Glass Castle
Assignment the Glass Castle
A. Jeannette Walls, in her memoir The Glass Castle, demonstrates Erikson’s eight stages of development. Through the carefully recounted stories of her childhood and adolescence, we are able to trace her development from one stage to the next. While Walls struggles through some of the early developmental stages, she inevitably succeeds and has positive outcomes through adulthood. The memoir itself is not only the proof that she is successful and productive in middle adulthood, but the memoir may also have been part of her healing process. Writing is often a release and in writing her memoir and remembering her history, she may have been able to come to terms with her sad past. The memoir embodies both the proof that she has successfully graduated through Erickson’s stages of development while also being the reason that she is able to do so. Erikson posited that there are eight stages of psychosocial development that a human being goes through during his or her lifetime. A person is faced with a crisis or challenge in each stage and how one deals with or masters that crisis determines how fully developed a person they become. Each stage builds on the previous stages and if one does not master the stage, and then it may cause problems later in life. Erikson’s first stage is infancy and the crisis is trust versus mistrust. The Child’s relationship to the parents are essential, particularly that of the child and the mother. The infant develops of sense of certainty and predictability about the mother’s presence and actions. The child is attached to the mother and often displays anxiety or rage if separated from the parent. If an individual does not develop, learn, or understand trust in them-selves, others, or the world, then they may lose hope, a key quality gained from the mastering of this stage.
When Jeannette is a toddler, she tumbles out of her parents’ car as her father was taking a sharp turn. She sat, injured, and waited
A. Jeannette Walls, in her memoir The Glass Castle, demonstrates Erikson’s eight stages of development. Through the carefully recounted stories of her childhood and adolescence, we are able to trace her development from one stage to the next. While Walls struggles through some of the early developmental stages, she inevitably succeeds and has positive outcomes through adulthood. The memoir itself is not only the proof that she is successful and productive in middle adulthood, but the memoir may also have been part of her healing process. Writing is often a release and in writing her memoir and remembering her history, she may have been able to come to terms with her sad past. The memoir embodies both the proof that she has successfully graduated through Erickson’s stages of development while also being the reason that she is able to do so. Erikson posited that there are eight stages of psychosocial development that a human being goes through during his or her lifetime. A person is faced with a crisis or challenge in each stage and how one deals with or masters that crisis determines how fully developed a person they become. Each stage builds on the previous stages and if one does not master the stage, and then it may cause problems later in life. Erikson’s first stage is infancy and the crisis is trust versus mistrust. The Child’s relationship to the parents are essential, particularly that of the child and the mother. The infant develops of sense of certainty and predictability about the mother’s presence and actions. The child is attached to the mother and often displays anxiety or rage if separated from the parent. If an individual does not develop, learn, or understand trust in them-selves, others, or the world, then they may lose hope, a key quality gained from the mastering of this stage.
When Jeannette is a toddler, she tumbles out of her parents’ car as her father was taking a sharp turn. She sat, injured, and waited