The Theme Of Resilience In The Glass Castle

Everyone goes through hard times, but there is a reason some succeed and fail. Jeannette Walls grows up with a poor family that goes through tough times; her father is an alcoholic and her mother is neglectful and selfish. Walls shares her memories of her dysfunctional family in her 2005 memoir, The Glass Castle. In it, she constructs the idea that resilience is necessary both to keep families together in difficult times and to develop people for the hardships they must face in their lives.
Resilience is necessary to keep families together in tough times. Jeannette answers, ‘“No one’s neglecting us,’” when asked by the child welfare agent about her family (Walls 193). She does not tell him that they are neglecting her because she wants to keep the family together. She grows up with them and does not want to give them up even if her parents, Rex and Rose-Mary, have not provided a very stable and supportive life. After her younger sister, Maureen, leaves for California, Jeanette says, “something in all of us broke that day, and afterward, we no longer had the spirit for family gatherings” (Walls 277). They no longer feel that sense of family and togetherness that had kept them as a family; they always fought back when difficulties arose. Maureen’s

Jeanette Walls’ story of her and her siblings’ success in The Glass Castle shows this to be true. The Walls children could very well have given in to their circumstances. With the exception of Maureen, all of them dig deep inside and find the toughness to keep the family together and to make something of their individual selves. Resilience is required both to have a family stay together through tough times and to grow an individual to be ready for his or her future. Purpose and hope fuel resilience; without these two factors neither families nor their individual members can survive and be successful. Walls builds these ideas very well in her book The Glass