The Role Of Parents In The Glass Castle, By Jeannette Walls

Ever since the beginning of Jeanette Walls childhood, Rex Walls was always an alcoholic father who abused not only his wife, but his family too. Like anyone when intoxicated, Rex was an entirely different person when he drank too much. There were several instances throughout The Glass Castle when Rex displayed abusive tendencies toward the mom (Mary Rose) and the rest of the family. For example, when the Walls were still residing in Battle Creek, Rex disappears for hours after he had been drinking for a while. Rose Mary and Rex got in a huge fight and the next thing the kids knew, “Mom’s feet appeared in the window, followed by the rest of her body. She was dangling from the second floor, her like swinging wildly” (Walls 71). In this specific passage, Walls shows the reader just how unacceptable and unhealthy the home environment was for the walls children. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism defines that heavy alcohol abuse is “binge drinking on five or more days in the past month” (Alcohol Facts and Statistics). This was definitely a reoccurring habit of Mr. Walls and

As an innocent child, Jeannette greatly admired her father. She writes, “Everybody said Dad was a genius. … Dad was also inventing things, too. … In my mind, Dad was perfect, although he did have what Mom called a little bit of a drinking situation” (Walls 22-23). Although Jeannette admits that her father has a “drinking situation,” she takes great pride in having a father who was a respected inventor. Jeannette conveys a tone of great reverence towards her father; she does so in order to emphasize the change in her perspective of Rex as she matures. On her tenth birthday, Jeannette asked her father, “Do you think you could maybe stop drinking?” (Walls 116). This suggests that she admits that her father’s little drinking situation is, in fact, a big drinking situation. Jeannette’s perspective on her father only gets more negative as she admits that Rex is dragging the family down and she tells Rose Mary, “Mom, we can’t go on living like this. … Mom, you have to leave Dad” (Walls 187-188). Finally, Jeannette comes to accept that the Glass Castle, which symbolizes an ideal future, is nothing more than a mirage. She once again watches as “the hole for the Glass Castle’s foundation slowly filled with garbage” (Walls 155). Before leaving for New York, Jeannette tells her father, “Go ahead and build the Glass Castle, but don’t do it for me” (Walls 238). As

Jeanette was the unfortunate sibling that seemed to be preferable target to receive beatings and humiliations. She was bullied for being skinny, white, intelligent, and poor on the other hand, Brian and Lori were her guardians. While living in The LBJ Apartments she was jumped by four Mexican girls in an alley she takes to get home. The girls had envy and hatred towards Jeannette because she was intelligent in class. Furthermore, “The next day when I got to the alley, the Mexican girls were waiting for me. Before they could attack, Brain jumped out from behind a clump of sagebrush, waving a yucca branch… Just back off

Not all parents are the picture-perfect couple one hopes to have. In Jeanette Walls’s memoir, The Glass Castle, her life follows alcoholic father with failing hopes of redemption and a flippant mother with zero domestic qualities. Specifically, one scene paints the late-night picture of her father merely telling her to hand over money to pay for his drinking binges. The predicament escalates from a measly five dollars to later asking multiple times for larger sums of money. Jeanette’s childish feelings of awesome respect towards her parents snap to reality as she witnesses her father in such a state, turning them into a bitter, sour concoction once the realization hits: she was on her own.

The Glass Castle by Janette Walls is a memoir. The book starts from the earliest childhood memory in which Janette dress catches fire while she is cooking herself some hotdogs. The book retraces the Walls family life from Nevada, California, Arizona, West Virginia, and then finally ending in New York. Janette Walls gives a very detailed description of the events that took place over a fifty- year period; starting in 1957 and ending in 2005. The book really allows for the reader to understand the hardships of being raised in a dysfunctional family. The family is composed of Rex the father, Rose Mary the mother, Lori walls the oldest child, Brian the only son, and Maureen the youngest child. Regardless of the hardships, the Walls family remained

Her parents failed to take care of themselves and their family. They ran from town to town and left it to the kids to do a lot of things for themselves. Sometimes, they would be left in dangerous situations without there parents. Neglect was shown in this scene when Brian was being sexually assaulted by his own grandma. When the parents came home they failed to do anything about it and yelled at the kids for it. “Brian’s a man, he can take care of it... I don't want to hear another word of this do you hear me?” (148). As a parent, if anything like this were to happen to them like this situation, it should be automatic to get them out of their as soon as you can and never let it happen again. They did the opposite by yelling at the kids for doing it, they did absolutely nothing wrong. Later, the kids learn they will never let their kids go hungry after experiencing their parents was of life. “You can go hungry every once and awhile bus once you eat, you’re okay.” (188). Parents are supposed to support, offer and take care of their children. Letting your kids go hungry has failed your parenting. After all the things these kids have been through, they need a stable environment to be in. Since Jeanette's parents don't work hard to get money she gets a job at the watch shop and watches her budget. “It was my first real job. Babysitting and tutoring and doing other kids’ homework and mowing lawns and redeeming bottles and selling scrap metal didn't count. Forty dollars a week was serious money.” (215). Jeanette was amazed by the money she was earning. She finally could earn money for herself instead of having to trust her parents to get money. Having to go off on her own and find a way to support herself was probably so exciting for Jeanette because she no longer had to worry about

Jeanette has developed culturally in many ways. Jeanette has grown up with her parents who have tried to get by through

In conclusion, Jeanette’s parents may have had a ton of flaws, but when it comes down to how the Wall’s children were brought up, they learned to be tough, resilient, independent and educated. It was their parent’s love combine with absurd neglect, which empowered the Walls children with the tools to overcome their struggles. Jeanette's mother and father both were a great inspiration to her and also were her champions. They made her strong enough to fight for herself and pursue her goals, and dreams.

Jeanette has lived a sheltered life with no influence on her except for the church. Her mother is a strict Christian with a deep resentment for things and people not within her fold. Being brought up in a society where going against the norm is a sin. A society that shakes its head at acts of individualism and

Jeana’s mom had been stressed over the limit lately; with her husband leaving, and losing her job. But, Jeana just wanted someone to talk to. Nobody was nice to her. Nobody would sit with her at lunch. Nobody would be her partner in class. Her father was the only person who ever listened to her. But, now that he was gone, she was all alone.

Jeanette is a young adult in New York city. She isn’t poor or wealthy, she is in the middle class. But in her past with her family, she was poor, always moving place to place for work. As a young girl Jeannette was tougher than your average little girl, a tomboy type of girl. When she was thrown out of the car in the desert, she cried but then stood up and walked to a place to be warm but went back so they can find her. She is a smart girl. By her description she is a skinny white kid that is very knowledgeable and when in a fight she doesn’t complain about it she just walks past her dad.

Jeanette seem very frustrated upon her arrival. She sat on the black couch next to the lamp. While sitting down, she rippled her fingers one by one up and down her dress. As the session continued, it looks that she was impatient because she was shaking her legs. Jeanette, yells out loud with deep voice that her mother is weak and her father is uncaring. It got even worse when she talked about her mother leaving to rectify her teachers license. She stood up and paced back and forth throughout the room hitting her hand speaking on the duties that she had to fulfill. Jeanette then sat down clam and elaborated about the time Mr. Wells to her to the bar. As she talked about attendance at the bar. She mentions that someone from the neighborhood had been watching their family and reported them to social services. Two days later social services arrived at their house for a visit. They examined the house and saw that there was food in the house and that the father was taking care of the children. Before leaving their neighborhood social services went to their neighbors. The neighbors reported that their mother and father I good parents that seek out to provide for their family. The school was then contacted and reported that the children are fine and Mrs. Wells works with the school district.

Even though Jeanette surpassed many difficulties and suffered tremendously during her childhood, she was able to overlook those situations and find peace. Her ability to overlook what her parents opened the gates to allowing her to love, care, and desire to help them. Not only did this make her stronger as an individual,but also allowed her to find peace within herself and family.

The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls covers many sensitive topics throughout her memoir. This touching story is based on her and her other siblings surviving on their own, while dealing with their free-spirited, troublemaking parents. She experiences challenges that us as readers can relate to personally. Even though her parents weren’t perfect, she learned a valuable lesson that carried on throughout her life. Her father never gave her that glass castle, but he gave her hope for the future where as her mother provided optimism in her life. This memoir discusses her overcoming obstacles such as maturity, independence, love and poverty which had a huge impact on her successful path as a writer and a bestselling author.

Most of Jeanette’s life consisted of an unstable learning environment because her family would always move around. But even though Rex and Rose Mary presented to be terrible parents in many sections of this book they surprisingly managed to raise well educated children. For example, Jeannette’s mother and father taught her how to read at a young age, how to solve complex math and physics problems, how to read Morse code, and even how to shoot a pistol. Throughout the book we see that Rex and Rose Mary truly loved their children, but other may say otherwise because of how they never provided for their family. For example, Rex used Jeannette as a sex object, how he stole money from his children any chance he got, etc. But when Rex was not drinking you would believe for just a moment that he was actually a good and loving father