The Glass Castle Literary Analysis

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"And remember it's also very funny because side by side with grief lies joy" (Drescher). A notable Swiss psychiatrist by the name of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross developed the model for the five stages of grief. She theorized the model in her 1969 book Of Death and Dying. The model begins with denial, and progresses to anger, bargaining, depression, and finally, acceptance. During Jeannette Walls's memoir, The Glass Castle Jeannette exhibits these five stages. Jeannette's relationship with her father parallels the five stages of grief throughout her life.
To begin, Jeannette's denial of her father's flaws is representative of the first stage of grief. After Jeannette burns herself while cooking hotdogs at the age of three, Rex encourages her to play …show more content…

While Rex is teaching her how to swim, Jeannette becomes furious with him. After he threw her into deep water "[Dad] tried to hug me but I wouldn't have anything to do with him" (66). Without knowing how to swim, Rex throws his daughter into deep, contaminated water and she begins to drown. When Jeannette realizes that her dad has little regard for her safety she becomes infuriated with him. Rex's lack of proper parenting becomes evident to Jeannette and as a result she gets angry at him, reflecting the second stage of …show more content…

The Walls children argue and Jeannette tries to justify Rex's questionable spending on alcohol. While searching the house for food to eat, Lori says "Dad has to start carrying his weight" (78) and in response, Jeannette says "He does ... He brings in money from odd jobs' (78). As Lori and Brian point out how their father wastes all of their money on alcohol Jeannette tries to bargain and rationalize his poor decision making and lack of any income. Her use of bargaining proves that Jeannette's relationship with her father has reached the third stage of grief.
Also, as Jeannette recognizes her father's faults later in her life, their relationship progresses to depression, the fourth stage of grief. After Rex dies Jeannette finds herself lost and distracted without him. For months after he died Jeannette felt uncomfortable, "[she] found [herself] always wanting to be somewhere other than where [she] was" (280). Similar to her father, Jeannette starts showing signs of erratic behaviour in an attempt to cope with the sadness she experiences because of his death. Jeannette's feeling of depression after her father passes away is the progression to the fourth stage of

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