Rex Walls: Hero Or Villain

Even though Rex Walls goes from being a hero to a villain in the eyes of his children, the romantic values he instills in them in their earlier years serve as part of their inspiration for escaping him as they grow up.

At first, Rex Walls is an incredibly adventurous man who promises his children wealth and happiness while staying faithful to his ultimate dream of building a glass castle. The family at first was very adventurous, they were moving around a lot and they only would stay there for a short period of time. Rex was seeking wealth everywhere they went around the west coast, they kept looking for gold and a place to build the glass castle. He showed the family glimpses of wealth and what the experience of wealth felt like by taking

For instance since they had no money at Christmas he gave all the children planets. He also always took jeanette demon hunting, he always went along with Jeanette pretending to hunt for the demons that were terrorizing her. Rex installed promises of wealth and happiness in the family every time they moved. Thus, in this quote Jeanette demonstrated the promise of wealth and happiness, “ There was gold in Battle Mountain, dad said, and he intended to go after it with the prospector. Finally we were going to be rich.” (page 113). This gave the Walls their hope and momentum of a better life and a dream of wealth. Rex always stayed faithful to his dreams of the Glass Castle. In this following quotes demonstrates how Rex installed immense faith in his children for the Glass Castle, “ Dads engineering skills and mathematical genius were coming together in one special project. He carried around the blueprints for the glass castle wherever we went, and sometimes hed pull them out and let us work on the design of 0ur rooms. All we had to do was

The children made massive efforts to leave Welch and the family. They were determined to not end up like their parents. Jeanette wanted to start being accepted by people, she wanted to be like everyone else. In this following quote is shows the new values Jeanette has adopted of wanting a better life, “ I was convinced that people might be more accepting of us if we made an effort to improve the way 93 Little Hobart street looked. “ , “ I had been counting on mom and dad to get us out, but I knew I had to do it on my own.” ( page 364 and 512 ). This showed that Jeanette wanted to actually do something about their living status, she wanted to live a better life. The children saw no future in Welch, their father's drinking was worse and mother was going crazy. They even lost all complete faith in the Glass Castle. The children worked tirelessly raising up money for themselves to leave. Jeanette worked at a jewelry store, Lori sold posters, and Brian did labor work. The children sought the inspiration of going to New York and leaving the harsh life in Welch , they saw New York as their new Glass Castle. The children used their adventurous values to make New York happen, the children were almost colonizing New York. it took great courage and