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Guillaume Cachot
Prof. Giaconia
Glass Castle Essay
29 October 2012
Jeannette’s Transfer To Adulthood
In The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls, Jeanette grows up in an unstable home with her
sister Lori, brother Brian, and parents Rex and Rose Mary. Growing up, Jeanette is always
promised many things, but one of the most important things that Rex promises the whole family
is The Glass Castle. However, it is all a false dream that holds the family together, and, as the
kids get older they start to realize this. The more and more Jeanette realizes that The Glass Castle
will not happen the more and more she starts to pursue her dreams and leave her parents behind.
This leads to the realization that The Glass Castle is never going to be built. It is her transfer over
to adulthood and the beginning of her new journey in life.
Jeanette first establishes exactly what The Glass Castle is at the beginning. The Glass
Castle is supposed to be this huge house made entirely out of glass in the desert. The only
problem is that Rex needs to obtain “gold” first to build it. Jeanette states, “He was telling us
about all the wondrous things he was going to do. Like build a glass castle” (Walls 25). Rex also
carries the blue prints with him where ever he goes (25). It is apparent that Rex wants everyone
to believe in him because he is the man of the family. He wants everyone to know that as soon
as he could do it he would build The Glass Castle.
However, the reader soon realizes what kind of a man Rex is. Rex appears to be
Jeanette’s favorite parent, which is why she trusts him so much. Jeanette talks about how Rex
would tell her many stories about him and how he saves the day (24). He also does something
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out of the ordinary and pets a cheetah and makes Jeanette pet it too (108). These memories that
they both shared together build this trust between Rex and Jeanette. Jeanette always trusts Rex
and believes that he will find gold and eventually do everything that he says. They are held close
by this dream of The Glass Castle.
As more time passes the family keeps moving. They finally arrive in Welch, Rex’s
hometown. They live with Grandma Erma and Grandpa Stanley, who are Rex’s parents, but they
eventually get kicked out and move into an apartment at 93 Little Hobart Street (150). Rex also
encourages Jeanette and Brian to work on The Glass Castle and they do by digging a hole for the
foundation (155). But the family cannot afford the town’s trash-collection fee, so Rex starts
dumping trash in the hole and claims, “ It’s a temporary measure”(155). This starts to show
Jeanette how Rex might not be as serious as she is about building The Glass Castle.
After getting deeper into the story, the reader starts to see that Jeanette starts losing faith
in Rex. One night Rex comes home drunk with a huge gash in his arm, and she has to help him
stitch it up (169). The next morning when Jeanette leaves, Rex is still asleep but when she comes
back he is gone (169). Rex would disappear for days, and when Jeanette asks him about it he
would give her such vague answers that eventually she stops asking (170). The fact that she stops
asking shows that she stops caring. When one stops caring about someone else they start to lose
trust and faith, which is exactly what starts to happen to Jeanette.
As winter and summer passes, Jeanette begins to realize her opportunities as she enters
seventh grade. This year she starts working for the school newspaper called The Maroon Wave
(203). She says, “ I wanted to join some club or group or organization where I could feel
belonged, where people wouldn’t move away if I sat down next to them” (203). At this point she
also says, “ I decided I wanted to be one of the people who knew what was really going on”
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(204). Here the reader realizes that this is something that really interests her and she starts to
work towards her goal. Yet she is almost held back by her family’s financial issues. Now talk
about The Glass Castle has come to a stop. The reader does not hear much about it and does not
know what sort of progress is being made on it. The family is more concerned about what is
going on in the present.
The following summer Rose Mary and Lori have to leave the house so Jeanette is left in
charge of the house. She is given money to pay the bills and pay for food, but Rex asks her for
money and she tells us “I put my hand in my pocket. I didn’t know if I was reaching for my
money or to protect it”(210). Rex then asks, “ have I ever let you down?”(210). Jeanette thought
for a second to herself, “I’d heard that question at least two hundred times, and I’d always
answered it the way I knew he wanted me to”(210). This just shows us that finally she is losing
most of her faith in her father and has little trust him with the money. Nonetheless she tells us
she still gives him the twenty dollars and he promises he’ll pay her back (211).
Although Rex is difficult to trust, he does stick to his word. Nevertheless Rex just keeps
making matters worse and loses more faith from Jeanette. That Saturday he tells Jeanette that he
wants her to accompany him on a business trip (210). Knowing Rex he is obviously lying. He
actually takes her to this bar, buys buds for them and puts her at risk of getting raped (212). On
the ride back he tells her “ I knew you could handle yourself…It was like that time I threw you
into the sulfur spring to teach you how to swim, you might have been convinced you were going
to drown, but I knew you’d do just fine”(213). But in this case this is not the same occasion.
Jeannette is now much older and understands more. . When Jeanette was a little girl she believed
that her father would save her while swimming. She also believed that she was going to live in a
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glass castle. She feels completely betrayed by her father but she also knows they need the
money.
Matters only worsen once Rose Mary and Lori return. Rose Mary starts to claim she is
sick and stops working, so Jeannette back talks her and claims she needs to act like a mother and
believes that her father will have her back (219). But this isn’t the case. When Jeanette returns
from school Rex starts yelling at her and she tells him that they both need to start acting like
parents and she receives a whipping (220). At this point now she feels completely betrayed. She
leaves the house and goes on a walk and makes two decisions (220). She clearly states, “The first
was that I’d have my last whipping. No one was ever going to do that to me again. The second
was that like Lori, I was going to get out of Welch. The sooner the better”(221). Jeanette is now
completely done. She has had enough and finally has decided to leave the life she is living.
It has been awhile since the reader actually hears talk about The Glass Castle at this
point. The reason is probably because the kids have realized that it is not going to happen. As
they have grown older they start realizing what life really is like and how they need to just focus
on themselves and get away.
Jeanette now keeps working hard and enters the tenth grade. She keeps pursuing her
dream to leave. Her sophomore year she is promoted to news editor of The Maroon Wave (231).
Then her junior year she is promoted again to editor in chief (232). This shows how dedicated
she is to leaving, and how her dreams have changed from originally building The Glass Castle.
She finally decides that she is going to move to New York at the end of the school year and tells
her parents (237). Her dad tries to convince her to stay. He tells Jeanette he has something to
show her, and what he shows her is new blue prints for The Glass Castle. She tells him “You’ll
never build The Glass Castle” and “Even if you do, Ill be gone. In less than three months, I’m
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leaving for New York City”(238). Rex is absolutely crushed that Jeanette is now leaving
because she was the person that had the most faith in him. Now she has no faith in him and is
finally done and then she finally leaves for New York City. She realizes that The Glass Castle
was just a false dream and a lie. She finally enters adulthood.
Although Jeanette grows up having a lot of faith in her father over time he proves to her
that he wasn’t going to accomplish all the things he promised her. As time passes, building The
Glass Castle faded away causing the family to dissolve. The more and more Jeanette felt
betrayed by Rex the more she starts to lose her trust and faith. As she loses faith and trust
though, she starts to pursue her dreams of leaving and living her own life and following her own
dreams that she knew she can reach. In this sense Jeanette Walls proves to us that life isn’t easy,
and we encounter many situations in our life that force us to take different paths. For her the
realization that The Glass Castle was never going to happen was her transfer over to adulthood
and the beginning of her new journey in life.
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Work Cited
Walls, Jeannette. The Glass Castle: A Memoir. New York: Scribner, 2005. Print.