Being exposed to alcoholism, weaponry, abuse, and having to take care of both her mother and father, Walls loses all her childhood innocence at a young age. Walls learns to be a tenacious and competent person which helps her succeed as an adult.
Growing up, her family is always on the run, leaving friends, family, pets, and toys behind and never looking back. This helps Walls become a forgiving person because it teaches her to live in the present and not the past- to forgive and forget. Rex and Rosemary Walls are constantly hurting their children because of their irresponsible actions. Walls and her siblings are forced to live in poverty because their parents are unable to maintain jobs and have dug themselves into a hole of debt. Her mother refuses to work because she is just too lazy. She is extremely selfish because she is
…show more content…
Rex, on the other hand, can not maintain a job because he is a severe alcoholic and is always picking fights with his bosses. Walls however, again and again forgives them. By forgiving them she is creating a way to let go of her anger towards them and creating a way to still love them. Walls forgives her father when he is trying to teach her to swim and just drops her in the deep end, leaving her to fend on her own. She says, “I figured he must be right, there was no other way to explain it.” (Page 66). She believes that he is trying to inspire her to learn and to think. She is raised to be a very optimistic person, which is one of the reasons she is able to forgive so easily. She can easily see the best in people. At the end, she forgives her father one last time. “As awful as he could be, I always knew he loved me in a way no one else ever had.” (Page 279). She is able to see past his disease and see the good in him, which many people, including Rex himself, can not. Because of her parents’