The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls - Essay Example

The Glass castle The story has been written by Jeannette Walls where she narrates the horrific childhood she had where she was raised by parents who were selfish, alcoholic as well as manipulative. She explains how her parents were very dysfunctional but still very vibrant and keen on teaching their children how they should take care of themselves. Despite the depressing childhood life, she develops some psychological means to cope with these problems in her life. The most important aspect of life she advances is forgiveness. She spends almost her entire life for the bad choices that they have made over and over again and which choices had adverse outcome in their children. They used to go without food day in day out. Had leaking roofs over their head, and had worn torn clothes as well as stealing their money together with their souls. Despite all these, Jeannette and her siblings always found a way to welcome them back. In many instances in the book there are very many instances where Jeannette is justified in hating her parents and going to as far as abandoning them forever. Nevertheless, she at all times found a way to overcome these feelings and ultimately forgave her parents. She narrates the events characterizing her life not with self pity but as a means of accepting the incidents that almost ruined her life. There are very many examples on how Rose and Rex raise their children brutally that it was a pity they didn’t die of neglect. She gives an example of how she got burnt while cooking hot dogs and had to be admitted in hospital (11-13). She loves her stay in the hospital since she has an opportunity to get three decent meals in a day. She also had television in her room. In fact, she says that she would be very happy if she stayed in the hospital forever. The level of neglect is also explained in the conversation between Jeannette and the hospital nurse after he saw many bruises on Jeannette’s body as well as the many burns she had on her body. These happening didn’t weigh her down. When the nurse who was attending to her asked her where she sustained those injuries, he didn’t blame her parents. Her parents pretend to be highlife people. When Jeannette shows them a chewing gum she was given by the hospital staff her mother calls it a low life habit. In fact, from the excerpts in the book she describes her dad as smelling of alcohol and cigarette when he came to pick her from hospital. Moreover, it is ironical how high life people would escape from hospital without paying for the hospital bills. Rex gives an impression that he doesn’t have patience with anyone who doesn’t agree with his views. This can be demonstrated when he nearly punches a doctor who was bandaging the wounds on Jeannette’s body. Jeannette has learnt to live with them. In fact she is very fond of her dad who her mother describes as a habitual drunk (23). When Jeannette gets burnt she doesn’t fear fire but instead she gets fascinated with it. She says that when she returns home from hospital, she fixes a hot dog for herself. The mother gets impressed with how Jeannette gets “right back into the saddle.” Her parents are keen to ensure that she doesn’t fear fire. The mother tells that she should never live on fear of fire while her father shows her how to pass her hand through flame of a candle without sustaining any burns. She does this repeatedly and is even fascinated by watching neighbors’ burning their trash. She tells a story of a neighbor who says that Jeannette should want to run from fire after getting burnt to which she replies why the hell she should run away from fire while she had already fought it and won (15). This section demonstrates how her parents raise them. They are bent on teaching their children to never fear fire which nevertheless they do by setting her on a path that is most likely pyromania. In fact, it is worth noting that her fascination with fire is rather unusual. The flash back she gives of various characters in the book in a way explains how their behaviors developed to be what they are. She says that her mother was raised by a mother who was a control freak. Consequently, she was totally against being held within the boundaries of a wife or that of a mother. Her father on the other hand was raised by a mother who molested him for the better part of his childhood. She asserts that these people passed on their dysfunctional lifestyles to her father. The development of other siblings has drawn too much from the way the parents have brought them up. Of all the siblings, Jeannette is the most intelligent of them all. She is even more intelligent than her older siblings. Jeannette’s intelligence derives from her ability to be able to see things around her family differently. Her dad had caused unexplained chaos and destruction in their lives. However, Jeannette couldn’t imagine what her life would be like if she lived without him. Even though he was very awful she had learnt to live with him and had learnt to love him. She also believed that her dad loved her in a way that nobody would ever do. She developed these mechanisms in order to live with her dad. (28) She tells of instances where Dad would order beer for her in a club even after she insisted on taking a sprite. This she interprets as giving an impression that Jeannette was old enough and available. She doesn’t mind these kinds of treatment from her father. The chapter on woman in the street is a way of Jeannette differentiating her life from that of her parents. She portrays how she has modeled her life in a way that odd eccentric ways differ from her normal life. She wants to say that her ways are not very eccentric to an extent that one cannot love them. She is to some extent setting the readers up for the life she has led out of being raised by Rose and Rex. At one point in his life, Jeannette’s Dad loses his job at the mine. When he loses this job, things become tough for the family. He can’t even access a meal. Jeannette had to adopt some surviving strategies; she did this by stealing food from other school children. The level of Jeannette’s adaptation is also exhibited in the case where an officer from the department of Child welfare visits the home to investigate allegations that the children were being neglected. Jeannette is offended by the visit and is scared of an eventuality of being separated from her siblings. She had learnt to love her family so much that the thought of being separated from them killed her. She doesn’t want to be separated with her family because she has learnt to live with them and accepted her predicament. She talks to her mother and convinces her to take a teaching job to turn the situation around (32). Jeannette was not the kind of person to be preoccupied with the drama typical of most adolescents. However, she was self conscious of her abnormally large teeth. He knew that her family could not afford to buy her braces. To remedy this, she made a head gear from a goat hanger, a feminine napkin as well a rubber band. She would wear these to bed every night. This level of imagination fascinates her father who excitedly proclaims that Jeannette is as inventive as him. Rex also assured Jeannette that the device was working. The story demonstrates how Jeannette and her family had to learn to look for means of surviving the hardships. Some like her parents had resigned to their fate. Other siblings apart from Jeannette had to look for means through which they could turn their lives around. Work Cited Walls, Jeannette (2006). The Glass Castle: A Memoir. New York. Simon and Schuster. Read More