The Glass Castle Double Meaning

The title of The Glass Castle’s double meaning gives great insight to the family’s lifestyle. After always doing what Rex Walls calls, “the skedaddle,” the Glass Castle would be one of the family’s first established homes. As glass is easily broken, this is said the same as relationship between the children and their parents, “‘It’s not my fault if you’re hungry!’ she shouted. ‘Don’t blame me. Do you think I like living like this? Do you?’ That night when Dad came home, he and Mom got into a big fight.”(Walls 69) Fighting like this between her father and many others continues to occur throughout the author’s life, as her father is an alcoholic. As well as arguing with his family, the patriarch breaks many promises and mocks it by making sure his daughter will agree with him saying, “‘Have I ever let you down?’”(Walls 210). Knowing that he has let

While living in Welch, West Virginia, a result of the family not being able to pay for garbage collection leads to the hole, that Brian and Jeannette dug for the foundation of the glass castle, being filled with trash. “... our garbage was really piling up. One day Dad told us to dump it in the hole. ‘But that’s for the Glass Castle,’ I said.”(Walls 155). This is crucial because it is one of the first times that Jeannette fully understands that the Glass Castle will never be built. In like manner, when Jeannette is trying to leave Welch, her father tries to bribe her with new ideas for the glass castle that she knows will never be accomplished, “I stared at the plans. ‘Dad,’ I said, ‘you’ll never build the Glass Castle.’ ‘Are you saying you don’t have faith in your old man?’ ‘Even if you do, I’ll be gone.”(Walls 238). This is significant, because Rex is trying to bribe his daughter out of her dreams by saying that he will build the Glass Castle, a promise broken many times