Character Analysis: The Glass Castle

Constantly Moving But Never Changing

Traveling as a family should be one of the safest and most worry free times you experience as a child. You bestow all your trust upon your parents without even realizing it and you expect to be in good hands. You expect your family to keep you away from bad situations and keep you out of harm’s way. This is quite typical for most families, but for Jeannette she experiences things much different. In The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls, the moving and traveling that her family partakes in on pages 48-50 reveals how irresponsible the parents are when it comes to their children and also how accustomed the children have become to a life full of bad situations. Throughout their moving and traveling
Every minute a child is growing they are learning, and when a child is growing in a lifestyle that the Wall family is living they are going to believe that what they are experiencing is normal. It is very sad to see how easy it is for Rex to decide on the spot whenever he wants to move and the children are so use to following everything their father says that they never question him. “Dad had been doing some research and settled on a town in northern Nevada called battle Mountain. There was gold in battle Mountain, Dad said, and he intended to go after it with the Prospector. Finally, we were going to strike it rich”.(48) A child should not be moving all over when they are young because it is important for them to grow up, meet people, and get an education. When moving from one place to another without any logical reasoning, they are missing many opportunities in life that most other children are able to take advantage of. They do not question any of their father’s decisions because they have grown familiar with a life of instability. It is sad to see three young children that really have no say in anything they do in life, and even sadder to see them be okay with that. When the U-Haul doors flew open, they did what they could at first to try and get their parents attention, but after realizing they couldn’t were already ready to handle the dangerous situation they were in. “Brian and Lori held tight to the Prospector, which dad had tied securely with ropes. I was holding Maureen, who for some strange reason had stopped crying. I wedged myself into a corner. It seemed like we’d have to ride it out”.(49) For kids this young to be able to adjust to a situation like this and be ready to “ride it out” reinforces the fact that they are so use to a life full of horrible and dangerous situations that when