The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls is a memoir of her increasingly difficult and troubling life. Throughout these adventures her and her three siblings travel to many places from California to Phoenix, to the quite backward town of Welch, and to New York City itself. In which, her relationship with her parents is at times, straining and at the times, one of the strongest relationships she has. Whether or not that is true, is up for debate. The relationship she has with her parents can be defined by three points, the issue of survival, the loyalty to each other, and the outcome of it all. All of these subjects can be separated into the good side, and the bad.
Her parents have a habit of putting their children in danger, or just not being parents. This can be proved by several things, the earliest being when Rose Mary lets her cook hot dogs on the stove at three years old because Rose Mary claims Jeannette is “mature for [her] age” (11), this wasn’t the best judgement on her part. Another example is when Rex tells the story of how Lori got bitten by a scorpion, he took her to “a Navajo witch doctor” (13) who healed her by “cutting open the wound” (13) because he “didn’t trust hospitals” (13). Both of these examples have caused injury to their children, and were caused because the parents were doing their free spirit mind of thinking. A good example of the parents thinking overcoming most logic parents would have, is how the kids “might enroll in school” (20). This is something you would think a set of parents would do in towns when they’re moving around so often. In addition, Lori once had to be paddled because “she had to punish someone” (75), this event pointed to Rose Mary’s logic surrounding punishment, and proves that she would rather paddle her own child than paddle another child. In addition, on the even worse side of the parent’s general sights of parenthood, the parents don’t care much about the kid’s future well-being, from them now in the start of the book “we were sort of like cactus. We ate irregularly, and when we did, we’d gorge ourselves” (22). To when they had such little food that Jeannette and Lori were found eating margarine (68). While in Welsh, Jeannette meets Ginnie Sue Pastor, the town whore and Jeannette’s only opinion on it is “One thing about whoring: It put a chicken on the table” (163). These all show that Jeannette’s family and the cactus attitude surrounding food put a strain on her. This gets extreme to the point that later in the novel, Jeannette hides in the bathroom during lunch and waits for the people to “throw away their lunch bags in the garbage pails” and then go to “retrieve them” (173). Rose Mary at times, hides “chocolate bars” from her children, eating them in secret and her only argument for it is that she is a “sugar addict” (174), and can’t help it. This is in a sense, proof of bad parenting, and poor self-control. Jeannette had argued with Rose Mary multiple times about leaving Rex, but she had always refused to leave him, saying it “wasn’t the Catholic way” (188). This is a bad part of their relationship, because …show more content…
The worst of these is when for her birthday, Jeannette asks her dad for only one thing, “Do you think you could maybe stop drinking?” (116), this shocks her father, making him realize that he is a bad father. He does it, hiding in his room for several days, often experiencing what could be best explained as withdrawal where he “thrash[es] about, bucking and pulling at the restraints” (117), where he face turns to “gray and dripping with sweat. I called out to him again, but he didn’t see or hear me” (117), after this event, Jeannette becomes extremely worried about her father. She often stays outside his room with water, waiting for him to ask for something from her. This shows that she is experiencing guilt from her request. Because it's causing him so much distress. In the end, he ends up drinking again, and never goes back because he broke his daughter’s
Her parents have a habit of putting their children in danger, or just not being parents. This can be proved by several things, the earliest being when Rose Mary lets her cook hot dogs on the stove at three years old because Rose Mary claims Jeannette is “mature for [her] age” (11), this wasn’t the best judgement on her part. Another example is when Rex tells the story of how Lori got bitten by a scorpion, he took her to “a Navajo witch doctor” (13) who healed her by “cutting open the wound” (13) because he “didn’t trust hospitals” (13). Both of these examples have caused injury to their children, and were caused because the parents were doing their free spirit mind of thinking. A good example of the parents thinking overcoming most logic parents would have, is how the kids “might enroll in school” (20). This is something you would think a set of parents would do in towns when they’re moving around so often. In addition, Lori once had to be paddled because “she had to punish someone” (75), this event pointed to Rose Mary’s logic surrounding punishment, and proves that she would rather paddle her own child than paddle another child. In addition, on the even worse side of the parent’s general sights of parenthood, the parents don’t care much about the kid’s future well-being, from them now in the start of the book “we were sort of like cactus. We ate irregularly, and when we did, we’d gorge ourselves” (22). To when they had such little food that Jeannette and Lori were found eating margarine (68). While in Welsh, Jeannette meets Ginnie Sue Pastor, the town whore and Jeannette’s only opinion on it is “One thing about whoring: It put a chicken on the table” (163). These all show that Jeannette’s family and the cactus attitude surrounding food put a strain on her. This gets extreme to the point that later in the novel, Jeannette hides in the bathroom during lunch and waits for the people to “throw away their lunch bags in the garbage pails” and then go to “retrieve them” (173). Rose Mary at times, hides “chocolate bars” from her children, eating them in secret and her only argument for it is that she is a “sugar addict” (174), and can’t help it. This is in a sense, proof of bad parenting, and poor self-control. Jeannette had argued with Rose Mary multiple times about leaving Rex, but she had always refused to leave him, saying it “wasn’t the Catholic way” (188). This is a bad part of their relationship, because …show more content…
The worst of these is when for her birthday, Jeannette asks her dad for only one thing, “Do you think you could maybe stop drinking?” (116), this shocks her father, making him realize that he is a bad father. He does it, hiding in his room for several days, often experiencing what could be best explained as withdrawal where he “thrash[es] about, bucking and pulling at the restraints” (117), where he face turns to “gray and dripping with sweat. I called out to him again, but he didn’t see or hear me” (117), after this event, Jeannette becomes extremely worried about her father. She often stays outside his room with water, waiting for him to ask for something from her. This shows that she is experiencing guilt from her request. Because it's causing him so much distress. In the end, he ends up drinking again, and never goes back because he broke his daughter’s