As if the world is not already difficult on its own, the hand of poverty can slap you in the face and knock you to the ground every single time you begin to stand on your feet. Poverty arrives easily and like an unwanted pest; it is challenging to get rid of. One has to be open to living a completely different lifestyle than what they are used to or what they wish. The novel, “The Glass Castle” by Jeannette Walls is a perfect example of a child’s development through poverty. In fact, it is a memoir of Jeannette Walls’ life. Throughout the novel, her and her family take on different roles, they test their trust and forgiveness for one another, and obtain the acceptance of their lost dreams. Jeannette took on a huge role as a kid. From earliest
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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. Once she struggled her way to the surface, she wanted nothing to do with him or her mother when they attempted to congratulate her. Her father explained to her that this way was the only way she would learn how to swim. Jeannette sees his purpose for learning as inspiring and forgives him. “I figured he must be right. There was no other way to explain it” (Walls 66). Even in the end of the novel, when her father became ill and suffered from a heart attack, Jeannette demonstrates her forgiveness for everything that he put her and her family through. She says, “I could not imagine what my life would be like- without him in it. As awful as he could be, I always knew he loved me in a way no one else ever had” (Walls …show more content…
Her dream of giving her family a better reputation by painting her house a sunny yellow yet the doubts of her family caused her image to be unfinished. “Instead of a freshly painted yellow house, or even a dingy gray one, we now had a weird-looking half-finished patch job—one that announced to the world that the people inside the house wanted to fix it up but lacked the gumption to get the work done”(Walls 158). A better example of lost dreams would be Rex Wall’s dream of the Glass Castle. The second Jeannette decides her plan to move to New York, her father decided to remind her of their original plans. She “followed him into the living room, where he spread the papers on the drafting table. They were his old blueprints for the Glass Castle all stained and dog-eared” (Walls 238). This alone suggests that the plans were long forgotten for a while and were waiting to be lost completely. Considering the facts that all the events in her life and where they ended up at this point, Jeannette understood that this dream can never be achieved. “I stared at the plans. Dad, I said, you’ll never build the Glass Castle” (Walls 238). This dream, being this main thing that kept her and her father going, just drifted away as nothing more than a
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. Once she struggled her way to the surface, she wanted nothing to do with him or her mother when they attempted to congratulate her. Her father explained to her that this way was the only way she would learn how to swim. Jeannette sees his purpose for learning as inspiring and forgives him. “I figured he must be right. There was no other way to explain it” (Walls 66). Even in the end of the novel, when her father became ill and suffered from a heart attack, Jeannette demonstrates her forgiveness for everything that he put her and her family through. She says, “I could not imagine what my life would be like- without him in it. As awful as he could be, I always knew he loved me in a way no one else ever had” (Walls …show more content…
Her dream of giving her family a better reputation by painting her house a sunny yellow yet the doubts of her family caused her image to be unfinished. “Instead of a freshly painted yellow house, or even a dingy gray one, we now had a weird-looking half-finished patch job—one that announced to the world that the people inside the house wanted to fix it up but lacked the gumption to get the work done”(Walls 158). A better example of lost dreams would be Rex Wall’s dream of the Glass Castle. The second Jeannette decides her plan to move to New York, her father decided to remind her of their original plans. She “followed him into the living room, where he spread the papers on the drafting table. They were his old blueprints for the Glass Castle all stained and dog-eared” (Walls 238). This alone suggests that the plans were long forgotten for a while and were waiting to be lost completely. Considering the facts that all the events in her life and where they ended up at this point, Jeannette understood that this dream can never be achieved. “I stared at the plans. Dad, I said, you’ll never build the Glass Castle” (Walls 238). This dream, being this main thing that kept her and her father going, just drifted away as nothing more than a