ipl-logo

Comparing Mother's Identity In Everyday Use And The Glass Castle

970 Words4 Pages

Parents’ actions can greatly influence their children’s identities. Either directly or indirectly, they have the authority to dictate a child’s path. Parents use distinct types of styles to raise their offspring. The three passages, “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, “The Leap” by Louise Erdrich (2 short stories), and “The Glass Castle” by Jeanette Walls (Memoir), are notable examples of how parents can use similar and/or different techniques to raise their children. In the short story “The Leap” it discusses the life of an ex-trapeze artist named Anna, who lived a very fulfilling and confident life. The story starts with her walking throughout the house, now blind from cataracts, flawlessly without fail. She can contribute this to her early days when she was part of a blind trapeze act. Many times, throughout her life, she has had a positive impact on her child’s identity. One specific time in …show more content…

Dee wants to display them as art, while Maggie wants to use them for their intended purpose. Dee is extremely outgoing and brash when it comes to getting what she wants, while Maggie is the direct opposite of this. Maggie could be classified as a very shy, social person. She gained these traits after surviving a deadly house fire and escaping with third burns covering her body. In paragraph 77 of “The Leap” it says “I did something I never had done before: hugged Maggie to me, then dragged her on into the room, snatched the quilts out of Miss Wangero’s (Dee) hands and dumped them into Maggie’s lap. Maggie just sat there on my bed with her mouth open.” Mama had to decide between her two daughters and ultimately chose Maggie. In paragraph 84 it says, “Maggie smiled.a real smile, not scared.” This quote shows that Mama’s actions affected her child in an incredibly positive way because after years of being self-conscious, Maggie finally feels genuine

Show More
Related
272 Words | 2 Pages

Anthony Brant once said “ Other things may change us, but we start and end with family.” In the novel, The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, the Walls family is non-reliable. They do not have much money and the parents Rose Mary and Rex Walls are very irresponsible. Rose Mary and Rex Walls are the parents of Jeannette , Lori, Brian, and Maureen. The siblings Jeanette, Lori, and Brian hold the family together, but if they did not their family would split apart.

Read More
323 Words | 2 Pages

The Permissive Parents The parenting paradigm best exemplified to Rex and Rosemary Walls in The Glass Castle Jeanette Walls is the permissive parenting paradigm. The parents of Jeanette are more reactive than demanding to the children (Cherry, “The Four Styles of Parenting”). Jeanette at one point expressed, “I loved the desert, too… we’d catch scorpions and snakes and horny toads. We’d search for gold, and when we couldn’t find it, we’d collect other valuable rocks…” (21).

Read More
229 Words | 1 Pages

In the novel The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, Rex and Rosemary Walls exemplify uninvolved parenting. Kendra Cherry author of “The Four Styles of Parenting” discusses how uninvolved parents tend to neglect the children and their needs. “When we tried to help him he cursed and lurched at us swinging his fist” (122). Rex practically avoids the kids and neglects any sort of help although he was in need and he also almost ended up hitting one of the kids. Another thing Cherry talks about is that uninvolved parents are detached from their children’s lives.

Read More
1956 Words | 8 Pages

Parental Influence Parents are the biggest influence upon their children. From the time a child is born to the time they leave the household, the values that the parents hold are instilled into their children. Parents are required to make crucial decisions about how to raise their children in order to guide them through the inevitable obstacles and hardships of life. In The Glass Castle, many would argue the lack of care and responsibility the Walls had for their children. The author, Jeannette Walls, uses Rex and Mary Walls to demonstrate that their strong traits of non-conformity, self-sufficiency and perseverance are passed on to their children, allowing them to develop to their full potential.

Read More
664 Words | 3 Pages

At that point, she starts to discuss how her mom and sister are as yet living out-dated and how they would never think about the world. She doesn 't generally comprehend that Mama and Maggie are cheerful just they way

Read More
498 Words | 2 Pages

She deliberately avoids her and her new sense of self-righteousness. Maggie's lack of exposure to society makes her weak in her sister's eyes and vulnerable to her sister's pretentious attitude toward what is owed to Maggie. Dee disturbs the peace by proclaiming, "Maggie can't appreciate these quilts!” It is clear that Dee believes that she deserves to receive whatever she wants, yet Maggie never fights for what she is already entitled

Read More
153 Words | 1 Pages

The parent’s instability in The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls causes the entire family to suffer. For example, their house is unsafe, “moisture ate away at the wooden stairs leading up to the house” I think this shows that the parents never fix anything and just let things go. Because of this, the children always have to live in a home that is falling apart and they all just leave when something goes wrong. This instability causes the parents to fight and is probably the reason neither parent can keep a good job. Another quote that specifically shows the dad’s instability is, “Four days later, when Dad still hadn’t come home, Mom sent me to go get him.”

Read More
1338 Words | 6 Pages

“Maggie can’t appreciate these quilts! She said. “she’d probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use.” (walker). This shows that dee really wants the quilts but not for the reason her mother wants.

Read More
869 Words | 4 Pages

Ms. Johnson didn't have an education, yet she knew the value of the quilts and she didn’t let a few words from Dee change her decision of giving the quilts to Maggie. Dee leaves her mother’s house quite upset and tells her sister, “You ought to try to make something of yourself, too, Maggie. It’s really a new day for us. But from the way you and Mama still live you’d never know it” (Walker 12).

Read More
1149 Words | 5 Pages

This new outlook on her life caused Dee to place different values on the items with which she had grown up. She wanted to take the items as things to put on display like art hanging on a wall. Dee even wanted the cherished quilts to “hang them” (Walker, 1973) instead of using them as blankets. As she saw it, to use the quilts for their original purpose would destroy them, or as she said, “Maggie would put them on the bed and in five years they 'd be in rags” (Walker, 1973).

Read More
980 Words | 4 Pages

Dee has broken away from her family and has adopted a life on her own, even having a partner by the name of Hakeem-a-barber and changing her name from Dee to Wangero, even though she was named after her Aunt Dee. Dee forgot about her culture and wants the family quilt for the having it as part of the trend. Maggie

Read More
721 Words | 3 Pages

Mama always dreamed that she will be in a show with her daughter Dee and Dee will be thanking mama of all what she’s done for her, but she knows it won’t happen. Maggie is smaller than Dee and she is always nerves and very shy, when she was a child their house got burned at that time she was very scared maybe that’s what makes her nerves and shy and that also hides her personality what she looks from the inside she hides it from the outside. Maggie lives at home with mama, she never spends time in the outer world she always stays at home and mama protects

Read More
611 Words | 3 Pages

In The Glass Castle Jeannette Walls faces harsh stuff through her childhood because of her parents. In the beginning of the book she finds her mother digging through trash. She feels embarrassed, so she turns around and goes home without saying hello. Jeanette then calls her mother and asks to have dinner with her. She offers her mother help because she feels guilty, but her mother rejects her help.

Read More
1561 Words | 7 Pages

These quilts are a ways of honoring her African American heritage and to be given these was very significant in their culture. For once Dee sees the historical background because of the stitching and material used, but doesn’t find any use in using them. Dee is going to try and convince her mom to let her keep the quilts, when Dee says, “Maggie can’t appreciate these quilts!” (Walker 721) and “You just will not understand. The point these quilts, these quilts!”

Read More
1026 Words | 5 Pages

Maggie did not go to school, does not dress in colorful attention-getting African garb, and does not have a fancy boyfriend, but she does slam a door which indicates her feelings about the quilts and butter churn her sister has come to claim out from under her feet. The temper has flared, and Maggie gets her quilts. In conclusion, the story seems to tell how different Maggie and Dee were from each other; with few comparisons between the two girls to suggest that they had anything in

Read More

More about Comparing Mother's Identity In Everyday Use And The Glass Castle

Open Document