Topic > Overcoming Jeannette's Challenges in The Glass Castle

William Yeats said, "I am of a healthy and long-lived race, and our minds improve with age." It is true that when individuals face the world, they can only gain wisdom from exposure. For young Jeannette Walls, it is nothing more than her troubled life and multitude of powerful experiences that shape her worldview. In her memoir The Glass Castle, she and her family constantly face hopeless challenges such as hunger, homelessness, and addiction. From the desert to New York, Jeannette's attitude toward her family's idealistic poverty and nomadic homelessness changes over time from naive youth to thoughtful acceptance. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay For the Walls, dealing with extreme poverty, random relocations, and virtual homelessness means pretending that their life is an “incredibly fun” adventure (Walls 85), and for young Jeannette the simple concept of “adventure” it's more than enough to eliminate many of his worries about their uncertain lifestyle. Describing a night in the desert, he says, “…we slept under the stars…Dad said it was part of his plan…I told Lori how lucky we were to sleep under the sky like the Indians. “We could live like this forever,” I said. 'I think we will,' he said” (18). Jeannette doesn't stop to think about the fact that they have no pillows, no money, or even a place to sleep at night; instead, it perpetuates the serene image of sleeping under the stars and connecting with nature. His strong bond with his father is evident, as he firmly believes that their misfortune is all "planned". She is still so dependent on family that she is blind to the façade of adventure that masks the reality of hardship. His use of the word "lucky" shows that he is not simply looking for a silver lining in the situation; this is a real adventure for Jeannette, or at least she is fully convinced of it. In contrast, as Jeannette gazes at the stars, Lori provides the stark contrast to her young sister's starry-eyed wonder. Older than Jeannette, Lori is recognizing that being homeless is not something to romanticize. Although the teenage years are always awkward transitions from dependence to independence, Jeannette's transition is driven by the contradiction between her love for her family and her growing embarrassment about the family's lifestyle and habits. choices. One day, after a disturbing encounter with a welfare officer, she says: “At least when Ernie and his gang came shouting that we were rubbish, we could fight them off with stones. But if the child welfare worker got it into his head that we were an unsuitable family, we would have no way of chasing him away” (194). Jeannette's words serve as a metaphor that perfectly embodies her struggle. He describes his retaliation towards Ernie as youthful and rude, fighting with rocks; she is a boisterous and vengeful girl who responds immaturely to bullies. This fearless air contrasts markedly with her helplessness in the face of the welfare man. For her, it symbolizes government and adulthood, in the sense that she has to learn to deal with things she doesn't particularly like. As age brings responsibility, it also brings wisdom, and she realizes that she is becoming increasingly embarrassed by her family's social standing and becomes self-conscious about their image. In other cases, Jeannette is deeply disturbed by a woman's use of the term "poor" in reference to her pitiful hitchhiking. He even hears.