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Childhood In The Glass Castle By Jeannette Walls

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The Merriam Webster dictionary defines childhood as “The early period in the development of something.” For some children their childhood is idyllic and some of the best, most carefree years of their life. Unfortunately, one cannot control their childhood. Many children who grow up with parents that are in and out of jail, alcoholics and or drug addicts, grow up to be just like them. In the bestselling memoir, The Glass Castle,Jeannette Walls parents struggle with addiction, dysfunction, eccentricity, poverty, and many other issues. During Jeanette's childhood she did not have much direction from either of her parents. Jeannette accepts the fact that she will have to fend for herself in both the film and the book, so what she had to do, …show more content…

She begins to tell us he she did not know how to swim but Lori and Brian did. When the family went down to the hot pot she was the only one who did not know how to swim. Dad decided that he was going to force her to learn, he did this by throwing her in the middle of the water for her to figure out how to get up and catch her breath. Jeannette would keep reaching for her father’s hand and he would pull her up. The last time he threw her in, he did not wait and let her grab onto him. Jeannette had to teach herself to swim to the edge. After succeeding with swimming to the rocks she climbed up and started to catch her breath. She then was mad at the family for not stepping in and helping her when she was drowning in the water. The dads way of teaching Jeannette to swim was not the best option. A better option would have been introducing swimming and holding onto her until she was comfortable are on her own. Jeannette had to be independent and make herself swim and get to the side so she could breath. If the dad slowly introduced her to swimming it would have worked better in the sense that she would not have been mad at them after she finally taught …show more content…

In the movie the scene takes place at a public pool unlike in the book where it was portrayed in the hot pot. When in the public pool Jeannette was holding onto the side of the pool. She did this until she was yelled at by dad for “hugging” the side of the pool. Rex then swam over to Jeannette, pulled her from the side and told her she was going to learn how to swim. Rex threw her into the middle, much like the book, and kept grabbing her back up until she finally swam to the edge. She then gets out of the pool and runs, as dad chased after her he was stopped by a lifeguard and got into a fight with the owner of the pool. Overall, Jeannette had to learn how to swim and save herself in the pool, showing she is

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