The Glass Castle Analysis

Famous entrepreneur and animator, Walt Disney, once said and lived by the following: “I don’t believe in playing down to children. Life is composed of lights and shadows, and we would be untruthful, insincere, and saccharine if we tried to pretend there were no shadows.” Similarly, Jeannette Walls’ memoir, The Glass Castle, expresses how individuals face the world and such experiences on their own, gaining wisdom, despite their age and an apathetic support system. Facing multiple adverse conditions, Rex and Rose Walls kept their family from amassing happiness, substantial wealth-- wasted in alcoholism, and precious time--in attempts to achieve personal goals that put their children’s successes aside. Yet however, the Walls parents never “treated

“They asked what I was doing cooking hot dogs by myself at the age of three. It was easy, I said. My parents never hurt me, I got the cuts and bruises from playing outside and cooking. You just put the hotdogs in the water and boil them. The pan was too heavy for me to lift when it was full of water, so I’d put a chair next to the sink. Then I’d turn on the stove, and when the water was boiling, I’d drop in the hot dogs.” (Walls 10,11). Particularly, they questioned how it is that she could use the stove at such a young age and she explained that her mother believed she was “mature for [her] age and let [her] cook for [herself] a lot” (Walls 11). At such a young age, most parents would not risk their child to cook a meal for themselves involving fire and electricity for the most part, or at least without their assistance. But Jeannette Walls did, it was a part of not being treated like the “fragile flower”, but growing up and learning in experience. Brian, in this tragedy, finds help for his sister to seek medical attention. Her injuries from the burn were quite severe for a young aged and fragile child to be left unsupervised again. In any ordinary household, this logic is insipid for safety hazards. Due to Mrs. Walls’ believed that Jeannette was mature enough to cook for herself, she never put a physical barrier or a mental barrier that feared Jeannette to stay away from using the stove at a young age. As Walt Disney would say, to fulfill her needs of hunger, it was essential for her to learn how cook on the stove, despite her age and any obstacle that stood in the way of learning, growing, and becoming independent yet