Jeanette And Her Family In The Glass Castle

The occurrence of many negative situations in Jeanette’s memoir, the Glass Castle, presents Jeanette and her family with many challenges which their actions, often times, results in a positive outcome. When Billy and Jeanette and her siblings get into a gunfight, it results in the Walls “family coming down to the courthouse the next morning and see the magistrate” (Walls 89). However, Jeanette’s father, Rex, makes them move that night, driving to “an older house, made of adobe, in downtown Phoenix” that Jeanette’s mom, Rose Mary, inherits from Jeanette’s Grandma Smith (Walls 92). This reveals that the negative situation was the gunfight, forcing the Walls family to dash at night to avoid going to the courthouse. Jeanette saw Battle Mountain
However, she says she felt” six stinging blows on the backs of her thighs, each accompanied by a whistle of air” (Walls 220). In the aftermath, she runs into a forest and makes two decisions. It was that “she has had her last whipping and that, like Lori, she was going to get out of Welch” (Walls 221). The negative situation was that the bond between Jeanette and her father shatters as Rex decides to take his wife’s side. He punishes Jeanette, but at the loss of the fragile bond between them. This results in Jeanette finally breaking out of the haze her father had on her, making her ponder her life choices. That means she decides to make the decision to move out of Welch with Lori. This was positive as it means Jeanette would finally move out of the one place that gave her troubles and away from her parents. She might move onto a new stage of her life which might lead to success. This shows that the presence of negative situations turned positive outcomes is frequent in the book, creating shifts in the book that allows the story to move along and shows how the actions of one girl and her family can turn something terrible into something