Jeanette Character Analysis

Jeanette took the hardships of not having caring parents to depend on throughout her childhood and in contrast, made Jeanette stronger and independent from the lack of care from her parents, Rose Mary and Rex. Since Jeanette was young, she was dependent on her parents to take care of her like any other child her age would, but unfortunately, Rose Mary and Rex never did. So Jeanette couldn’t depend on them such as when “[Jeanette’s] mom never turned the money over to [them]. So even though [Rose Mary] had a steady job, [they] were living pretty much like [they] had before,” like nothing (Walls 198). Furthermore, the fact that Rose Mary could have taken care of her family better, but was too selfish and not responsible to take care of her children and this caused Jeanette to realize she can’t depend on her parents anymore.
Her independence is shown when she states to her dad that “as soon as [Jeanette] finish[es] classes, [she’s] getting onto the next bus out of [Welsh]. If the buses stop running, [she’ll] hitchhike. [She’ll] walk if [she] has to”, she’ll do whatever it takes (238). Jeanette is blatantly defying her dad Rex at that moment, setting her independence from him and so she won’t have attachments and is doing this for her independence away from her parents. Furthermore, Jeanette learned how to be independent and is confident to leave her family, not depend on her parents. Correspondingly, her moving away shows that she will be away from her parents, so Jeanette will be on her own and independent from everyone else. In addition, Jeanette moving away also lead to her become successful following her dream and her becoming an independent person led to these events to eventually occur. Therefore being dependant on someone can make you realize that you don’t need to depend so much on them and teaches you how to be