Resilience In The Glass Castle

Throughout the memoir, The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls recalls her family’s past and the struggle they went through. She inadvertently teaches the audience her meaning of resilience. But how is resilience defined? In short, resilience is the ability of a person to appreciate what life hands them instead of sulking upon it. A quote by Elizabeth Edwards supports this definition and ties in with Jeannette Walls’ personal experiences. “Resilience is accepting your new reality, even if it's less good than the one you had before. You can fight it, you can do nothing but scream about what you've lost, or you can accept that and try to put together something that's good.” An important recurring event read in the memoir is when the Walls family moves to a new area and

A very distinct quintessential of resilience from the memoir is the loyalty of the Walls children to Rex and Rose Mary even within these struggles they’ve faced. Parent and children fights happen quite often, but usually do not last too long, it is a basic unit of most relationships. With Rex constantly getting drunk and not fully providing for his family, Jeannette tells her view on how she still loved her father and connected with him, nonetheless. Rex once told his daughter, “I swear, honey, there are times when I think you’re the only one around who still has faith in me,” (Walls 78-79). Rex may seem like a tough, hard, southern guy when in reality, he has a soft heart for his family, even when he does show it. “But I’m goddamn proud of you, Mountain Goat, the way you turned out. Whenever I think of you, I figure I must have done something right,” (Wall 279). At points, Jeannette and Rex had a rocky relationship. Still, Jeannette looked at her father with so much love and vice versa, Rex looked at his daughter with so much love. With everything that their family went through, this love is an example of resilience truly at