Imagine a close friend who is very intelligent, very good at his job and has hopes for his family to become rich and achieve all of their dreams. Seems like a great person right? Now imagine, this same person is an alcoholic who is addicted to gambling and loses most of the families money doing so. Is he still a great person even with his flaws? Although well intentioned, Rex, from The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, is self- absorbed, and thus impacts his children in a negative way.
I honestly believe that Rex tried to do nothing but good for his family but did not realize that it may have only been his doing why this family did not get to those dreams that he himself had once established for them to reach. Rex consistently went out and blew all of the money that Rosemary and himself would bring in that they could have been using for the essentials or even for saving some money for the future but instead he went and gambled it at casinos. A quote from the book that perfectly fits this was, "He simply waited
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He is the perfect definition of a shapeshifter in literary terms. Rex is never a solid character. he is always fluctuating between inspiring his family which is evident at the beginning of the book when Jeannette said, “When dad wasn’t telling us about the amazing things he had done, he was telling us about the wondrous things he was going to do,”(Walls 25). But then he would switch to someone who like i mentioned before would blow away the family money, leave the family for days, and even threw a cat out the window. It had to be hard for the family to deal with this inconsistency on almost a daily basis. Once Rex realizes the unlikeliness of his dreams, he gives up and falls into a deeper dependence on his children and alcohol. Rex changes from a loving, idealist to an alcoholic. Which leads me to my last point regarding to his alcohol
Rex is a man who uses his gifts to plan a future, a man that puts his skills to use.
During her childhood, Rex is an alcoholic; however, he intensely tries to detox. "Dad went to great lengths to make sure there was no alcohol in it before he accepted a glass” (Walls 263). Rex demonstrates determination by not giving up on ending his alcoholism. He passes down his trait of resilience to Jeannette, "I decided I wanted to go [to New York], too, and that winter we came up with a plan. Lori would leave by herself for New York in June, after she graduated.
However it is a pitiful situation to be an alcoholic because no matter what you do stay away from addiction It will always come back and this was exactly what constantly keep happening to Rex. Many times during the story he repetibley made his desire to quit his addiction but sometimes just wanting to change is not enough and Rex served as a clear example of how addictions can devastate families. Even with all of the challenges addiction presented in Rex’s life he still managed to teach his children valuable life lessons which helped his children succeed especially Jeannette who was arguably his greatest disciple. Even though Rex tried his best some might say that his methods for raising his children had adverse consequences in the children's
Jeannette Walls is a very influential writer and has written many stories and books, Also including a book called “The Glass Castle.” Jeannette Walls lives in Park Avenue, New York. She has very nice apartment with many expensive and old things in side. Her mom is homeless and walls doesn’t like that and wants and tries to help her. Her mom goes dumpster diving to find things that still have value still left in them.
In the book The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, Rex is very important character because he plays a key role in his kids lives. This character named Rex has many point when he is helpful and others with he is not in his right mind. He is in a hard time when he does not have much money and him and his wife Rose Mary does not have money management skills. These are just a couple of reasons why things you do have consequences for the actions. There are many parts in the story where something they do have a consequence right now I will find a couple examples of this.
Rex has changed a lot through out the Glass Castle and he actually changed in a bad way. He went from this person that cared about family to a type of person that did not care about family and just drank his life and his money away. Rex didn’t learn from his mistakes and just said ok and then moved on with his life. If Rex would have learned from his mistakes, his life would of been a lot better for him and his
“Have I ever let you down?”(Walls) is a saying often used by Rex Walls in the book The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls. As the author puts it, Rex does often let his family down by dragging them into poverty through his alcoholism. This created many problems for the Walls such as having a lack of food, dangerous people in their town, run down homes and buildings, and sickness. Though the Walls family was faced with many problems they often persevere, becoming closer to each other every time. One of the bigger problems the walls faced was poverty.
Mom screamed. “He’s trying to kill me!” (71). In accordance to the NIAAA article, alcoholism causes Rex to behave along the lines of the disinhibition hypothesis, which states that when people are influenced by alcohol, it creates aggressive outbursts and a lack of restraint on impulsivity. Jeanette clearly shows how alcohol caused Rex to make impulsive, aggressive decisions and harm the family.
Nicholas Sparks once said, “I don’t know that love changes. People change. Circumstances change.” In the memoir, The Glass Castle author Jeannette Walls shows how her father Rex Walls changes with everything thrown at him as a father or four. In the beginning of being a parent Rex shares his intelligence with his children.
The American Addiction Center's six characteristics that identify an alcoholic are extremely helpful in Rex's diagnosis. He doesn't possess all six, but the ones that he does possess put his family into constant danger when he is around. Alcoholism in The Glass Castle causes a great divide between Rex and his family and between danger and safety. Rex's daily drinking leads him to be considered a dangerous, alcoholic
In The Glass Castle, Rex and Rosemary Walls can be categorized as permissive parents. Rex and Rosemary’s parenting style is permissive because they approach their children as more of a friend than a parental figure, they do not discipline their kids, and they have few demands expected from their kids. The Walls parents act more of a friend than a parent to their kids due to their easygoing nature. Rex brushes off Jeanette's complaint regarding Robbie’s inappropriate touching and does not take action as a normal parent should. Rex had the opportunity to punish Robbie for his behavior but decided not to: “I’m sure he just pawed you some, I knew you could handle yourself” (Walls 213).
Jeannette’s Tone Change As a result of maturing and learning new things, perspectives on people usually change. This is what happened with Jeanette Walls in her novel, The Glass Castle. Her initial attitude towards her father, Rex Walls, is loving, supportive, and faithful. However, when she is able to process how many times her father has let her down, her tone in the book changes to being very critical and clinical.
Jeannette Walls depicted an epoch of misfortune and adversity in her memoir, The Glass Castle. Jeannette and her 3 other siblings were all in a constant struggle to survive. Rex and Mary, the parents of Jeannette and her 3 siblings, were often in a constant dichotomy between submitting to self-interest and supporting the family. Having misfit parents, Jeannette and her 3 siblings were often independent and left to fend for themselves and for the family as a whole. In The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls evolved the theme of ideal versus reality throughout her memoir though her countless anecdotes of her father and his unattainable plans to find gold and to build a home, named The Glass Castle, for his family and her mother’s dream to become a professional and well redound artist.
Despite the fact that Rex does indeed have intelligence, he often allows his extreme personality and dreams guide the way for his life. Everytime he runs out of luck or looses a job he gathers his family, basic survival needs and they skedaddle to the next town with gold. After being questioned about a skedaddle they were preparing for Rex replies "Don't you worry' dad said. ' You leave that to me. Don't I always take care of you?".
Every once in awhile a horrible situation occurs expecting the worst to happen when in reality something good comes out of it, such as the events in the Walls family in the Glass Castle by author Jeannette Walls. An event that would of turned terrible but went another direction was when Rex and Rose couldn’t buy christmas gifts for the kids (pg.39). During that period the Walls were pretty poor and couldn’t afford to get each other gifts during the holiday’s. The result of this could 've ended in sadness and disappointment, but to spare that Rose and Rex told the kids the truth where Santa wasn’t real. Telling the kids that Santa wasn’t real made them feel apart of a secret other kids didn’t know, which made them feel special.