The Glass Castle

The central question at the heart of these chapters—and one that extends throughout the remainder of the book—is this: What causes two individuals, both of whom are presumably in possession of the intellectual means to thrive in society, to live on its margins and to subject their children to such a life? There are no easy answers to this question. If The Glass Castle was a work of fiction, a reader could more readily look for clues in the author’s storytelling and characterization choices. Perhaps the answer would be equally elusive, but at least then the reader could attribute this to intent on the part of the author. Because The Glass Castle is a nonfiction memoir, the reader must take the facts at face value to a certain extent. These things happened, and it is not necessarily Walls’s job—neither as a writer nor as a human being—to explain the reasons behind her parents’ actions. In fact, if the book is any indication, Walls is as conflicted and perplexed as the reader when it comes to diagnosing her parents’ motivations.

That said, there are a number of possibilities worth considering to explain Mom and Dad’s seemingly incomprehensible behavior. Perhaps the most obvious explanation is substance abuse, the consequences of which constitute one of the book’s major themes. Even at this early stage of the novel, when the narrator is too young to understand alcoholism at a clinical level, Jeannette knows that Dad has a drinking problem, one that Mom euphemistically calls “a drinking situation” (23). Most of the time—that is, when Dad drinks beer—life is “a little bit scary but still a lot of fun” (23). When Dad drinks liquor, Jeannette watches him become “an angry-eyed stranger who threw around furniture and threatened to beat up Mom or anyone else who got in his way” (23).

An addict like Dad whose life so persistently revolves around procuring and consuming his drug of choice will likely struggle to maintain steady employment and housing, but to attribute the chaos of the Walls clan to substance abuse alone is insufficient, particularly given the fact that Mom “didn’t drink anything stronger than tea” (29). Indeed, Mom’s motivations are much more difficult to reckon with, especially later on, when the full magnitude of the financial assets at her disposal comes to light. Mom’s own pithy explanation for her willingness to live in a state of transient squalor is that she’s “an excitement addict” (93). One can therefore see the contours of her codependent relationship with Dad take shape, as her antipathy toward boredom enables Dad’s irresponsible rabblerousing. However, “excitement addict” isn’t exactly a rigorous diagnosis, and it is therefore worth exploring the deeper psychological factors behind Mom’s behavior.

For example, both Mom and Dad are severe nonconformists with innate distrust of authority. Though Mom is less paranoid than Dad, this distrust likely makes it easier for Mom to entertain and tolerate his ramblings about the Mafia, the FBI, and the police offers supposedly out to get him. Her anti-authority bent extends to her approach toward childrearing. Walls writes, “Mom believed that children shouldn’t be burdened with a lot of rules and restrictions” (59). This statement could also be seen as a justification for Mom’s failure to nurture her children. That attitude is mostly strongly reflected symbolically when Jeannette finds a small Joshua tree sapling. She writes, “I wanted to dig it up and replant it near our house. I told Mom that I would protect it from the wind and water it every day so that it could grow nice and tall and straight” (38). To Mom, however, this idea is a betrayal of her values. She tells Jeannette, “You’d be destroying what makes it special. [...] It’s the Joshua tree’s struggle that gives it its beauty” (38). Mom fetishizes struggle, perhaps as a coping mechanism for her own difficult circumstances.

Another symbol introduced in these chapters is the Glass Castle—a symbol so important that Walls names her book after it. In describing it, Walls writes:

It would have a glass ceiling and thick glass walls and even a glass staircase. The Glass Castle would have solar cells on the top that would catch the sun’s rays and convert them into electricity for heating and cooling and running all the appliances. It would even have its own water-purification system (25).

At its most basic level, the Glass Castle represents the epitome of the lifestyle Dad would like to lead, one that is fully sustainable, self-sufficient, and beholden to no authority aside from nature itself. As the book goes on, it also comes to represent the increasingly illusory hope that Dad will fulfill his many broken promises. For example, Walls writes, “That was why we had to find gold. To get Mom a new wedding ring. That and so we could build the Glass Castle” (28). This subtle juxtaposition reveals the extent to which a perfectly achievable goal—like keeping a job long enough to save up for a new wedding ring—is, in Dad’s hands at least, as preposterous as building the Glass Castle. At the same time, the Glass Castle is such an exciting and magical prospect that it is serves as fodder for Jeannette’s persistent illusion of Dad as the greatest father on Earth.

On this note, it is important to consider Walls’s narration technique. At this stage of the book, Jeannette is still a child, and the narration reflects her youth. To her, there is nothing odd about a three-year-old cooking hot dogs unsupervised, or a family that moves over a dozen times in half that many years, or children using cardboard boxes as beds. As Jeannette grows older and begins to understand more clearly how other children live, she offers more of her own judgments of her parents’ behavior. At this point, the narration still depends on the wide chasm between Jeannette’s matter-of-fact observations and an adult reader’s understanding of neglect to illustrate the severity of the family’s circumstances.

This perception of neglect also plays into another theme: the extent to which neglect is abuse. To be sure, there is little malice on the part of either parent, at least at this point in the book. Both Mom and Dad seem convinced that their approach toward parenting is the best way to facilitate their children’s happiness and well-being. Particularly as the narrative progresses, however, it will become clear that their lifestyle is the result of selfishness, manifested by Dad’s alcoholism and Mom’s unwillingness to sacrifice her “career” as an artist.

These chapters also introduce Christmas as a recurring motif. At different intervals of the book, Christmas is a time when the Walls family dynamics are laid bare. During these early chapters, Jeannette still thinks of the Wallses’ impoverished and transient existence as an adventure and even a badge of honor. This sense is strongly reflected in the joy she feels when Dad, unable to afford presents because he lost his job, gives Jeannette the planet Venus for Christmas. She writes:

We laughed about all the kids who believed in the Santa myth and got nothing for Christmas but a bunch of cheap plastic toys. ‘Years from now, when all the junk they got is broken and long forgotten,’ Dad said, ‘you’ll still have your stars’ (41).

A final recurring motif introduced here is that of turbulence and order. Dad describes the tops of the flames that leap out of the shack Jeannette and Brian set aflame as the boundary between turbulence and order. He adds, “It’s a place where no rules apply, or at least they haven’t figured ’em out yet. You-all got a little too close to it today” (61). This is a fitting metaphor for the lives of the Walls family, and in particular Dad’s life. Dad is most comfortable with chaos, and so whenever the family improves its fortunes enough to come into proximity with stability—that is, to exist within that boundary between turbulence and order—Dad finds a way to sabotage himself and the rest of the Walls clan. It is clearly not a state Dad is comfortable with, both because of his inherently chaotic personality and perhaps also because he is deeply insecure about his ability to provide for his family. This insecurity may also be why all of Dad’s plans for lifting his family out of chaos involve gambits that range between unlikely and impossible, like finding gold and building the Glass Castle. It is easier for him to be driven by impossible hopes than it is to do the hard work of navigating one’s way out of turbulence and into order.