August 8, 2014
A) Jeannette's job at the jewelry store allows her independence because it is a way for her to make her own money. If she really wanted to, she could buy herself food or something that she really wanted instead of giving it to her mom for the whole family. Except in her case, she gives it to her mom so that her dad can spend her hard-earned money on booze. Journalism gives her independence because it is something that she can finish herself. Even though she does ask her dad to help her with one article, she is capable of finishing her writing without help entirely. They both give her independence because with them comes time that she can be alone without any of her siblings or parents bothering her. It's her release from her less than stellar life. She doesn't have to worry about all of her problems at either place because she has her mind set on getting her work done.
B) The move to New York symbolizes another turning point in Jeannette's life because she is finally away from what has been holding her back all of these years. New York represents the new life that she is starting. It gives her the opportunity to go to college and succeed. The move fulfills her dream of being able to live in a nice apartment and being able to feed herself and the rest of her siblings. She not only wanted what was best for her, but for her siblings as well. I would say that this is a more justifiable move for Jeannette because she needed to get away from her parents. They were holding her back both physically and mentally. Physically they were taking money from her and her sister, and mentally they were keeping them in such a negative community.
C) Jeannette's parents choose to continue living on the streets because they have become accustomed to it. It has been working for them so far, so they don't feel like they need to change it. They have the mindset of the saying, "If it's not broken, don't fix it." Her parents also choose to continue their old lifestyle because they have too much pride in it. They think of it as an adventure or a game. Their goal is to show people that it is possible to stay alive without the luxuries that most people have. Even though their children offer them money, food, and shelter, they have too much pride to accept pity and help from them. They continue the path that they were on when they wouldn't take anything from the welfare or any other resource.
D) Maureen stabbed her mother because Rose Mary finally decided to take charge of one of her children. She had decided that it was time for Maureen to move out and live on her own. Rose Mary even tried to tell Maureen that "God helps those who help themselves." Maureen didn't like the idea of her own mother kicking her out onto the streets. She was so enraged that Maureen stabbed her mother. Jeannette apologized because she felt like it was all her fault that Maureen had turned out the way that she had. She said, "Once she had arrived, I'd been too busy taking care of myself to look after her." She blames herself for everything that Maureen did, even though their parents should be the ones apologizing.
Sunday, August 10, 2014
Homework Journal #4: The Glass Castle, pp. 155-213
August 7, 2014
A) Jeannette tries to cope with the move to Little Hobart Street by getting her house to look more like the other families' in their new community. On page 157 she says, "I kept looking for other ways to make improvements." She decides that to do this, she will paint their house by using yellow paint and paintbrushes that her dad brings home from one of his odd jobs. As far as her food deficiencies go, Jeannette copes with her hunger by sitting in the bathroom during lunchtime, waiting on all the girls to throw away their leftover food. She then goes and collects the scraps for herself to eat. Sometimes she even sticks some in her purse to help curb her brother's hunger. She also fights back against the kids that try to make fun of her and her brother for living "in garbage." She and her brother make a contraption out of a mattress and rope that will shoot rocks at the kids, hopefully making them stop using their mean words.
B) They tolerate abuse from their peers in the way that their parents have taught them: by fighting back. An example of this would be when Brian and Jeannette make the rock launcher out of a mattress and some rope to shoot rocks at the kids that make fun of them for their living conditions. They tolerate the abuse from their parents by just forgetting about it. They know that if they tell their parents, then they will just make matters worse. They tolerate abuse from Erma by doing about the same thing as with their parents - they forget about it. If they confront Erma, she will physically abuse them or kick them out of her house. If they tell their parents, the siblings will get yelled at about how they don't know how lucky they are for even having their grandma. I sympathize with Jeannette's situation a lot because she doesn't know any better. She knows that if she complains then the consequences would be bad, so why make a situation worse than it has to be? As much as I would love to think that if I was in this situation, I would stand up for myself, I know that I wouldn't. I would be too afraid. Jeannette has been taught to believe in a false reality. She definitely doesn't know any better, and the only other people that would teach her any different would've been Grandma Smith and maybe Mrs. Shaw. Grandma Smith began to teach Jeannette when she was extremely young, but when she needed to learn the most, Grandma Smith had died. Mrs. Shaw could have been another person to teach Jeannette about the real world, but the Walls' family doesn't live in Phoenix long enough.
A) Jeannette tries to cope with the move to Little Hobart Street by getting her house to look more like the other families' in their new community. On page 157 she says, "I kept looking for other ways to make improvements." She decides that to do this, she will paint their house by using yellow paint and paintbrushes that her dad brings home from one of his odd jobs. As far as her food deficiencies go, Jeannette copes with her hunger by sitting in the bathroom during lunchtime, waiting on all the girls to throw away their leftover food. She then goes and collects the scraps for herself to eat. Sometimes she even sticks some in her purse to help curb her brother's hunger. She also fights back against the kids that try to make fun of her and her brother for living "in garbage." She and her brother make a contraption out of a mattress and rope that will shoot rocks at the kids, hopefully making them stop using their mean words.
B) They tolerate abuse from their peers in the way that their parents have taught them: by fighting back. An example of this would be when Brian and Jeannette make the rock launcher out of a mattress and some rope to shoot rocks at the kids that make fun of them for their living conditions. They tolerate the abuse from their parents by just forgetting about it. They know that if they tell their parents, then they will just make matters worse. They tolerate abuse from Erma by doing about the same thing as with their parents - they forget about it. If they confront Erma, she will physically abuse them or kick them out of her house. If they tell their parents, the siblings will get yelled at about how they don't know how lucky they are for even having their grandma. I sympathize with Jeannette's situation a lot because she doesn't know any better. She knows that if she complains then the consequences would be bad, so why make a situation worse than it has to be? As much as I would love to think that if I was in this situation, I would stand up for myself, I know that I wouldn't. I would be too afraid. Jeannette has been taught to believe in a false reality. She definitely doesn't know any better, and the only other people that would teach her any different would've been Grandma Smith and maybe Mrs. Shaw. Grandma Smith began to teach Jeannette when she was extremely young, but when she needed to learn the most, Grandma Smith had died. Mrs. Shaw could have been another person to teach Jeannette about the real world, but the Walls' family doesn't live in Phoenix long enough.
Homework Journal #3: The Glass Castle, pp. 91-154
August 6, 2014
A) The Walls siblings show loyalty by standing up for each other. On page 146, Jeannette shows a perfect example of this by saying, "Erma, you leave him alone!" when Brian got touched inappropriately by his grandma. Jeannette shows even more loyalty to her brother on the next page by standing up to her father by saying, "I know what I saw." When their dad doesn't believe Brian, she tries as hard as she can to persuade him to protect Brian. Even though she was surrounded by her siblings on page 141, Jeannette was lonely. She talks of thinking about Dinitia and how she had hoped to befriend her. She says, "With a smile like that, she had to have some good in her, but I couldn't figure out how to get her to shine it my way." She's longing for friends that aren't people that she is related to. I think Jeannette was also lonely when her dad was trying to quit drinking for her birthday present. On page 117 she says, "Brian and Maureen played outside, and Lori kept to the far side of the house. Mom painted in her studio." She is literally lonely because no one was anywhere around her, but she was even more lonely because she didn't have even her father to keep her company, as he normally did.
B) The Christmas incident signified a turning point in Jeannette's life because she wanted to get away from her dad, a feeling that she had never really had before. After the mass that the family went to, she says, "I didn't like Dad when he talked like that, and I tried to move away from him, but he just held me tighter." This was her turning point in deciding that she didn't want to live like this anymore. I think the Christmas incident does change Jeannette's perspective of her father. For once, something was actually going to go right for her family. Her mother had announced that they were going to do "Christmas in the Catholic fashion." They would actually celebrate on December 25, as any other family would. This Christmas was supposed to be extraordinary, but instead, her father made it ordinary by doing what he always does: ruining the day.
C) Jeannette's life in Welch did not compare at all with her life in Battle Mountain or Phoenix. In Welch, there was no room for adventure since everything was close together in town. There was no desert for them to lay out in and sleep under the stars. Welch also brought Jeannette into her first encounters of racial unbalance with the way Erma talked about African Americans. Jeannette's life in Welch shaped her late childhood and early adolescence because of all the new things she was exposed to. In this time, she was surrounded by girls talking about how far they each had gotten with their boyfriends. This shaped her because now she wanted a boy to like her like all of the other girls were talking about. Her grandma and Uncle Stanley also helped in shaping her when they were inappropriately touching both her and Brian. This helped her to realize that there are types of people to stay away from, like her perverted uncle and grandma.
A) The Walls siblings show loyalty by standing up for each other. On page 146, Jeannette shows a perfect example of this by saying, "Erma, you leave him alone!" when Brian got touched inappropriately by his grandma. Jeannette shows even more loyalty to her brother on the next page by standing up to her father by saying, "I know what I saw." When their dad doesn't believe Brian, she tries as hard as she can to persuade him to protect Brian. Even though she was surrounded by her siblings on page 141, Jeannette was lonely. She talks of thinking about Dinitia and how she had hoped to befriend her. She says, "With a smile like that, she had to have some good in her, but I couldn't figure out how to get her to shine it my way." She's longing for friends that aren't people that she is related to. I think Jeannette was also lonely when her dad was trying to quit drinking for her birthday present. On page 117 she says, "Brian and Maureen played outside, and Lori kept to the far side of the house. Mom painted in her studio." She is literally lonely because no one was anywhere around her, but she was even more lonely because she didn't have even her father to keep her company, as he normally did.
B) The Christmas incident signified a turning point in Jeannette's life because she wanted to get away from her dad, a feeling that she had never really had before. After the mass that the family went to, she says, "I didn't like Dad when he talked like that, and I tried to move away from him, but he just held me tighter." This was her turning point in deciding that she didn't want to live like this anymore. I think the Christmas incident does change Jeannette's perspective of her father. For once, something was actually going to go right for her family. Her mother had announced that they were going to do "Christmas in the Catholic fashion." They would actually celebrate on December 25, as any other family would. This Christmas was supposed to be extraordinary, but instead, her father made it ordinary by doing what he always does: ruining the day.
C) Jeannette's life in Welch did not compare at all with her life in Battle Mountain or Phoenix. In Welch, there was no room for adventure since everything was close together in town. There was no desert for them to lay out in and sleep under the stars. Welch also brought Jeannette into her first encounters of racial unbalance with the way Erma talked about African Americans. Jeannette's life in Welch shaped her late childhood and early adolescence because of all the new things she was exposed to. In this time, she was surrounded by girls talking about how far they each had gotten with their boyfriends. This shaped her because now she wanted a boy to like her like all of the other girls were talking about. Her grandma and Uncle Stanley also helped in shaping her when they were inappropriately touching both her and Brian. This helped her to realize that there are types of people to stay away from, like her perverted uncle and grandma.
Tuesday, August 5, 2014
Homework Journal #2: The Glass Castle, pp. 42-90
August 5, 2014
A) The passage is a perfect representation of the Walls' lifestyle. In many situations with the family, the dad does something questionable but then covers his action with a life lesson. Like in this passage, he doesn't tend to think about what the consequences could be if one of his learning experiences back fired. This also occurs when the dad puts all of the siblings in the back of a moving U-Haul. He is so worried about getting caught that he doesn't even think about the safety of the kids and how they could fall out of the moving truck. The passage also demonstrates Jeannette's tolerant and understanding character within the last three sentences especially. Since she has no other way to explain her father's actions, she tolerates him throwing her into the water. Just like in every other instance of her life, she tolerates her father, but only because she doesn't know any better. This swimming event compares to the fire incident because both are moments of "sinking or swimming." Both times, Jeannette's parents threw her into something without assisting her in any way. In the swimming event, her father threw her into the pool with the only instructions being to swim. He expected her to teach herself, and very quickly at that. For the fire incident, Jeannette's mother was not around even though she was only 3-years-old messing with fire. She was making hot dogs without any instruction to remind her of the dangers of fire. With both events came luck, I believe. It just so happens that Jeannette swam in the pool but sank at the stove.
B) Jeannette literally describes her father in the beginning of the memoir on page 24 by saying, "Dad was a dramatic storyteller." She thought of his stories as dramatic but she liked them that way to make things interesting. Later on in that page, she continued with, "Dad always fought harder, flew faster, and gambled smarter than anyone else in his stories." This comment kind of gives me the idea that she thinks of him in an egotistical way. He always ended up as the hero, even though he might have been bluffing a bit. Finally, Jeannette described her father as having high aspirations by saying, "When Dad wasn't telling us about all the amazing things he had already done, he was telling us about the wondrous things he was going to do." Since she seems to have remembered a lot about his future plans, I'd say she would describe him as ambitious. Jeannette expresses trust in her father by always forgiving him and going along with anything he told her. Even though it might not have been the right thing to do, she had no other choice but to forgive him and trust that her father was right. When talking about the swimming event on page 66 she says, "I figured he must be right. There was no other way to explain it." She didn't know any different than to forgive him for throwing her into the pool, even though she could have drowned. I found a quote by Jodi Picoult that I think relates perfectly to Jeannette's forgiveness as a child: "Forgiveness is not something we do for other people. We do it for ourselves - to get well and move on." If she didn't know any better, she would have just wanted to forget about it, and forgiving her father helped in that.
A) The passage is a perfect representation of the Walls' lifestyle. In many situations with the family, the dad does something questionable but then covers his action with a life lesson. Like in this passage, he doesn't tend to think about what the consequences could be if one of his learning experiences back fired. This also occurs when the dad puts all of the siblings in the back of a moving U-Haul. He is so worried about getting caught that he doesn't even think about the safety of the kids and how they could fall out of the moving truck. The passage also demonstrates Jeannette's tolerant and understanding character within the last three sentences especially. Since she has no other way to explain her father's actions, she tolerates him throwing her into the water. Just like in every other instance of her life, she tolerates her father, but only because she doesn't know any better. This swimming event compares to the fire incident because both are moments of "sinking or swimming." Both times, Jeannette's parents threw her into something without assisting her in any way. In the swimming event, her father threw her into the pool with the only instructions being to swim. He expected her to teach herself, and very quickly at that. For the fire incident, Jeannette's mother was not around even though she was only 3-years-old messing with fire. She was making hot dogs without any instruction to remind her of the dangers of fire. With both events came luck, I believe. It just so happens that Jeannette swam in the pool but sank at the stove.
B) Jeannette literally describes her father in the beginning of the memoir on page 24 by saying, "Dad was a dramatic storyteller." She thought of his stories as dramatic but she liked them that way to make things interesting. Later on in that page, she continued with, "Dad always fought harder, flew faster, and gambled smarter than anyone else in his stories." This comment kind of gives me the idea that she thinks of him in an egotistical way. He always ended up as the hero, even though he might have been bluffing a bit. Finally, Jeannette described her father as having high aspirations by saying, "When Dad wasn't telling us about all the amazing things he had already done, he was telling us about the wondrous things he was going to do." Since she seems to have remembered a lot about his future plans, I'd say she would describe him as ambitious. Jeannette expresses trust in her father by always forgiving him and going along with anything he told her. Even though it might not have been the right thing to do, she had no other choice but to forgive him and trust that her father was right. When talking about the swimming event on page 66 she says, "I figured he must be right. There was no other way to explain it." She didn't know any different than to forgive him for throwing her into the pool, even though she could have drowned. I found a quote by Jodi Picoult that I think relates perfectly to Jeannette's forgiveness as a child: "Forgiveness is not something we do for other people. We do it for ourselves - to get well and move on." If she didn't know any better, she would have just wanted to forget about it, and forgiving her father helped in that.
Monday, August 4, 2014
Homework Journal #1: The Glass Castle, pp. 3-41
August 4, 2014
A) Jeannette's mother strikes me as a sheltered woman. Even though that does sound crazy since that's not what we think of nowadays when we think of sheltered, she is still isolated from the world's idea of how "the other half lives," since she has never lived any other way. She has become so narrow-minded about the idea of living a life of dumpster diving for food that she thinks that this way of life is how everyone should live. Jeannette is told by her mother that her "values are confused" because of the way she is trying to help her parents with money and how her lifestyle has changed. In her mind, anything but her way of life is wrong. Jeannette chooses to begin the memoir with this encounter in order to give readers a hint about her life in the past. The fact that she is embarrassed by her mother in the dumpster foreshadows that she was once like that and is scared that if anyone finds out her real identity, she'll lose everything that she has worked so hard to succeed in. It also keeps readers interested because they want to know why Jeannette is going to a fancy dinner party, while her mother doesn't even have dinner.
B) Jeannette's father explained the "skedaddle" as a way to escape the gestapo. He justified the moves as adventures, making the moves sound like some sort of exciting race. To me, he made the escapes into a big game of hide-and-go-seek and tag for the kids. Jeannette's mother explained the "skedaddle" with more of a purpose. She used it as a way to get out of paying overdue bills and rent. She justified the moves as a fresh start and a way to not owe anyone money after the move. Jeannette and her siblings' like the idea of moving. In fact if they stay in a place for too long, they start to get antsy, asking when their next move will happen. Since they aren't accustomed to staying somewhere for more than a couple of months, the kids aren't really used to making friends. In addition, the way the kids at their school, specifically in Welch, make fun of them causes them to want to move.
C) When I was 4-years-old my family and I moved from our house across from Polly's Freeze in Edwardsville into our current house that we built in Greenville. Even though I was pretty little during this time, I can remember being scared, as this was my first real instance of change. Our house in Edwardsville was my first and only house that I had ever lived in. I specifically remember thinking about missing my mom's sunflower kitchen. I just couldn't believe that someone could live in a house without a sunflower themed kitchen. The move was going to happen whether I liked it or not and after moving into our new house, I learned that change could be a good thing. It became one of my most favorite places to go, even before it was completely built. There was so much space for my brother and me to play. Now I know that our new and current house was the best for us, no matter how scary it was to think about at a young age. Plus, I also learned that an apple themed kitchen could be just as good as one full of sunflowers.
A) Jeannette's mother strikes me as a sheltered woman. Even though that does sound crazy since that's not what we think of nowadays when we think of sheltered, she is still isolated from the world's idea of how "the other half lives," since she has never lived any other way. She has become so narrow-minded about the idea of living a life of dumpster diving for food that she thinks that this way of life is how everyone should live. Jeannette is told by her mother that her "values are confused" because of the way she is trying to help her parents with money and how her lifestyle has changed. In her mind, anything but her way of life is wrong. Jeannette chooses to begin the memoir with this encounter in order to give readers a hint about her life in the past. The fact that she is embarrassed by her mother in the dumpster foreshadows that she was once like that and is scared that if anyone finds out her real identity, she'll lose everything that she has worked so hard to succeed in. It also keeps readers interested because they want to know why Jeannette is going to a fancy dinner party, while her mother doesn't even have dinner.
B) Jeannette's father explained the "skedaddle" as a way to escape the gestapo. He justified the moves as adventures, making the moves sound like some sort of exciting race. To me, he made the escapes into a big game of hide-and-go-seek and tag for the kids. Jeannette's mother explained the "skedaddle" with more of a purpose. She used it as a way to get out of paying overdue bills and rent. She justified the moves as a fresh start and a way to not owe anyone money after the move. Jeannette and her siblings' like the idea of moving. In fact if they stay in a place for too long, they start to get antsy, asking when their next move will happen. Since they aren't accustomed to staying somewhere for more than a couple of months, the kids aren't really used to making friends. In addition, the way the kids at their school, specifically in Welch, make fun of them causes them to want to move.
C) When I was 4-years-old my family and I moved from our house across from Polly's Freeze in Edwardsville into our current house that we built in Greenville. Even though I was pretty little during this time, I can remember being scared, as this was my first real instance of change. Our house in Edwardsville was my first and only house that I had ever lived in. I specifically remember thinking about missing my mom's sunflower kitchen. I just couldn't believe that someone could live in a house without a sunflower themed kitchen. The move was going to happen whether I liked it or not and after moving into our new house, I learned that change could be a good thing. It became one of my most favorite places to go, even before it was completely built. There was so much space for my brother and me to play. Now I know that our new and current house was the best for us, no matter how scary it was to think about at a young age. Plus, I also learned that an apple themed kitchen could be just as good as one full of sunflowers.
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