The Glass Castle By Jeannette Walls

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Life-Sustaining Faith Imagine a life of constant change and revision, moving away on a regular basis from “home sweet home” and great memories attached to home. Imagine a family so broken that no member can fully trust or rely on each other, each coping with each other and fending for themselves. Imagine being betrayed over and over again by the people that claim to be loyal, yet remaining faithful and trusting after being let down each time. Unfortunately, for Jeannette Walls, this life was a constant reality with her incredibly unstable family, dramatically altering her as a person after each catastrophe and memory. Although Walls made it clear in her memoir The Glass Castle that she was a very strong young woman, it was obvious to the reader …show more content…
The first major incident in Walls’ memoir is of her severely burning herself making hot-dogs at a very young age, which clearly would not have happened if her parents had not allowed her to do such a dangerous thing at age three. Although the incident was startling and irresponsible, the resilience in Walls sent her right back to cooking hot dogs again after she left the hospital, winning her mother’s approval who tells her she has “got right back in the saddle [and that she] can’t live in fear of something as basic as fire” (Walls 15). The independence seen in Walls here is not out of courage, but out of her fortitude as a young child and her naivete to what is right or wrong in her life. The fact that Walls is unaware of the irresponsibility of her parents in the situation is what allows her to bounce back so easily, making the tone of this scene in the desert setting to content. As her life continues in the desert, Walls parents continue to let her down and basically leave her in the dust, but she keeps her strength and constantly forgives them and continues to trust them. Her dad, who was addicted to alcohol, led the family into unimaginable situations and when Walls found herself in danger, she never lost her fortitude and remained faithful to not only her parents, but also herself, “and [she] promised [herself she] never would” (Walls 79). In …show more content…
For Walls, constant change, leaving memories, self-preservation, and constant betrayal was a reality that never went away, which caused her to become extremely resilient and robust because it was her only way of surviving. Through the tone shifts between the varying environments that are major parts of Jeannette Wall’s memoir, The Glass Castle, Walls illustrates her overall message of faith and trust to be a crucial part of developing who we are as a person and the resilience and fortitude we can develop from having faith through everything. In the desert, Walls message about forgiveness and faith includes that reality that being young and naive makes having faith much easier, especially when we cannot interpret for ourselves what is acceptable or unacceptable. As Walls became more aware in Welch, she reinforces that even when change in our lives in uncomfortable or unwelcomed, remaining faithful throughout the trial can bring new opportunities and restored hope, but that we must be accepting of the change and flexible. Lastly, Walls illustrates that a major part of forgiveness is accepting our failures or the people that have failed us because they are a major part of what makes us who we are and can reflect who we are on the inside whether we like it or not. In the end, it is clear that having faith through
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