Individual Vs. Society In Jeannette Walls The Glass Castle

Improved Essays
Individual vs. Society
In our society today, what is considered good parenting includes showing love and compassion to children, making sure to provide for their needs and to teach them good moral standards to live by. On the contrary, not loving a child, making choices that lead to not being capable to provide, and not teaching them socially acceptable behavior is considered irresponsible parenting and even neglect. In The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls retells the story of her childhood growing up with nonconformist parents who, according to society, were irresponsible. Her parents create their own society that justifies their way of living, ignoring how it might affect their children. Jeannette Walls struggles with Individual vs. Society throughout her childhood because she grew up in her parent’s society but more than anything she just wanted to be her own individual who could have a better life than the way that they were living.
From as far back as she could
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After she finished her work, she would look through news articles and for the first time she got to know “what was going on in the world, except for the skewed version of events we got from Mom and Dad-one in which every politician was a crook, every cop was a thug, and every criminal had been framed. I began to feel like I was getting the whole story for the first time, that I was being handed the missing pieces to the puzzle, and the world was making a little more sense” (Walls 205). She began to see the real world how others saw it, not from the society of her parents, but for herself. She was able to form her own opinions on things, and this was when she truly wanted out of the society that her parents had formed around her. Jeannette realized that there was more out there for her, more good in the world then what she could have previously

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