Forgiveness In The Glass Castle

We are humans and a majority of us have dealt with heartache, pain, broken promises, along with the joyous things like dreams, aspirations, and successful futures. Humans mess up and make mistakes, but we have to remember that forgiveness is a very prestigious and powerful thing. Forgiveness affects people’s lives in positive ways through the hardships, difficulties, and struggles of life. There comes a time when forgiveness should not be available to some individuals. However, this depends on the past situations that have occurred in your life as well as other individuals. In The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls, was a girl who did not live the ordinary lifestyle. She had to overcome many occurrences with her family, from living a rough life

Above all, one of the things that really stood out in Jeannette’s life going hand in hand with forgiveness was her father being an alcoholic. She lived her life dealing with rages as well as experiencing sweet and memorable moments with her father, Rex. Jeannette was a daddy’s girl and always tried to look for the good in everyone after her mother told her this quote, “You have to find the redeeming quality and love the person for that” (Walls 144). Rex always wanted the best for his family even though sometimes he would not go the right way in handling things. Jeannette thought positively about both of her parents even though she could have her doubts. “Maybe I wasn’t a complete fool for believing in mine. Or trying to believe in him. It was getting harder” (Walls 168-169). This really sets the tone for the rest of the novel, including leading up to Rex’s diagnosis of tuberculosis. He was always pleased in living a life such as the homeless. Rex eventually died of a heart attack. The reason I find this the most important contributions to forgiveness is because her father was one of her best friends. She always believed in him when he ceased to believe in himself. They did have their disagreements but she would always be a daddy’s girl and he promised to always take care of her, “‘Don’t you worry,’ Dad said. ‘You leave that to me. Don’t I always take care of you?’” (Walls

“As awful as he could be, I always knew he loved me in a way no one else ever had” (Walls 279). She had to find the redeeming quality of her father, Rex and love him for that because he always loved her in an indescribable way. Loving her father at his worst, meant crying and being upset when he resulted back to drinking, abused her mother, and acted like a very mean person. One of the greatest examples of forgiveness in The Glass Castle, was when Jeannette wanted her father to stop drinking. She cared about him enough, to want him to stay in the world alcohol-free. “After all he'd put himself through, I couldn't believe Dad had gone back to the booze” (Walls 123). It took a lot of tears, love, courage, and forgiveness to believe in the many broken promises of her father to their family and especially to her as an