Analysis Of The Glass Castle By Jeannette Walls

“One time I saw a tiny Joshua sapling growing not too far from the old tree. I wanted to dig it up and replant it near our house. I told Mom that I would protect it from the wind and water it every day so that it could grow nice and tall and straight. Mom frowned at me.‘You’d be destroying what makes it special,’ she said. ‘It’s the Joshua tree’s struggle that gives it its beauty’” (Jeannette, Rose Mary 38). The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls is a non-fiction memoir that discusses multiple controversial issues throughout its text. The main character Jeannette Walls writes about her life as a homeless child and her family’s day to day struggle to make ends meet. The reader learns that Jeannette’s parents are non-conformists, and choose to live

Conformity is often an effect of peer pressure. Especially in teens, peer pressure is very prominent, and submission occurs from a teens’ need to belong within a group or community. “Adults and adolescents often adjust their behaviour and opinions to peer groups, even when they themselves know better....In the current study, the researchers found that children conformed their public judgment of a situation to the judgment of a majority of peers in spite better knowledge” (Disclosing par. 2). Even at a young age, people are striving for acceptance through normality. Humans are scared of conflict and to avoid it will agree with topics that they truly oppose. Students are meant to be able to go against the crowd and disagree with the majority in their classes, but most tend to follow the crowd in fear of rejection. They need to be taught that they will not always agree with the popular selection and to speak for themselves, which is often seen in fictitious literature (such as in the popular novel 13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher). “Teens are five times likelier to be in a car accident when in a group than when driving alone, and likelier to commit a crime or drink alcohol when with a group of peers” (Temple University). Peer pressure is more common within the

Molestation occurs around the world, and can happen to anyone at anytime. In 2010, the University of Montreal surveyed 800 Quebec women and men. “The investigation found that 22 percent of women and 10 percent of men reported beings survivors of abuse, which ranged from molestation to rape, which is comparable to the findings of previous studies on the topic.” A large amount of people reported experiencing some form of sexual abuse, which is also illustrated in Jeannette’s story “He pressed me to him and started dancing again, but I knew this was not going in a direction I wanted, and I resisted him...He squeezed my bottom, pushed me onto the bed, and began kissing me…‘I’m not that kind of girl,’ I said, but he ignored me” (Jeannette 212). Jeannette was at a bar with her father when a man named Robbie asked her to dance. This eventually led to them going to his bedroom where he forced himself on her. She was able to resist him before the situation could escalate any further. This is not Jeannette’s first battle against sextual harassment. When she was eight years old, a boy named Billy (who was 11) attempted to rape her while she was playing hide and seek, and years later a homeless man touched her while she was sleeping. Also, her grandpa on her father’s side kept placing his hand on her thigh while they were watching television. Each