Ellie Bromley

Ms. Dott

AOIT English II honors

29 September 2017

Transcendentalism & The Glass Castle Socratic Seminar

1. How are Rex and Mary transcendentalists? Provide 3 examples of this with specific

passages from the book (quote) for each then tell how this quote is an example of

transcendentalism. How does it differ from a romantic’s viewpoints?

Rex and Mary are both transcendentalists in various ways. Mary is a transcendentalist

because of her love for the desert. She felt a connection toward the desert and in the book it

states, "Mom had grown up in the desert. She loved the dry, crackling heat, the way the sky at

sunset looked like a sheet of fire, and the overwhelming emptiness and severity of all that open

land that had once been a huge open bed…Mom thrived there," (Walls 21). This goes along with

transcendentalist beliefs because of the presence she felt when she was in the outdoors. In Ralph

Waldo Emerson's, one of the first transcendentalists, writing Nature, it states, "In the presence of

nature, a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real sorrows." This refers back to Mary's

feeling toward the desert because even through the hardest of times where they have no money,

food, or basic necessities available, Mary always using the desert to relive her stress by

providing basic functions such as edible plants and water to drink and bathe in. This is different

than the romantics viewpoint because rather than focusing on the beauty aspect of nature, Mary

uses the physical features to create an ideal world for her family. Another reason Rex and Mary

are transcendentalist is because of their trust for nature. Whiling living in the desert Jeanette
described how, "There were fierce rainstorms. Sometimes they hit without warning, and other

times you knew one was coming when you saw batches of dust devils swirling and dancing their

way across the desert…When the rains finally came, the skies darkened and the air became

heavy…Some parents worried that their kids might get hit by lightning, but mom and dad never

did, and they let us go out and play…"(Walls 22). This represents a transcendentalism because of

the characteristic that, "Nature never wears a mean appearance," stated in Emerson's writing.

Even in the worst of weather, Rex and Mary still allowed their children to play outside, bringing

happiness and youthfulness to them. This is different than a romantic's viewpoint because

romantics tend to have a dark twist to nature, and in Rex and Mary's case, nature was a positive

part of their family's life. Lastly, Mary is transcendentalists because of the fact that she believed

that the Joshua tree was a reflection of God's spirit that pushes you to be your own individual

self, revealed through nature. Mary described that, "It’s the Joshua tree's struggle that gives it its

beauty,"(Walls 38). Through the tree, Mary describes that non-conformity is okay and how

nature shouldn’t be messed with because it is meant to be a certain way for a reason. This differs

from a romantic point of view because it uses nature to describe that individualism and non-

conformity to what is custom is what brings out the beauty in one.