The Glass Castle Theme Essay

In the memoir, The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls presents the idea that being neglected can force one to look out for oneself even though one cannot eliminate hardships. Throughout the children's lives, their parents, who evaded their roles and responsibilities to their children by creating excuses, neglected the Walls siblings. The parents started neglecting the children from a young age where they would put their needs above their children. In one of these instances, three year old Jeannette caught on fire and was badly burned when she tried to cook for herself . “I was on fire … I could hear Mom in the next room singing while she worked on one of her paintings .” (Walls 9). Her Mother was more interested in painting rather than feeding
Furthermore, not only do the parents disregard their kids and cause them to face difficult situations on their own, but they also hindered their [the kids] progress. “Someone had slashed him [Oz] apart with a knife and stole all the money. I knew it was Dad … stoop this low … I just want to win a stupid little scholarship” (Walls 228,227). The siblings acquired jobs to help them escape to New York because they felt unfulfilled with their current life in Welch. Ordinarily, Dad’s interest was solely in the money he used for buying alcohol or gambling and he refused to care about the children’s dreams. When Dad stole the money, intended for Lori’s escape, the kids’ challenge was to work harder to recoup the lost money. Jeannette matured through her new experiences with her father as she realized that her Dad was not a hero but an alcoholic who would steal money from his kids for his desires. With his strong opinions, Dad did anything in his will to prove Lori wrong and his frustration caused him to ruin Lori’s sculpture for a scholarship. Living with neglectful parents was hard enough, but the worst result was that it brought out mental anguish in the children, especially