journalist.
Child left in car for several hours dies of heat exhaustion and stroke. This headline has become all too common in recent years and it needs to stop. In The Glass Castle, the parents were never responsible for and didn’t care for their children. This is a growing problem in today’s society that can and should be prevented for the following reasons: Many children are left in cars while caretakers shop or even go to work, many children are raised to live off of the system the US government has in place rather than contribute to it, many parents are too dependent on daycare or alternate childcare and spend less and less time with their children, and finally children need love and attention from their parents so they can grow up and be good parents
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.
As I rested on the cot that serves as my nesting place with my Hello Kitty blanket, enjoying the comfort of the soft cool throw and the downy pillow, the dim illumination from the moon through the window was just enough to spark my imagination and get my brain racing with all the words that came out of my mother’s mouth as she read me a bedtime story. Not only was I enthralled by the stories, but there something about her familiar and shockingly pure voice that made these constant storytelling experiences more valuable. Someday, just someday, I envisioned myself doing the same with my children. However, I never thought that I would be doing this in my Junior year.
As a young child of six years old i didn't really understand what the words divorce meant. All i knew is that my dad just wasn't going to be living at home with me and my family. I have two older sibling, a brother and a sister. They knew what was going on and understood more than i did. Being the baby of the family and a daddy's girl it was hard for me to adjust to my dad not being around all
My parents got divorced when I was only two years old. Since, I was only two, I did not know what was really going on. It was not until later on that I realized the effects on me. When I was old enough to understand what actually happened all the other kids in my classes would talk about their Moms and Dads and what they had done together as a family I, could not relate.