Prible Childhood Jeannette Research Paper

New York was a place for opportunity and as the children excelled in school, they were going to succeed there. The only person that was not involved in the New York trip was Jeannette’s younger sister, Maureen, who associated herself more with her friends than with her siblings. Her friends provided Maureen with the essentials her parents failed to give, which gave her no reason to leave Welch.

“When other girls came in and threw away their lunch bags in the garbage pails, I’d go retrieve them. I couldn’t get over the way kids tossed out all this perfectly good food [...] Maureen always had plenty to eat, since she had made friends throughout the neighborhood and would show up at their houses around dinnertime” (173).

Maureen can be interoperated

The three of them stayed in abandoned building whereas the other three children had their own condos. Jeannette was working her way up to becoming a successful journalist, Brian was a police officer, and Lori, a successful artist. Maureen did not take education as serious as them and as a result, settled for temporary jobs as a bartender. In Welch, Maureen depended on neighbors to provide for her and now, in New York, she used her beauty to charm men to help her out. Yet, the boyfriends never lasted longer than the jobs (274). Ultimately the lack of self-sufficiency resulted to her outbreak: “Six months later, Maureen stabbed Mom. It happened after Mom decided it was time for Maureen to develop a little self-sufficiency by moving out and finding a place of her own” (275). Although Jeannette and Maureen were in the same setting during their childhood, it is the effect of secondary characters that contribute to their mentality. Jeannette, Brian, and Lori struggled together and learned skills of resilience, independence, and understanding the importance of education. In contrast, Maureen was handed everything in life and was dependent on other people instead. As she is thrown into the real world, her lack of experience caused confusion and led to her mental breakdown.