What Makes ‘The Glass Castle’ a Memoir: Critical Essay – Free Essay Example

Within the memoir The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, the main character Jeannette Walls displays her deepest childhood memories during her life while also including details about how her parents, Rosy Mary and Rex Walls, had treated her and her siblings as they continuously traveled running away from the police and even themselves. Throughout the story, Jeannette feels obligated to help her family get through the tough times her dad had caused them due to his drinking and gambling addictions. Rex Walls left the children without much money and the kids are left to take care of themselves as Rex Walls goes out each night with the same agenda. Despite this, Rex teaches his family to do whatever they dream by allowing them the responsibilities and freedom to be themselves while being dragged along on their parents’ adventures. Walls displays how each person is not free because the people around them are but they need to achieve self-actualization on their own as each person’s point may be further than the ones around them.

At the beginning of the memoir, Jeannette loves her dad and will always look up to him no matter what happens. Rex Walls loves to take the children out on many adventures and goes wherever the night takes him even so he loves to just be happy and have fun in any situation he can get himself into. One night Rex had stopped the car in the middle of the desert as Jeannette exclaims, “Dad stopped the car out in the middle of the desert and slept under the stars” This shows how adventurous and unpredictable their day can be. In this situation, Rex seems to have a state of mind in which he already has total freedom at the highest point he can achieve. The evidence shows that Rex can provide a sense of safety and security for his family that allows them to also truly become free. Rex can meet the needs of his family through mental and emotional standards rather than physical necessities. During the holidays Rex provides gifts for his family by taking each one of his kids outside and allowing them to choose a star as their own as he says, “No one else owns the stars. You just have to claim it before anyone else does.” Rex says this not only to give his children a free present that they will be able to cherish forever rather than give them items that will break or they will forget about he wants them to have something meaningful that they can always look upon to remind them of their father. When Rex is not drinking or partying at clubs he can provide for his family and give them the ability to reach their freedoms.

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The Walls family was shown to move around a great deal, but this was not just because Rex wanted to show his family the great outdoors and allow them to gain their freedom but, because he wanted to enjoy all the benefits of freedom with none of the responsibilities. Rex has many responsibilities that he does not intend on fulfilling as he continually puts his family through many hardships that allow his family to suffer but, this allows each of his children to grow up in their way by themselves, in doing so this pushes each of them to create their responsibilities and grow up much quicker then they are expected to. No parent should rob their child of their ability to grow up properly without any hardships or responsibilities but when Rex puts his children through tough times for them to gain their freedom he forgets to help them out a little bit along the way. This is mainly due to his excessive drinking problems as well as his need to go out and party each night. When Rex does decide to teach Jeannette to swim his tactics are not the best as he pushes her to drown as he says, “If you don’t want to sink, you better figure out how to swim.” Rex pushed Jeannette over the edge and made Jeannette drown as she paddled for her life to gain a single gasp of air as Rex through her back into the water until she was able to swim on her own. Rex is always pushing his children over the limit and each time they are pushed harder and harder but eventually can overcome each hardship he puts them through. Overall this is how Rex and Rose Mary approach their lazy parenting techniques to teach each one of their kids important life skills.

Freedom is something everyone strives to achieve some more than others. Rex and RoseMary can achieve their versions of freedom and allow their children to overcome all the hardships it takes to achieve Freedom for a short time until they are forced to find new lengths to fulfill their journey to freedom and reach new lengths. Freedom is endless and has no limits although the family that Jeannette is surrounded with stops her from reaching her own goals to reach true freedom as Rex forcefully keeps his family in the dark about their land that had been passed down in their family from generation to generation as it would have been able to allow the Walls to live a comfortable life but at the cost of their freedom?