3. Jeannette
Walls, in her memoir, “The Glass Castle”, depicts the daily obstacles that humans
face which both hinder and help develop character by making people more
cautious of how others perceive them. For example, when Jeannette moved
to Phoenix she was constantly bullied due to her economic status. Jeanette
relates this obstacle through the passage, " I walked outside trying to
hold my head high and Dinitia and her gang surrounded me and it began. As we
fought they called me poor and ugly and dirty, and it was hard to argue that
point" (Walls 140). This obstacle of being bullied due to factors that one
can’t control, affected her character by making her more self-conscious. Before
these incidents with bullies, Jeannette wasn't concerned with how people
perceived her, she had been more concerned with her family and living, but this
incident changed her motives and ideals. One can see how this affected her future
as it led her to become a gossip journalist, revolving her life around other’s obstacles
was a way to shift the conversation away from her circumstances. For example,
when Jeannette was talking about homeless people in her class and her teacher
asked her "what do you know about the lives of the underprivileged? What
do you know about the hardships and obstacles that the underclass faces?'
... 'You have a point', says Jeannette" (Walls 257). This is an
effect of the bullying from when she was young, because ever since she has been
hiding her true self and her early life as she was afraid how people would see
her if she told people the truth. After welch she did all she could to get away
from her old lifestyles and create a new life for herself, and she did this by
not discussing her past. The bullying impacted the development of her character
because it made her extremely concerned about how others saw her, which
ultimately restricted her happiness by not feeling she could be herself.
2. In
the memoir, “The Glass Castle”, by Jeannette Walls, courage is the quality that
allows people to move on after facing hardships. While enduring the many
journeys of Rex Walls, Jeannette constantly had to leave things behind, "Anyone
who didn't like to travel wasn't invited on our adventure.’ Dad said, he
stopped the car grabbed Quixote by the scruff of the neck and tossed him out of
the window" (Walls 18). Anything that Jeannette became close to was soon
brutally taken away from her due to either her parents inability to care for
the things she loved, or that they were so selfish that they didn’t want her to
have anything to care about. Jeanette needed to have courage to overcome the
obstacle of constantly leaving things she loved behind, or else her family
would have thought less of her and wouldn't accept her, they may leave her
behind too. One example of courage was when Jeanette was determining if she was
going to move to New York she mused, “Maybe I should move to New York City
right now and graduate from high school there” (Walls 236). Having the
courage to move out of the toxic environment in which she was stuck was very
beneficial for her growth. After constant obstacles like money problems and
poor living conditions, she was able to reevaluate her life, and it helped her
determine how she wanted to live her life.
1. Jeannette
Walls, in her memoir, “The Glass Castle”, depicts the daily obstacles that humans
face which both hinder and help develop our character and identity. For
example, when Lori got injured and was covered in blisters, her mother
proclaimed, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” (Walls 179). Every Time
something terrible happened to her children, Jeannette’s mother never had much
to say except ‘what doesn't kill you makes you stronger’, which is true because
it teaches people how to overcome issues in their lives. The life of the Walls
family demanded overcoming obstacles and issues that constantly presented
themselves in their lives. Being able to
struggle though their existence and overcome these obstacles made Jeannette compassionate
and strong, which resulted in her attaining her successful lifestyle. For
example, when Rex Walls suffered a serious arm injury, he had a wide-open gash
and asked Jeanette to stitch it up, “I tied the two ends of the thread
together, like Dad told me to and then, to put in a second stich, did it again.
The gash was pretty big and could have used a few more stitches, but I couldn't
bring myself to stick that needle in my Dad’s arm one more time” (Walls 170).
This shows how Jeannette was always taking care of the people who were suppose
to be caring for her. This made her a very independent and mature person by
having to be caretaker to her own parents. This event foreshadowed what would
become a reoccurring problem in Jeannette’s life, where Rex’s dependency would require
that she take care of him. This shows how obstacles that she overcame helped
develop her character through making her strong, independent, and mature
