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Eron Mariano

Ms. Bohn

ELA AD20

28 April 2023

Growing Up Gives the Sense of Illusion

It takes time for a person to grow up and break the disillusionment they faced when they

were younger. In The Glass Castle, author Jeannette Walls illustrates how growing up in a

chaotic family, she and her family tended to do outlandish actions that society opposes, yet

which she believed were normal since she was mostly taught by her parents and had no outside

relationships. Without any resources beyond her father and mother that can help her identify

what’s wrong with her family, Jeannette is stuck living a chaotic life without knowing the idea

that her family is not treating her well. Walls presents the character Jeannette looking back at the

past and remembering how a chaotic lifestyle she was living. In the memoir, The Glass Castle,

author Jeannette Walls presents her family’s exile from modern society. Within this exile, she

experiences alienation as she is not able to see the issues that are present in her family. However,

this disillusionment toward the issues within Rex and Rose Mary’s life and parenting style

upholds her innocence about the real world, challenging Jeannette to mature in her own way and

find her own path in life. Wall’s memoir ultimately illustrates growing up leads to a deeper

understanding of the world.

Jeannette is unable to create a proper idea to be in a community due to being exiled from

society. She was unable to understand other people, this includes her family as she states, “I felt

like an alien in my own family. They didn’t understand me, and I didn’t understand them” (Walls
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84), this helps create an understanding towards Jeannette as a character that being exiled towards

society makes her feel alone. She has no one to talk to besides her family, but she dislikes the

chaos her family creates which leads her to isolate herself from everyone. Nevertheless, Walls

gives evidence on how Jeannette feels insecure about being in a modern community. In this text,

“The students here weren’t like the kids I’d grown up with. They spoke differently, dressed

differently, and had different interests. I was an outsider in this world of wealth and privilege.”

(Walls 98). Jeannette expresses herself as an outsider from society, she feels alienated from

society and does not feel like she fits in as most of the kids she met are more privileged than her

and their parents had the wealth to treat their children with better care. On the contrary, Jeanette

discusses how she lives nowhere but in her own family’s chaos; as she states, “I was trapped in

my own little world, a world that was defined by my family’s dysfunction and my own fears and

insecurities.” (Walls 173) she creates evidence of her isolating herself from other communities;

she does not see her family being part of a regular community. Walls uses comparisons of

Jeannette and other people in the community to show how unfortunate Jeannette is and that she

feels insecure about herself which gives an understanding why she isolates her from others. With

an understanding that insecurities and fear play a role in Jeannette isolating herself from others,

Jeannette is not able to relate to others due to growing up in a different lifestyle.

The restrictions set by Jeanette's parents isolated her and kept her innocence by

restraining her from seeing the other modern part of the world. Jeannette was mostly taught by

her parents, so she would not be able to learn the information that modern society wants children

to learn. Since both Rex and Rose Mary prefer to teach in their own way, which is the opposite

of the teachings in the modern world, in this text, “I didn’t know what a period was. All I knew

was that I had seen some blood in my underwear and that something terrible had happened to
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me” ( Walls 73) , Walls gives an idea that Jeannette’s understanding of the world is little. Due to

the exile from the world, she is not able to recognize topics that require mature understanding.

On the contrary, Walls persuades the reader that Jeannette was a little girl that has no clue about

the world. Walls highlights a text from the book, “’Guess what?’ Billy shouted. ‘I raped you!’ I

turned around and saw him standing there by the car, looking hurt and angry but not as tall as

usual. I searched my mind for a cutting come-back, but since I didn’t know what “rape” meant,

all I could think to say was “Big deal!” (Walls 87), which expresses the idea of Jeannette’s

innocence; Jeannette’s lack of exposure to the outside world helps maintains her innocence and

makes her unable to identify harmful words such as “rape” which is a word people who are

mature knows of. Moving on, Walls tells the reader that Jeannette is isolated from modern

society and that she is not able to know what unacceptable things her family has done. For

instance, Jeannette tells us how she is used to her parent’s actions but cannot identify the issues

within the actions they committed within this text, “There was a small crowd around the cage

now, and one particularly frantic woman grabbed my shirt and tried to pull me over the chain.”

It’s all right,” I told her. “My dad does stuff like this all the time.” (Walls 109), this is significant

because she has no knowledge of the modern world. She lacks the idea of what is acceptable and

what is not. With this, she is able to live with her family without knowing what they are doing is

unacceptable. Walls creates a depiction of Jeannette as a character, she tends to learn more about

the world but is challenged to do it by herself.

In the memoir, The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls expresses Jeannette’s alienation after

being exiled from society. Within this, she is unable to identify the problems her family has

caused and is faced with disillusionment. On the contrary, without knowing the problems that her

family is creating she maintains her innocence. On her own, she is challenged to grow up with
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her own understanding of the world. Walls illustrated that growing up creates more illusion

about the world. Walls gives us an understanding that Jeannette is an innocent girl, and her

innocence is unable to let her view the world differently due to the exile. However, she is

isolated from the world and is unable to gain a better understanding of being in a community.

Walls gives us an understanding that growing up gives us more knowledge about the world, but

there would be obstacles.

Works Cited
Walls, Jeannette. The Glass Castle. New York, Scribner, 2005.