Generosity has the potential become a detrimental effect on an individual’s prosperity. Excessive compassion in tolerating one’s reluctance to improve their life intensifies the complexity of recovery. It lessens the individual’s incentive to revise their habits. In the memoir The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, the author portrays her parents as highly intelligent yet irresponsible individuals who persistently forgive themselves for the negligence of their obligations. Therefore, lacking compulsion, the family never succeeds in sustaining a comfortable lifestyle. If Rex and Rose Mary Walls motivated each other to find a balance between pursuing passions and cultivating responsibilities, they could have achieved a life that met both their …show more content…
This enforced optimistic ideology manipulates her children’s perceptions of their lives which takes any accountability for their misfortunes away from her. She chooses to neglect her children but enlightens it to be a generous gesture because “suffering when you’re young is good for you… It immunized your body and soul” (28). She influences her children to be accepting of their misfortunes so she may restrict the necessity of providing care for her children. The children are used to being deprived of simple needs such as food and health care so they do not mention to their parents when their difficulties have increased. Because of this conditioning, Rose Mary does not feel obligated to take away time from her paintings to care for her children. Additionally, the semblance that her children are taking care of each other allows Rose Mary to reject the notion of her sacrificing her artistic passions to obtain a sustainable income. She praises herself for raising such capable children and continues to neglect her children’s needs. Rose Mary’s compassion towards her own negligence impairs her family's ability to …show more content…
Rose Mary tells Jeannette that she married Rex Walls because “she had to get away from her mother, who wouldn’t let her make even the smallest decision on her own.” (27) Rose Mary’s limitations in making her own decisions while she was a child developed an inability to oppose the will of others. Rose Mary’s passivity enables her husband’s destructive behaviour which restricts the recovery of her family’s prosperity. Whenever Rex exhibits disruptive behaviour Rose Mary claims that there’s nothing any of them can do. They have to accept his father for who he is. Her expression of compassion for her husband involves accepting the life of poverty he has inflicted on the family. The lack of opposition from Rex’s family allows him to continue to indulge in his destructive habits. His alcoholism becomes irreparable, and without personal recovery, Rex Walls cannot control the devastation of his family’s progress toward
While an adolescent may be taught by dozens of educators throughout their academic years, their first teacher is found in their parents. While the lessons taught do not reach to the extent of those given in school, their purpose is to instill proper morals and manners into the child. Forgiveness was an important concept that the protagonists learned in both Walls’ The Glass Castle and Hickam’s Rocket Boys. In The Glass Castle, Jeannette, despite all of the mistakes her parents made, forgave them each and every time.
When Jeannette explains to Rex Walls what Erma did to Brian, he starts to shake and cover his ears and pretend like he couldn’t hear them. After Lori and Jeannette talk, Jeannette thinks, “You’d be weird, too, if Erma was your mom... it would explain a lot… Why he drank so much and why he got so angry.” Rex Walls tried to escape from Welch and its people for a better future, but in the end couldn’t escape from his problems because he focused too much on his past and never gave the future his complete attention. When the mines started to shut down, many people turned to alcohol and drugs to keep their minds off of their problems in life.
Rex Walls is a very complicated character because he wants to care for his kids yet would leave them for alcohol, he wants to look like a good father infront of his kids yet does not consistantly make the effort to do so, he is very intelligent
Rex and his wife Rose Mary have arguments as well when it comes to money. They started getting into fights about spending money, and how Rex behaves. One night they got into a fight and it startled Jeannette and her siblings. She tries to take her dads side when she describes what Rex was doing, “Dad explained that he was out trying to earn money” (69). Jeannette knows that her father is trying to do whatever he can do to help the family.
Although some view Rex and Rose Mary to have unique parenting styles that supplement their children's successes, the Walls children
Resilience is defined as having the ability to recover from an event that introduces various struggles, and several drawbacks. The characters in Jeannette Walls’ The Glass Castle are consistent with overcoming and persevering through the drawbacks they encounter throughout their lives. They overcome struggles when Jeannette and her siblings often face traumatic experiences from their parents, deal with the issues of poverty in ways that affect their lives in public settings, and still after all of this, most of them end up very successful and can afford to live on some of the most famous streets in the world. To achieve self-confidence and independence, it is essential to display traits such as resilience and determination to overcome the need
Success: An Escape from Privation Inevitably, the conflicts people face at multiple points in their life is a determining factor in shaping individuals into the person they will eventually become. Namely, these conflicts direct people 's behavior over the course of time; contributing to a person’s ability to achieve success. In particular, Jeannette Walls’ The Glass Castle is an honest depiction of her life and the conflicts that arise throughout her state of impoverishment, as well as the success that stems from her hardships.
And without the capability to assess future risks and repercussions of a decision, Rex almost kills his wife in the process. Struggling to cope with their father’s rages and without a means to restrain him, Jeanette’s family is forced to face Rex’s violent
In the memoir, The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, the Walls family is considered homeless and they are constantly moving from place to place. They constantly find themselves either with a somewhat decent amount of money or at times, no money at all. Jeannette, being one of four children always follows along with and listens to her parents and eventually notices that their family does things very differently than most other families. As Jeannette explains her childhood and how she is being raised by her parents, it is clear to see how different Rex and Rosemary’s parenting style is compared to the parenting style of other parents. Since their parenting style is so different, it seems that it affects their children in a negative way throughout their childhood, but in the end it makes Jeannette become a better and more successful person.
According to Jeannette Walls, Rex was a very fun and loving father while she was growing up. Alcoholism affects the good people and the bad people, many in the same ways. However from an outside perspective, Rex Walls' behavior put his children at risk. In The Glass Castle, Rex has many moments where he puts his family's lives in risk, maiming Jeannette's. In one scene, Jeannette and the family go to a water hole to go swimming.
Her and her siblings are exposed to unideal living conditions and have to learn to take care of themselves, especially due to the fact that their father, Rex walls seems to suffer from an undiagnosed mental illness. Considering Rex Walls symptoms throughout the memoir are linked to having bipolar disorder, he was unpredictable. Jeannette and her sibling’s ability to be resilient despite their father’s bipolar disorder growing up are perfect examples of Max Lerner’s quote “the turning point in the process of growing up is when you discover the core of strength within you that survives all hurt” and has let them get far in life even with everything they had to
“Believe in miracles…. Hope is never lost” (Elder Jeffrey R. Holland). Believing that the worst is behind them and that they will come upon a better life is the only way that Jeanette Wall’s family is able to stay afloat. In Jeannette Walls’ memoir The Glass Castle, the symbol of hope is portrayed through a Glass Castle: a real home in which everyone is important and loved.
The walls parents consider themselves to be their kids’ friend rather than a concerned parent. “’ Good for you, Mom said when she saw me cooking. You’ve got to get right back on the saddle”’ (15)… Friends tend to encourage you to do stupid things but in this situation Jeannette’s mother is the one encouraging her to do something not so bright. Rex and Rosemary do not expect their kids to become any greater than they are.
Rex’s method is not that of many fathers, his being “sink or swim”, providing not only the ability to swim but also a strong metaphor for the reader and Jeannette. This is a representation of not only the Walls’ teaching strategy, also for the struggle to succeed in a life the Jeannette has literally been thrown into. Jeannette takes this idea to heart even though she may not realize it, for her not to succumb to the environment in which encapsulates her, such as Welch and life on the road, she must be able to handle these hard situations and be able to stay
Paul Ryan once said, “Every successful individual knows that his or her achievement depends on a community of persons working together.” Individuals must strive upon excellence based on the society they are placed in. Watching how others react can help one become the best they can be. Throughout The Glass Castle, Jeannette is exposed to society by her parents. Her parents, Rex and Rose Mary, see society in different means than how others perceive it.