Argumentative Essay On The Glass Castle

“Life is a drama full of tragedy and comedy. You should learn to enjoy the comic episodes a little more.” ― Jeannette Walls in The Glass Castle. 

This was a quote/phrase that stuck with me in the book, because I can see this a lot in books and in my own life. We all know the character in books that uses humor as a defense mechanism or sometimes me, I laugh at things that are extremely depressing. Some people find it weird, I have gotten criticized for it. To me its like you need to see all the good in life and find the stupid things in it hilarious. I remember this one time I was getting yelled at and I couldn't stop laughing god the teacher got so mad because she thought I was being disrespectful. I just genuinely could not stop for the life of me. I don't remember that moment to be negative because of it , it makes me smile instead of regretting what I did. The lovely quote above is written by Jeanette Walls raised by Rex and Mary Walls raised their 4 children (Marianne, Brian, Jeanette, and Lori). Rex is an entrepreneur, and Mary an artist, neither fully living up to the responsibilities of being a parent, Jeanette's  family had moved to the American southwest. They had very little money, and regularly experienced hunger and homelessness.The theme of this book is disillusion. You can see that instead of being sheltered from the real world problems. When I say something like weird world problems your thoughts probably go to something like world hunger or global warming, but wrong I think smaller;more like believing in Santa since so many people do, even though it might not always be called sants but a rendition of that. So when I was 4, I was already roped into the fantasy that elves and Santa were all real. Then reality hit me when I was told that they weren't real. It honestly did not seem like a big deal to me till the next christmas at 5 i realized i was the only one who knew the truth. I wanted people to see the truth so I told someone. Then I got in trouble because the person I told called me a liar and the teacher pulled me aside and told me that I had to keep up the lie and that's when I realized that some people just never know , I know  people who didn't know till they were 12. It was a big lie to keep up. I learned then that disillusionment is sometimes necessary because I had never felt so left out by something so fake. And in The Glass Castle Rex had promised in the end, he had all the plans for building it, but he never actually succeeded. Jeanette realizes that it was just what she is wanted to believe about her father, she finally realized at this moment, that Rex basically uses the glass castle as a bargaining chip to bribe for Jeanette to stay because he knows how much it means to her, he was abusing their relationship and then at that moment Jeanette had enough and left. This is an example of illusionment that turned to disillusionment, so Jeantte never believed in her father again.The power of this is like getting hit by a truck and then expecting to be alright the next day.

There are many lessons to learn from this book, the first is to set goals. For example, one would think hey no i don't need those, well i thought the same thing but I learned the hard way that i was wrong. I had to play this piece for a recital and yeah lets just say that the end result was a total disaster. I felt bad and mad at myself , so then I had to do this performance 3 months later and guess what I did. I set a goal and you know there I was praised by my performance. For once I felt good about what I was doing and less like a failure.Things like that are what you need to keep in mind to reach your finish line. As well as in Glass Castle , there are examples from Mary and Rex.You might become like Mary as well who had dreams of being an artist but set her sights too big and ended up falling before she could run. Additionally, you can look at Rex, he constantly had jobs, only to quit them because he was an entrepreneur that never had enough money to pursue his dreams. 

I took this time to self-reflect because this is a big aspect of my life that I need to work on. I am always too scared to do anything. Just a month ago I was too scared to get on this tall swing but eventually I got on it and I had a lot of fun. Now I can say hey I did this, maybe I can try something else.. This goes hand in hand with my next lesson not to be so negative and to see the positive in things, and in people because look at Rex.For instance, he was a drunk and a bad parent, but he had his good moments too. Such as when he told her to pick a star just as he had told Lori and Brian before and Jeanette unknowingly had not picked a star, but she had picked a planet which was Venus. This is where Rex told her that she had a claim over that land, and that her ancestors when it came time for us people from Earth would move to Venus for safety. For instance ,you know when you get your phone taken away for doing something stupid, oh wait yup ie done that . I used to hate it but eventually I saw it as an opportunity to not focus on things on my phone but to get more work done. I then realized that in the moments i didn't have my phone i was beaming all the time. That's when I started to see things in a  positive light  and not be so pessimistic all the time, even though I have to admit being despairing at times has good quantities too. My advice is write a short list of 3 things you want to do before you die. I did the same because if you keep shutting doors, you will never see clearly.

The organizational Gestalt theory holds that an intrinsic propensity occurs to interpret imperfect objects as total and to close or fill spaces and to perceive asymmetric stimuli as symmetric. (Closure is scientific).I think she wrote this book for closure; sure it could have ended up by spreading her story, and that she is not alone, but it started because she needed closure. When Jeanette was 5, they moved again and with Maureen and in the u-haul truck she promised she would take care of her.For instance everybody in the family had their own family person. Like dad had Jeanette, Brian had Jeanette, Lori and mom had each other, but Maureen did not really have anybody, she grew up in Walsh where dad was not present in the home during that time. She basically grew up with the neighbors from eating there to sleeping there half the time. You could say she was almost neglected as a child by her family. I think it's closure because with that much trauma you need to give yourself time to wallow , for me I need time to wallow. Every person I know has had to go through some time of closure at some point in their lie whether it be making a bonfire out of someone's things, or making amends. It is just a way to put the past aside and look at what is in front of you. Another take is  that there was a trend going on, where you would buy dollar store plates and with a sharpie you would write about all your problems and things you want to get off your chest. So after you were done writing all these things you would take the plate and smash it with all your might, realaseasing all your anger or sadness or frustration 

In conclusion, my parents wanted me to read this book and in my opinion was to learn to be responsible, because to get ungrounded it was my responsibility to read the book and write the essay. There was no due date, and nobody was telling me what to do, how to do it and when to do it. I also figure it is also about learning to be appreciative of what you have that is why this book is chosen, so, I will be able to learn from the hardships that were described in this book.I was able to learn about myself because in order to write this essay I cried a little, so in order to even get down the last paragraph I had to face emotions I did not even want  to think about. I blocked it out , but writing this has helped me come to terms with my emotions.