It was in the middle of the night, the uneven desert sand lurching the speeding car up and down. Threatening to run Mom over, Dad hollered, “You crazy b****… Get your godda** a** back in this car!”. “You make me, Mr. Tough Guy!” [Mom] screamed back as she desperately ran away. In the memoir, The Glass Castle by author Jeanette Walls, Jeanette often experiences such abusive, violent acts from her father. Her father, Rex, has a severe alcohol addiction that significantly impacts the family’s lifestyle. Rex’s alcoholism leads to emotional instability and frequent, hostile aggression towards his family. One way alcoholism affected Rex, was by causing emotional instability. The article, “Symptoms and help for Alcohol Problems” by author Elisabeth …show more content…
According to the article, “Alcohol Alert” written by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), alcohol “may encourage aggression or violence by disrupting normal brain function. According to the disinhibition hypothesis for example, alcohol weakens brain mechanisms that normal restrain impulsive behaviors… simultaneously, a narrowing of attention may lead to an inaccurate assessment of the future risks of acting on an immediate violent impulse” (National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism). In Walls’s memoir, Jeanette personally experiences her alcoholic father’s violence in the household. As Jeanette remembers one of her father’s particularly distressful rages, she recalls, “Suddenly, one of Mom’s oil paintings came flying through an upstairs window. Next came her easel. The crowd below scurried back to avoid getting hit. Then Mom’s feet appeared in the window, followed by the rest of her body. She was dangling from the second floor, her legs swinging wildly. Dad was holding her by the arms while she tried to hit him in the face. “Help!” Mom screamed. “He’s trying to kill me!” (71). In accordance to the NIAAA article, alcoholism causes Rex to behave along the lines of the disinhibition hypothesis, which states that when people are influenced by alcohol, it creates aggressive outbursts and a lack of restraint on impulsivity. Jeanette clearly shows how alcohol caused Rex to make impulsive, aggressive decisions and harm the family. And without the capability to assess future risks and repercussions of a decision, Rex almost kills his wife in the process. Struggling to cope with their father’s rages and without a means to restrain him, Jeanette’s family is forced to face Rex’s violent
During her childhood, Rex is an alcoholic; however, he intensely tries to detox. "Dad went to great lengths to make sure there was no alcohol in it before he accepted a glass” (Walls 263). Rex demonstrates determination by not giving up on ending his alcoholism. He passes down his trait of resilience to Jeannette, "I decided I wanted to go [to New York], too, and that winter we came up with a plan. Lori would leave by herself for New York in June, after she graduated.
Jeannette Walls' memoir, The Glass Castle, explores the theme of forgiveness through the lens of her upbringing, demonstrating that forgiveness is a complex and transformative process that requires understanding, empathy, and self-reflection. Throughout the book, Walls portrays her parents, Rex and Rose Mary Walls, as flawed individuals, often neglectful and irresponsible. Their actions, such as Rex's alcoholism and Rose Mary's indifference towards her children's well-being, caused immense suffering and instability in Jeannette's life. Yet, despite the hardships endured, Walls offers glimpses of forgiveness towards her parents. For instance, when she visits her father in a New York City alley, she confronts him about his failures and their
Rex’s baby brother Ford is on the verge of tears so Rex picks him up and carries him to the bedroom to get him away from the fight. “Even behind the thin, plastic door, we can still hear it, feel it. Hear the brawl, the screams turning into thuds and gasps for air. Feel the floor vibrations of wrestling and kicking, someone trying to hold their ground, and failing. Feel two bodies crash to the floor, and hear a woman's voice wail in pain.
Rex and his wife Rose Mary have arguments as well when it comes to money. They started getting into fights about spending money, and how Rex behaves. One night they got into a fight and it startled Jeannette and her siblings. She tries to take her dads side when she describes what Rex was doing, “Dad explained that he was out trying to earn money” (69). Jeannette knows that her father is trying to do whatever he can do to help the family.
Rex and Rosemary’s Parenting Style The parenting style that most exemplifies Rex and Rosemary Walls in The Glass Castle is Cherry’s idea of uninvolved parenting because they have few demands, low responsiveness, and little communication but also reject or neglect the needs of their children(Cherry, “The Four Styles of Parenting”). Rex and Rosemary Walls are uninvolved parents because they neglect the needs of their children. In the book The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls, says “I was wearing the dress to cook hot dogs” (9).
Alcoholism is a physical and psychological disorder of the brain that involves the chronic and exorbitant consumption of alcoholic beverages. The consumption can be in response to stressful situations, at overwhelming amounts of social activities, and even in the comfort of one's own home. Alcoholism can trigger other psychological disorders such as depression and schizophrenia, and it also has other negative consequences such as kidney failure, heart defects, and even death. An example of alcoholism in a piece of literature is Rex Walls from The Glass Castle. His actions throughout the novel have extremely detrimental consequences for his wife, children, and himself.
Homelessness in The Glass Castle In the 1960s, according to American Civil Liberties Union, 20% of the United States population were homeless, and shunned from the rest of society because of stereotypes. The Glass Castle is a memoir written by Jeannette Walls, to tell the story of her life growing up as a homeless child with an alcoholic father and an artistic mother. Her memoir is a story about relationships, and how the outside world influences them. In The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls, homeless people are marginalized as uneducated, reckless and mentally unstable.
Alcoholism is a significant problem in American society. About 20 million people in the United States abuse alcohol and out of that number, around 10 million are addicted to alcohol and considered an alcoholic ("Alcoholism" 1). In The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, Jeannette's father, Rex, shows signs of being an alcoholic. His disease puts a lot of strain on the family and relationships within the family and eventually, Jeannette's father dies from heart failure, a common disease caused by alcoholism. Rex Walls can be identified as an alcoholic father by most of the six identifiers of an alcoholic from the American Addiction Center.
On Christmas Eve, his family had to drag him to church drunk. After causing a scene in the middle of service he went home and set the Christmas tree on fire, ruining the gifts they had all bought each other. The Walls family wanted to make this Christmas special. They spent days decorating and wrapping gifts for each other. Rex showed his family that they couldn’t rely on him to handle himself even during moments that were important to his
The Glass Castle: Controversial Topics. The Glass Castle is a 2005 book by Jeannette Walls. The memoir explains the author’s life, growing up with her family most especially with her parents who could be described as nomads and deadbeats. Notwithstanding the difficult upbringing, her siblings and she had, Jeannette perseveres and becomes a successful Journalist living in New York City.
Under the Influence by Scott Russell Sanders “Under the Influence” by Scott Russell Sanders is a poignant essay relaying Sander’s struggles with his father’s alcoholism. Sanders’ essay is revealing in ways that statistics and studies on alcoholism cannot possibly contain. Sanders’ essay is like a catalog of the devastating emotional effects of his father’s alcoholism. In his essay, Sanders convincingly counteracts misconceptions about alcoholism and supports the argument that alcoholism is more like a disease rather than the common misconceptions of alcoholism.
Abuse, chaos and bitter love are some things that are clearly seen in the film The Glass Castle (2017), through the Walls family. In the book Jeannette Walls, sheds light on how her father was an alcoholic and how he “brought” the family down with him. Jeannette is the closest one to her father and truly connects to him, and goes along with everything he does. Rex’s alcoholism is a symbol for endurance and hardship and can be seen sporadically throughout the movie and book. In Destin Cretons film version we see the hardships and pains of a troubled growing family.
Poverty and Mental Health Jeannette Walls’ memoir, The Glass Castle, demonstrates the struggles of mental health issues that generate from poverty through her family’s journeys, both mentally and physically. Jeannette Walls displays how poverty can affect an entire family’s life through her use of realism, in-depth descriptions, and imagery in her memoir, The Glass Castle. The Glass Castle focuses on the tie between mental health issues and poverty through the theme of the lasting effects of poverty. Poverty in Jeannette’s younger years is the cause of the majority of her anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues. The Walls family’s period of time in Phoenix contributed to Jeannette’s mental health issues.
Imagine a close friend who is very intelligent, very good at his job and has hopes for his family to become rich and achieve all of their dreams. Seems like a great person right? Now imagine, this same person is an alcoholic who is addicted to gambling and loses most of the families money doing so. Is he still a great person even with his flaws? Although well intentioned, Rex, from The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, is self- absorbed, and thus impacts his children in a negative way.
In the United States, and eleven other countries, the legal drinking age is set at twenty-one. Even though there are several viable reasons why it’s illegal to drink before age twenty-one, many people in the United States believe it to be unjust that it’s not legal to consume alcohol when reaching the standard adult age of eighteen. As appealing as this privilege may seem, by changing the law, we would be overlooking the many dangers that drinking alcohol at a younger age can cause. There have been many studies done on the effects of alcohol in teenagers and young adults, not only physically but also psychologically. Decades of research has come to the conclusion that heavy drinking in teens has caused issues in the formation and functionality