The Glass Castle Jeannette Walls Analysis

501 Words2 Pages

Most negative relationships tear people down, however the author of the glass castle by Jeannette Walls uses the negative relationships to motivate her to succeed in life. A now successful journalist, Jeannette Walls, describes her hellish childhood. She experienced being raised by her alcoholic, manipulative, and acquisitive parents. Her extremely dysfunctional parents forced their children to learn how to feed themselves, protect one another, and be optimistic. Resulting in her going to college and having a “normal” functional family.
Jeannette Walls’ negative relationships with her parents pushed her to flourish in life. Theses negative relationships included her mom not wanting to go to work and make money for food for her family, and instead staying at home while painting. “she’d throw a tantrum and refuse to go to work”. pg 124. Jeannette's mother watched her children freeze and starve, yet displeased when her children wanted her to go work. This extremely exemplifies her mother’s selfishness, instead of at least selling her art supplies she continued to buy more, while her children didn’t eat every day. This act …show more content…

Jeannette's mother let her children roam free and protect themselves against the dangers of the world. “fussing over children who cry only encourages them, ….. its positive reinforcement for bad behavior” pg.17. This caused Jeannette at age 3, to fall into fire and go to the hospital for months. Jeannette's mother didn’t want to have to deal with her children and told them to figure things out for themselves. This selfish act done by her mother forced her children to grow up faster. Therefore Jeannette resented her parents and wanted to make a better life for not only herself but her future children. This pushed her to succeed in life, yet without her negative relationships with her parents she might have not been able to do great things in her

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