Analysis Of The Glass Castle By Jeanette Walls

As any avid reader or writer will surely advocate, there are emotional benefits to encouraging reading that often go forgotten or unrecognized in school systems. Books provide the opportunity to live a life beyond reality- for some, this is a rare means of escape from stress and problems that are particularly hard to deal with. In Jeanette Walls’ The Glass Castle, the Walls family has a vast and diverse number of issues they have to deal with. Lori, a J.R.R Tolkien fan, finds relaxation in reading and utilizes books to get away from everything happening around her. Walls recalls how “She tried to get everyone in the family to read [The Lord of the Rings] books. ‘They transport you to a different world,’ she'd say” (Walls p. 168). This shows how important it was to Lori to have a solid source of happiness, and something she could turn to when she becomes too overwhelmed. …show more content…
Reading about experiences similar to one’s own, but through the perspective of a fictional character forms a deep connection and creates validation- the effect can be almost therapeutic. In “Can Reading Make You Happier?”, an article written by Ceridwen Dovey, a contributor of The New Yorker, Dovey explores this idea of finding inner-peace through literature further- she even recognizes and sheds light on a kind of psychiatric help called bibliotherapy, in which a bibliotherapist takes the problems their clients are struggling with, and ‘prescribes’ books for them to read that will hopefully help them overcome these issues. She describes how “Today, bibliotherapy takes many different forms, from literature courses run for prison inmates to reading circles for elderly people suffering from dementia”, and this idea could very easily be applied to young children, as well (Dovey par.