English 101, from Tribulations to Success

From Tribulations to Success

There are very few, if any people, who live their lives without suffering the experiences of trials and tribulations. For the rest of us, we see many hardships throughout our lifetime and from those, many lessons are often learned. It is no different for Jamal, Salim and Latika, characters from Slumdog Millionaire, directed by Danny Boyle and Loveleen Tandan and for Maureen, Brian, Lori, and Jeanette, characters from The Glass Castle, written by Jeanette Walls. They all experienced their own situations in which caused them to mature in a very prestigious way. The Walls’ children and the children from Slumdog Millionaire endured difficult circumstances, but they all were able to learn valuable lessons and grow up into adulthood because of those specific rites of passages.

One rite of passage that Jeanette Walls endured was when she stood up to her father after back talking her mother. She found herself in an argument with her father, deciding against apologizing to her mother. “’Apologize to me and your mother,’ he said. ‘No.’ Dad raised the belt. ‘Apologize.’ ‘No.’ ‘Then bend over’”(Walls 210). Jeanette doesn’t give in and takes the beating from her father. She reacted by running off into the woods, crying. Although this experience could seem as though it broke her down, in my opinion, I believe that in that moment, Jeanette subconsciously began the thought process of doing better for herself, which to me, is how she dealt with it. To me, this was the moment that she knew she deserved more.

The second rite of passage that I believe affected Jeanette in a very positive way was when she got on the train to New York. Although this time was probably very difficult for her as she was about to leave the only thing she really knew, her family, I think that she was beginning a brand new life that would open many doors for her. Granted, she would be without her family for the first time, she was about to turn a new leaf. “I wanted to look...