Comparison essay

How much should parents do to be regarded as responsible? How much can they not do before their children start asking themselves question? Keep them safe. I guess this is the answer, both physically and mentally. A family is a shelter where children could be careless of the dangers and threats, just like the place described in the poem “the Family Castle” written by Nancy Rakovszky rather than the trailer park that Jeanette Walls, the author of The Glass Castle, lives in when she is a small child.

Do you still remember the feeling of hearing your mother calling your name for dinner? Do you still remember how she could always take care of you no matter how bad the injury is? In Nancy Rakovszky’s poem “the Family Castle”, she writes “Yet stay not here within these walls, they were not built to hide”. A home is not a house, it is a lighthouse in children’s heart. Parents, are those who have the magic power that can make everything tidy and right. A sense of security grows strongly in children’s heart because they know that there’s always a safe house backing them up no matter how far they go. 

On the contrary, in the memoir The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls grows up to be an independent woman who could easily support herself in a wealthy life without any burden. Seems like this is something that everyone wants. However, under the sophisticated surface, she is still not over the specter of her family, “I slid down in the seat and asked the driver to turn round and take me home to Park Avenue.” On the street of New York City, Jeannette hides. What are the odds. In this very moment, she is not hiding from her mother, but instead, she is hiding from her past. Her family is not a shelter — the outside world is. A mother is supposed to be the closest person in the world to a child, but if the child doesn’t feel safe, she will run away. She will go outside to hide. Burying and forgetting what has happened is the only way. She doesn’t feel safe and protected in her home anymore, not her mother's trailer or her own carefully created brownstone.

In “the Family Castle”, the narrator Nancy uses her soft voice, guiding the child, “Mount our stallion strong and true. For he shall be your guide. His legs have carried those of us. Who’ve ventured far outside.” She is trying to tell the child that as a mother she has the ability to show them where to go, show them how their life can be. There’s trust that gradually builds and is printed on the child’s soul. They will feel safe. Even though they have to go away from home, they have been guided. They know the way.

Quite the opposite, in Jeannette’s story, “Dad hurried down the hall with me in his arms. A nurse yelled for us to stop, but Dad broke into a run…” Living with a person who makes irrational decisions would make it hard to feel safe, but the major problem is — running with him with no place to run to, no destination. Jeanette’s father stole her from the hospital, with the wounds still not recovered, just because he is fleeing from the consequences that he caused. How could a child trust someone who offers nothing but endless exile? Jeanette, a little girl who has to take care of herself, asking herself questions every time her parents let her down. With opened eyes, she sees nothing when she’s with her family. 

Trauma exists, but it doesn’t usually show. It hides underneath, just like some people hide their past from sight. The lack of security causes Jeannette to trust no one. She hides from the world, from everyone. There’s no shelter in her heart or her home. She can only live with a hole in her heart, which can only be mended by the ones who caused it, and yet they will never realize what they have done.