Comparison essay

Nowadays, many people believe that children, who have parents will have a more promising future, than children from orphanage will. However, I believe that children with families can have as difficult life as children without them.  If we look at two main characters, Jeannette from The Glass Castle and Jerry from A Mother in Mannville, both have a difficult destiny, at their small age they had to participate like adults.  

Jeannette, physically, was born in a family with two parents, but mentally did not have them. Jerry did not have any parents; he was growing in the orphanage, completely along. Children participate in a similar way and face similar problems.   

Jeannette at the age of 4 found the way to overcome hunger and learned how cook for herself, even she faced many difficulties such as heavy water to carry, too high cooker, hot water and getting on fire once. “…to cook hot dogs, watching them swell and bob…”, and Jerry at the age of 12 was able to chop wood for several hours, without stopping “Then he began to chop…I suppose an hour and a half passed… An astonishing amount of solid wood had been cut.” He does so even better than many adults would do, I am sure better than many of us. So both of them can take care of themselves and do work, which many other children would never do.

Both children described as very calm characters. They do not panic or cry as many others would do, they just accept situation as it is and tries to do their best to make it better. When Jeannette was at hospital with many burns on her skin, she was not crying, she was answering on doctor’s questions very calmly and making jokes “Look, I’m half-mummy” as nothing dangerous happened . At a Mother in Mannville story the narrator started judging Jerry for his age and high, and Jerry’s answer was similar to the one that a middle-age men would give,  " Size don't matter, chopping wood,"… “I've been chopping wood at the orphanage a long time.", it is calm and not emotional.

Jeannette and Jerry got used to live without any authority and take responsibility for themselves, sometimes even for other people. When Jeannette was cooking hot dogs she would give some to Juju, hungry dog. “I stabbed one of the hot dogs with a fork and bent over and offered it to him.”. Jerry was called integrity when he refused money that he payed for a broken ax handle. He broke it by accident, but took responsibility and payed repair cost. ““I'll pay for it,” he said .  “I broke it. I brought the ax down careless.”“.

Hence, both children are strong characters that have different life situations, but share the way of participation in life and ability to take responsibility.