The “Glass Castle” is a memoir that was written by Jeanette Walls, which shows all the difficulties that she underwent as a result of her unconventional upbringing during childhood by her drunkard father and a mother who is fascinated with art. Jeannette begins to write the book as the main character and she is motivated to write about her family and their unstable life. The title represented the lost dreams of Jeanette, Lori and Brian that they had when they were young. In another view, the title captures the extent to which Jeanette’s father fantasized life rather than practically living and presenting it. The castle was the dream home that the children carried whenever they moved on. Although the physical foundations of the castle were never established, the “Glass Castle” was symbolic of the imagination of Jeanette’s childhood that helped her to believe that her father would one day do as he promised. Jeannette, Lori and Brian were able to overcome challenges as a result of their positive character and early education by their parents.

The children’s positive character is one version that can be viewed as the reason for them to overcome obstacles in their childhood. Jeanette family was always on the run; living like nomads and who often moved between desert and towns, always looking for next adventure. One day after Rex lost his job, he is not able to buy his kids Christmas gift, so he decided to bring his kids to a dessert and give stars as their Christmas gift. Lori, Brain and Jeannette were very happy to accept the gifts from their father and believed that their gifts would last forever (Walls 40). Despite the Wall’s children did not get fancy gifts like the other kids, they still very satisfied with the gift they had showing that they had a positive attitude towards life. Another example that shows Wall’s kids had a positive character is that when Walls family moved to Battle Mountain, they lived in a very poor place. Because of poverty, the kids did not have any beds in their home; all they had was cardboard boxes as beds (Walls 52) Wall’s family also could not afford toys like the other kids, but this did not make them see life as boring. Instead, they would find other ways of entertaining themselves. Jeanette explains in her book that, “We’d jump off the roof of the depot, using an army-surplus blanket as our parachute…like Dad had taught us real parachutists do (Walls 54).”The siblings did not feel sad because of lacking beds and toys; instead, the kids regarded that as an adventure. As such, this reveals that because Wall’s children had an optimistic attitude, nothing was difficult for them to overcome, including the thought of seeing life as boring.

The early education from the parents also explains why the three siblings were able to overcome their challenges. More specifically, it is because the character of self-sufficiency by Rex and Rose Mary made the three siblings develop incredible discipline and a sense of self satisfaction. Lori, Brain and Jeannette never received pocket money from their parents; instead, they had to look for ways of earning some money by their own. For example, they picked up cans and scrape metal and sold them to build up their savings (Walls 62). Here, it reveals that the kids started being independent at a young age; in addition, they did not rely on help from others. The value of self sufficiency mainly originated from Rose Mary Walls. She always insisted that despite all the problems they would face, the mother told them never to rely on society, doctors, or anything that could help them through life. After Walls families move to Welch, they bought a cheap-old house at Hobart Street which was a big challenge to the family. The house was too cold to live in and families had no budget to pay for the utilities. The kids had to find dry wood in forest to keep the house warm (Walls 175). This reflected Wall’s children self-sufficiency. There is a belief that a person should take care of himself so as to overcome the obstacles in life. The mother was willing to put her children in harm so that she could instill in them a strong sense of self and reliance of self. For example, she never helped her children from hunger by getting a job; she believed in her own freedom and she wanted dad to be the provider of food and shelter so that she could do what she considered was important- arts.(Walls 218). Jeanette says that, “She knew how to get by on next to nothing” (Walls 13).

There are so many examples that Jeannette has illustrated in their upbringing that show what made them to develop a positive attitude towards life and how it helps siblings to overcome obstacles. More importantly, it is clear that the positive attitude that the children developed during their childhood was also the source of power that made them get over all the difficulties in their childhood.

Works cited

Walls, Jeannette. The Glass Castle. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 2005. Print.