Critical Analysis of 'The Glass Castle': Theme Essay

One stated by Bryant H. McGill, “There is no love without forgiveness, and there is no forgiveness without love.” People go through many things in their lifetime. At some point, they will come across obstacles. Some are caused by them, and the rest are caused by others. Forgiveness is a simple, yet complex concept. It can be done easily, or with much time. In The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, the main character, Janette, went through tough times with her family, however, she manages to forgive her parents repetitively and continues to love them; likewise, I found that forgiving someone allows you to move through life and grow as a person.

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls has a variety of different ideas. Throughout the book, Jeanette and her siblings must learn to take care of themselves. Even though their parents love them, they are often negligent and not sympathizing. Jeannette’s Dad is an alcoholic and gets into several fights with mostly everyone. This causes the family to move homes every few weeks or months. Also, it is seen that there are quite a few fights between her parents. Jeanette’s Mom is often careless. She doesn’t understand her children and thinks they should do whatever they want. This sometimes led to some dangerous events happening such as ending up in the hospital. When Jeanette and her siblings were younger, they thought of their life as an adventure. However, as they grow up they realized it was far from that. They started to work hard to escape their parents and get a better life. Although, they are able to do that, they. Jeannette, despite the success and the time passed, still loves her parents and offers them help with anything they need.

Forgiveness is one of the highlighting themes of The Glass Castle. Jeanette forgiving her parents for their actions allowed her to thrive. In a person’s life, they are most likely going to come across a point in time where they have to forgive someone. Throughout my life, several opportunities have been presented to me to forgive someone. Some of those times, I didn’t forgive. One of the times I had to forgive someone was last year. My two best friends got into an argument. At first, I thought they would work it out since it didn’t seem that problematic. However, I came to find out that the argument was worse than I imagined and one of my friends kept accusing my other friend of things she didn’t do. This led my friend to go through a rough time due to the specific, harsh words used against her. I never fathomed why my friend said those specific words to her, but my views of her slowly changed. I tried to be there for both of them, however, I comforted my friend who had been hurt more. My other friend eventually got angry with me for hanging out with my friend. This was what caused my views on her to drastically change. I was upset that she made me indirectly choose between them and I was upset that she hurt one of my best friends. For months, I would barely talk to her. At times, it was hard, considering she has been my friend for four years. Months later, I couldn’t understand why I was truly mad at her. It occurred to me that I couldn’t judge her for that one moment. In The Glass Castle it states, “You should never hate anyone, even your worst enemies. Everyone has something good about them. You have to find the redeeming quality and love the person for that.” (Walls, 144) At first, it seemed like I would never be able to forgive her, but with time I found, as the quote mentions, the best qualities that I missed in my friend. Somehow, these qualities overpowered the negative situations, and I’m glad they did.

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Using the idea of forgiveness, I grew as a person. When I was younger, I would continuously hold on to the littlest arguments for months, or even years. Holding on to these little things made me feel angry and upset. In the future, these things would make me more prone to getting angry or upset easier. However, I find myself able to let go. When you can’t forgive someone, there are parts of you that feel like a prisoner. Forgiving the other person relieves you from your own pain. During the months that I was angry with my friend, I felt trapped in ways. When we became friends again, the prisoner inside of me was set free. As a result of this, I became a more positive person. I became less angry, less sad, and less upset. I redirected all the negative energy to contentedness and cheerfulness. Furthermore, in The Glass Castle, Jeannette states, “I wanted to let the world know that no one had a perfect life, that even the people who seemed to have it all had their secrets.” Through forgiveness, I understood that I’ve become a more understanding person. As Jeannette said, no one has a “perfect life” and can have a lot of things going on that no one knows about. It made me understand that people have their flaws and their own problems. People make mistakes throughout their lifetime, and I can’t judge a person for one moment or one mistake. Allowing the other person to be forgiven, allows them to understand the impact of their mistake and grow.

While some concepts can have temporary effects on you, forgiveness seems to have a more permanent one. With the obstacles I came into contact with in the past, I realize there are going to be several more in the future. I learned from the past that no matter what, I will always forgive someone. This can vary from person to person. Sometimes someone will never forgive and sometimes it will take a very long time. However, I am a very forgiving person, sometimes too forgiving. Using this, I think I can avoid certain obstacles in the future by knowing that I will end up forgiving the person anyway. I know that if I get angry at a person, it will be temporary, so there is no use putting unnecessary pain on myself. In the book The Glass Castle, there were times Jeanette was angry with her parents. However, she always ended up forgiving them and loving them the same. In addition, as mentioned in paragraph two, I now understand people have their own problems. This also can help me avoid future conflicts because the next time I want to be angry at someone, it will make me question their actions. The actions someone does can have a lot of underlying causes to it. As a friend or family member, I should respect that and help them rather than turn against them.

Jeanette had many difficulties with her family, however, she managed to forgive them. Similarly, I learned that forgiveness has transformed certain aspects of my life. Despite the situations being big or small, forgiving others has changed me for the better. A lot of the time, you forgive others with time because time heals the pain. Other times, forgiveness can happen immediately. In my opinion, Instead of judging the good rather than the bad in a situation can help relationships become stronger and last longer.