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The Glass Castle of Pain

Alcoholism, manipulation and neglect color the pages of The Glass Castle, a best-selling memoir written by Jeannette Walls. In it, she describes the hardships she faced throughout her childhood, forced to take care of herself to substitute the somewhat lack of care her parents provided. Though Walls initially distances herself far from her parents in order to thrive despite them as she tries to build a career and a social life, her efforts to forgive her parents and bring her family back together create a strong bond that brings them closer than she could have ever imagined. This process, however, had proved to be a very arduous one, affecting the author both mentally and physically in many different ways. To achieve success despite her poor situation, Walls was forced to endure a lot of stress and overcome the pain caused by her parent’s thoughtlessness. This stress manifested itself in many different forms, affecting Walls in many different ways, creating both different mental and emotional obstacles for her to overcome.

Psychological pain; mental ¹ or emotional ²suffering or torment: At the start of the book, we notice that Jeannette Walls, the author, is living a good life. She finally has gotten her career together and she is going to a party in a taxi when she notices a woman with gray hair and odd clothing. It was her mother, Rosemary Walls, going through Dumpsters searching for items of interest. She (Jeannette) felt very embarrassed by her mother and she didn’t want to be seen by her. She slides down the seat of the car, and then asks her taxi driver to turn around and take her home (3-4). This shows that, in her mind, she wants nothing to do with her mother at that time thinking that the well-to-do folks at the party would think badly of her. Later on when she arrives at her apartment, she cannot seem to enjoy herself simply because of the fact her parents are living on the streets. We can only imagine the things she was actually thinking at the moment, but for now let us move a little deeper.

1.      Mental: Take notice of when stated earlier that she does not want to be seen by both her mother or the party goers and asks her taxi driver to take her home instead of going to the party. We can assume that in her mind she still cares about her mother as she invites her for some seafood dinner (5). As they sit down Jeannette asks her mother what she wants to help change her life when she flips it around saying, “I’m fine. You’re the one who needs help. Your values are all confused.” This statement obviously shook her in some way that she told her mother she was ashamed of her further proving Rose’s point.

2.      Emotional: When the two were almost done eating Jeannette asks a question that not a lot of readers will understand at first until finishing the memoir; “And what am I supposed to tell people about my parents?” Rose counters with “Just tell the truth. That’s simple enough.” Try to put yourself, the reader, in Jeannette’s shoes. How could you answer that question? Despite Rose’s position, she will not accept anything monetary that Jeannette attempts to offer her. The reader can only imagine the emotional stress and confusion that Jeannette had to deal with during her time with her mother. Being that Rose is a woman of strong will and integrity she will not accept handouts and that puts Jeannette in a tough situation. The feeling of emotional stress was obviously going through Jeannette’s mind while she was holding a conversation with her mother because she is experiencing modes of guilt.

 Physical pain; physical suffering or distress, as due to injury, etc.:

The memoir The Glass Castle is riddled with physical suffering.  During Jeannette’s childhood she was forced to endure a variety of hardships that most children would not believe could happen to them. At the age of three, Jeannette experienced severe burns on her torso while attempting to cook hot dogs. Now this kind of experience is very unique being that a child her age already cooking food for herself, even though most parents would never let their child near a stove or anything dealing with gas appliances. Being burned to the degree that one would need skin grafts would obviously be a very physically painful experience to go through especially as a child. In addition to this experience, Jeannette encounters several physical altercations in different schools being a victim of bullying and harassment from other students her age who picked on her for her odd disposition and the way she grew up. Furthermore, throughout the book we see instances where Jeannette and her siblings were forced to endure malnutrition due to their parents’ inability to provide food for the family. There were plenty of instances where the Walls children had to go out and search for their own food to feed themselves. Something like that does not come very often to most families where the parents are responsible. When Jeannette confronts her mother about being hungry, her mother responds in a manner where most people would consider irresponsible “It’s not my fault if you’re hungry.” (69).

Although Jeannette and her siblings experience a wide variety of painful events in their childhood, they are able to overcome each one of their experiences and become successful. We can see how Jeannette Walls used her times as a child growing in a world of poverty to produce a memoir that in itself is helpful to readers in the fact that it actually describes in detail how much a family in poverty goes through and the things she had to go through to become what she is today; a successful author who was able to take a painful childhood and turn it into something positive for others to experience. Most people who writes or have written a memoir write about things of inner turmoil and flip it into something everyone can connect with, which is what Jeannette Walls did. She overcame hardships to become what she is today. Sometimes confronting your pain is the best way of letting it go.