Character Analysis Of Rex Walls In The Glass Castle

Improved Essays
In the memoir “The Glass Castle” there are 6 main characters. I will first start out with my thoughts on Jeannette. The narrator of the memoir. I think that Jeannette has a very forgiving personality, that likes to see the good in people, and feels sympathy for them. Because she was able to feel sympathetic for her parents, and see the good in them. She had the ability to get through her child hood with no significant negative effects on her well being. Many people would never be able to live through a horrific experience that Jeannette had lived through, and many more would instead take their own lives, because of the mental state one would be in from the trauma. Jeannette goes through a change in her life from when she first moved to New York. She was embarrassed to …show more content…
The father of Jeannette Walls. I think that Rex is a fairly skilled electrician, and also engineer. He usually spends his time trying to invent tools that can make his family wealthy. Rex Walls had suffered from sexual abuse when he was a child, which is most likely the cause of his alcoholism, and destructive behaviour he displays throughout the memoir. Although Rex had a troubled childhood, and was an alcoholic who could not be a good role model for his children. Rex was still able to provide his children with love that lasted forever. Because of this love for his children, they were able to get through their horrific upbringing, and were able to live good peaceful lives as adults. Though out this memoir Rex has changed from being very spontaneous, and always doing the ”skedddaddle” to settling down in New York, and living there until he passes away. Whenever Rex had thought that the authorities were after him he would make the family do the “skeddaddle”. When Rex settles down in New York he is much less spontaneous, which was maybe due to his aging, and is able to live in New York until he passes

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Although Rex did not directly do anything to put his family in harms way, he still made the choice to take the sharp turn in the beginning. Luckily nothing critical happened to Jeanette when she came flying out of the car. This could have resulted in a very tragic situation such as head trauma but to Rex’s advantage she was ok. Later Jeanette said that she “ got up and began to walk back towards the houses” (Walls 19). Within the time frame of Rex and Rosemary coming back to get her she could have gotten lost or stolen.…

    • 2034 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Her Father was dead at the time, but her Mother was still homeless and struggling to get by. Although Jeannette has offered to help her Mother she refuses and explains how happy she is with her current lifestyle. Jeannette is afraid of what others will think of her and she’s afraid they won’t accept her anymore. Walls writes, “It had been months since I laid eyes on Mom, and when she looked up, I was overcome with panic that she’d see me and call out my name, and that someone on the way to the same party would spot us together and Mom would introduce herself and my secret would be out.…

    • 1427 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    When arriving at the hospital she was then taken into immediate care. Jeannette was reassured over and over again that she was going to be okay. “I know, but if I’m not, that’s okay too.” (pg.11)…

    • 1153 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    While she is stuck in traffic she spots her homeless mother searching through the trash in a dumpster. Jeannette then describes her mothers awful appearance in great detail. However, she comments on the facts that even in this condition, her mother still looked like the lovely women she remembered in her childhood. Sadly, Jeannette…

    • 1630 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Jeannette and her three siblings Lori, Brian, and Maureen have been through so much in their lives from birth to a young adult. Jeannette Walls in her memoir of The Glass Castle shows that she went through almost all eights stages of Erickson’s Psychosocial Development. The memoir of Jeannette shows that she is a very strong individual and even though she has been through a lot of her early development she still over comes her struggles. The memoir of The Glass Castle shows that Jeanette goes through almost all of Erickson’s stages of Psychosocial Development. According to Snowman & McCown (2013), “Erikson described theses crises in terms of opposing qualities that individual typically develop.…

    • 2153 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    The Glass Castle is a memoir centered around the childhood of Jeannette Walls, a successful journalist and author. Jeannette's childhood memoir begins around 1963 when she is three years old. She manages to set herself on fire and must be rushed to the hospital. To avoid paying the hospital her dad comes in the middle of the night to take her and the family does “the skedaddle” (Walls, 2005, p. Location 51). Over the next few years, the Walls family continues to skedaddle, moving around the southwestern United States.…

    • 1418 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    He taught his children about the sciences and how to live a fearless life, but it was only after losing all of their money that the family gave up their nomadic lifestyle and settled down in West Virginia. Things went downhill from there as Rex began to drink heavily and his children were forced to learn to fend for themselves. They had to raise themselves because their parents were far too concerned with their own lives; therefore, Rex's parenting skills, while neglectful, forced the children to learn to survive on their own. Their independence, while coming far too early for such young children, was forced upon them given Rex's neglect. In her earlier years, Jeannette Walls evolves from a neglectful childhood into a very well-rounded and savvy adult.…

    • 1770 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    As we continue to read Jeannette’s story, we see the way she was abused by her family and other people they have come across; we are also able to see that the parents don’t act upon what’s going on with their children. With Jeannette’s alcoholic father and her mother who is nothing but self­interested who only cared about her own happiness than her own children, causes Jeannette to struggle to take care of her family, especially her siblings. The parents have neglected their children physically and emotionally which caused their children to being too skinny due to malnutrition, bad hygiene, and frequently unsupervised during unsafe situations and…

    • 734 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    But when Dad pulled out a bottle of what Mom called ‘the hard stuff…’ Dad turned into an angry-eyed stranger who threw around furniture and threatened to beat up Mom or anyone else who got in his way” (23). The quote indicates how Rex drinks, he can drink in a sophisticated manner, but he can also drink in a heavily manner; he creates a monster of a husband and dad. When sober, he would teach his children physics, Morse code, and other skills. All of this changes when he gets drunk. After drinking, he becomes a mad person who throws around chairs and threatens his wife and other people who come across him.…

    • 2297 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    “The Glass Castle” The Glass Castle was a memoir that takes you on a very detailed journey of the events that occurred in Janette Walls life. In her lifetime her family faced many challenges and went through, what some might call, abnormal circumstances. Over an extended period of time she was homeless, hungry, and often socially isolated from her surrounding environment. The conditions the Wall’s children had to endure throughout the book were harsh and unfair.…

    • 1420 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Jeannette had the ability to mitigate what was actually happening with her father and see him as the best dad in the world even when he very clearly was not even close to deserving title of ‘best dad.’ As Jeannette was maturing and starting to really register reality she became more and more disgusted with her father’s issues. It wasn’t until her junior year in high school that Jeannette had an epiphany and realized what harm Rex was actually doing to the family. She ends up leaving Welch at the end of that school year to go to New York with Lori, who had left previously. In time when the whole family is living in New York, Rex had suffered a heart attack and was placed into a hospital.…

    • 1305 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Throughout The Glass Castle Jeanette’s parents, Rex Walls and Rose Mary Walls, gets into a lot of fights with each other from how they never have money, how Rex is an alcoholic, or how they are always moving to living in different places. In chapter 17, Rex and Rose get into the worst fight that they have had. At this part of the story Rex just lost his job again meaning that they have no money for anything especially food. Rex also likes to gamble but is good at it so he was able to win some money for a bit food after a couple of months, but it went by quickly. When all the food was gone except margarine, Jeanette and Lori resorted to eating it with some sugar.…

    • 460 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    but majority of the rest results in temporary happiness. Jeannette’s parents have demonstrated to the children that any obstacle can be undertaken. An example of this is when Rose-Mary had gotten a job as…

    • 994 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Do you ever ponder the idea of why every family is so diverse and why people act the way they act? This family studies class offers an exploration of unique families, how to manage resources, environmental influences, and the important steps in the decision making process. All of these factors come in play when answering why people are the way they are and the varying traits within families. The Glass Castle, written by Jeannette Walls is a memoir that expresses the hardships and obstacles she faced while growing up.…

    • 1215 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Jeannette, being the child with the most optimistic outlook on their lives was the most forgiving when it came to her parent’s mistakes. For example, when her father decided to finally teach Jeannette how to swim, he grabbed her and tossed her into a spring. This occurrence startled her and she began to flail, thrash and sink to the bottom with the hot spring water locating its way to her lungs. Her father waited and then finally lifted her out of the water. This process went on and on until Jeannette felt threatened by her own father and felt safer moving away from him.…

    • 1073 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays