Fire Motif In The Glass Castle By Jeannette Walls

In the memoir The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, the author uses the fire motif to convey that all uncontrolled situations inevitably lead to chaos. Jeannette was cooking hot dogs when she grabbed one with a fork, turned around, and bent over to feed it to her dog. Her dress was against the stove, and it caught on fire. She quickly realized and panicked. She “smelled the burning and heard a horrible crackling as the fire singed [her] hair and eyelashes” (9). Jeannette’s parents were not paying attention to her; in fact, her mother was in the other room painting and singing when all this happened. Jeannette is also not paying attention to her surroundings. Jeannette was too young to cook without adult supervision, but she did not know better.

One day, Jeannette was playing with fire by lighting toilet paper on fire and flushing it when the fire became too big. A couple of nights later, Jeannette “smelled smoke and then saw flames leaping at the open window… [she] saw one of the curtains, only a few feet from the bed, was ablaze” (33). Jeannette has had past trauma with fire, so she is curious about it. She lights things on fire as a coping method because of what she went through. Since her parents do not pay heed to her, Jeannette continues to get into situations with fire. When the house lit on fire, it likely had nothing to do with the toilet paper; but Jeannette is still unsafe around flames. The Walls family finally planned Christmas for the first time. The morning of, Rex got drunk and caused a scene at church. When they all came home he decided to light their cheap, dry Douglas fir tree on fire. According to Jeannette, “flames leaped through the branches with a crackling noise” (115). Rex is very noticeably unstable and ruins Christmas despite the efforts his family put into it. Because of Rex’s thoughtless actions, he causes danger and stresses everyone