When Closures, Loops, Function References, And Anonymous Functions Interact

I am confused about the true difference between the two below examples.

first example:

// Demonstrating a problem with closures and loops
var myArray = [“Apple”, “Car”, “Tree”, “Castle”];
var closureArray = new Array();

[code]....

Here we iterate through the length of myArray, assigning the current index of myArray to theItem variable. We declare closureArray 4 times as an anonymous function. The anonymous function in turn declares the predefined write() function, which is passed parameters. Since write() is in closureArray() a closure is created??? During each iteration, theItem is reassigned its value. The four closures reference this value. Since they reference this same value and since this value is reassigned ultimately to the value of the fourth index position, tHe time we execute closureArray later on, all four closures output the same string. This is because all four closures are within the same scope "the same environment" and therefore are referencing the same local variable, which has changed.

I have a couple of problems with this example:

1) I thought a closure is a function that is returned - the inner function is not returned above.

2) theItem is not even a local variable of the parent function (closureArray) - I thought in order for a closure to work, the inner function only accesses the local variables of the outer function, but in this case the local variable is defined OUTSIDE of the parent function.

3) the "the four closures are sharing the same environment." The thing is even in the second example, they are sharing the same environment.

Second example:

// A correct use of closures within loops
var myArray = [“Apple”, “Car”, “Tree”, “Castle”];
var closureArray = new Array();

[code]....

Here we iterate over the length of myArray (4 times), assigning the index of myArray to theItem variable. We also return a function reference to the closureArray during each iteration (closureArray[i]), where i is index number so we assign 4 functon references. So when we iterate through myArray, we immediatelly call the writeItem() fucntion passing an argument of theItem at its current value. This returns a child anonymous function and when that child function is called, it will execute a block that calls the predefined write() method. We assign that returned anonymous function to the variable closureArray. Hence, closureArray holds a reference to that anonymous function. So closureArray during each iteration holds a reference to the anonymous function and we later call closureArray, which in turn calls the anonymous function, therefore calling the predefined write() function to output the local variable of the parent function. This outputs each distinct index of myArray.

This is because since we created the closure, when we call writeItem, passing theItem argument, since theItem is a local variable of the parent function of the closure, it is never destroyed when we later call closureArray (the reference to the child anonymous function)? Yet weren't we using a closure in the first example as well? So whey wasn't those variables preserved?

I don't think it has anything to do with assigning a returned anonymous function to closureArray. Even though an anonymous function creates a new memory position in the javascript engine, therefore not overwriting the other function references we create during the iteration, it's still referring to a local variable declared outside the reference. So if it's about the closure retaining value of parent's local variable even after exiting the parent function allowing for the current indexes to be preserved, then why did the closure in the first example fail to retain each index?