Homework Journal #4 The Glass Castle

B. How do Jeannette and her siblings tolerate abuse? To what extent do you sympathize with her situation? Are her justifications (for her father’s behavior, her mother’s neglect, etc) valid or has she been taught to believe in a false reality.

Jeannette and her siblings tolerate abuse by either not talking about it of handling the situation. In the case of Ernie Goad and the “Battle of Little Hobart Street” (Walls 165) Brian and Jeannette fended off their attackers. They fought back. When the siblings were confronted with Ernie and his friends, who were throwing rocks at them and their house, Brian came up with a plan. They constructed a “catapult, like the medieval one’s [Jeannette and Brian had] read about” (Walls 166). Then, as Ernie and his pals “reappeared at the switchback” (Walls 166), Brian and Jeannette launched the rocks toward Ernie, the leader. They crashed into his body and when he fell, two others went with him. Chasing after the bullies, Brian yelled, “Charge” (Walls 167)! The siblings defeated their enemies in that instance. They stand together when fighting bullies. However, their enemies were children, like them.

Going up against their parents, they had no idea how to manage it. Jeannette’s mother is child-like herself. She doesn’t put her children first. Jeannette and her siblings attempt to get her to think about the family as a whole and their situation instead of just herself but they have little luck. All she wants to do everyday is paint, read, and ignore her children and their needs. Jeannette does get through to her mother once when she is yelling about how the government “ was going to do the job of splitting up the family for [her mother]” (Walls 194). Then, after painting a picture of a drowning woman in a stormy lake she snapped that she would get a job. In that moment Jeannette forced her mother to take responsibility, at least for a while. The situation was different with the father. When he was begged by his children he would quit for a little while and then begin again. Even after Jeannette was sure he would quit because “ it [was] his present to [Jeannette]” (Walls 118), she was not completely surprised when he began drinking again. Or if he didn’t stop for a time he would leave for days on end only to return inebriated. The kids hate when he is like that because he spends all of their money, money they need, on alcohol and cigarettes.

I sympathize with her situation because, until she is older, she has no way out of that life. Jeannette and her siblings were raised in this situation so they do not know anything else. They lived in penurious living conditions that the parents didn’t even attempt to fix other than the broken promises the father gives about their “glass castle” he would build one day. Also, I do believe she was taught to believe in a false reality. Because of her distance from the world and the issues in it she doesn’t find a huge problem with how her parents act and who they are. Jeannette continually wants to believe in her parents and have faith, though she begins to see how futile it is.

#abuse #bullies #sympathy #Walls #Belief