The Castle Reading 3

There have been many difficulties that both Jeanette and her family had to face. Her family moves around very often. They decide to move to Blue Mountain which is a small mining town; where Jeanette’s dad found a job as an electrician. They lived in an old railroad depot, while living here the children slept in cardboard boxes, after living here for a short time there parents offered to get them beds, the children refused they said liked sleeping in the cardboard boxes. The children didn’t have toys, they made up games, for example, they would get a piece of cardboard and go tobogganing down there houses’ staircase. One day Jeanette and her brother Brian started playing with toxic and hazardous waste in an abandoned shed, the shed caught on fire. Jeanette got out right away and had to go get there father to come help Brian out.  Another day they decided to go swimming in what was called the Hot Pot; it was a natural sulfur spring in the desert. Jeanette’s father forced her to swim on her own. She would begin to drown when her father would help her. This is a huge difficulty for Jeanette to deal with; it could scar her for life being in a situation like that. He later lost his job, life became hard and money was low. They started stealing food from the store until their mother than got a job as a teacher although she hated teaching. She let the kids do whatever they wanted with no rules, which didn’t last long. A kid named Billy recently moved into the neighborhood. He begged Jeanette to be his girlfriend, she said no but that she will be his friend. He said that she will be sorry for choosing just to be friends with him. A few days later Billy came out with a BB gun shooting at all the kids, Lori, Jeanette’s sister got their dads pistol and started shooting at Billy. The police was called and the children were asked to come in the next morning for questioning. Instead, the parents thought it would be a good idea to leave the night before, they were headed to Phoenix. Things were going well in Phoenix; they lived in their grandmother’s old house. Their father got another job and money started coming in quickly. The kids were eating more and got more toys. Although, once again there father lost his job and they were headed to West Virginia to live with his family.

In what I have read so far I think the family uses a lot of thought suppression as there way of coping. When something bad happens they would usually laugh it off or say something to make the children laugh and then everything would be okay again. I think there father is a huge problem. He is an alcoholic, whenever they are low in money he will still go out to the bar and drink. He is making his wife and children believe that they will find gold and become rich. Of course the children believe him but in reality I think he is just saying that to get the children happy. For these problems, I blame mostly individuals, as a person we get to make our choices. I do think that society has an effect on every person but in the end it is always up to us to make that final choice of whatever we decide to do.