Home; Nevertheless (My Narrative)

 In the story of Grass Castle written by Jeannette Walls, The complex family environment is cleverly portrayed. The first chapter, A WOMAN ON THE STREET, depicted the unusual relationship and tension between mother and daughter. A kind of gap between the wealthy daughter and the poor mother was apparent. They have very different values from each other as well as their level of living. Since the first chapter did not describe the detailed story of why they are in such a situation,  it is partly revealed in the second chapter. In the second chapter, THE DESERT, the audience learns that the protagonist's family environment has been complicated since childhood and that the protagonist has lived in a very difficult domestic situation, but she has been very quiet and mature since childhood.

I would like to focus on one shocking scene in THE DESERT that symbolizes the problematic nature of this family. In the scene, the protagonist is hospitalized after being injured by her mother's neglect, but both of her parents do not like the situation and try to take her away from the hospital. This scene indirectly conveys to the reader the depth of the family's darkness. That is because a normal family in general would want their daughter to stay in the hospital and recover as soon as possible. 

The protagonist's mother did not like the fact that the protagonist liked the hospital environment. This is symbolized by her negative reaction when the protagonist told her about the chewing gum the nurse gave her. Two factors contributed to this reaction of the mother here: jealousy and too high pride. First, she is jealous of the very irony of her daughter liking the hospital environment. The fact her daughter likes a hospital that is supposed to be a tasteless and boring place for most people proves the dirtiness and noisiness of the home. Added to this is the fact that a mother is a high pride person. Her mother has a past of living in a relatively wealthy environment, as shown in the first chapter, where she appears to be well educated. This past gives her too high a sense of pride, and she feels the disgust of the lower class in chewing gum. However, she is already a low-class person.

The protagonist's father loves her more than the protagonist's mother. However, he has numerous problems. He is violent, rude, and has biased values that are against science. He distrusts his daughter's scientific treatment and tries to make the doctor violent and to make her undergo mysticism treatment. He is an uncultivated and dishonored person although he looks like he loves his dauter.

Thus, both of the protagonist's parents are mentally ill, and the protagonist was born and raised in a very clueless environment. In such a degrading environment, the protagonist is unaware of her family's unusualness and problematic nature. This is because the protagonist is only 3 years old and does not know the world outside his home and its common sense values. The protagonist is always quiet about the tragedies that occur and is very mature for her age. Her thoughtfulness is very cynical and gives the reader an exquisite sense of bitterness.