The Glass Castle, a memoir written by Jeanette Walls, is a poignant tale of a young girl's upbringing in a dysfunctional family. Throughout the book, Walls uses various literary devices to convey the emotions and experiences of her tumultuous childhood.
One literary device that Walls employs is imagery. She vividly describes the squalor of the homes in which her family lived, painting a vivid picture of the filth and chaos that characterized her home life. For example, she describes the "gray, flaking paint and broken windows" of the home in Welch, West Virginia, and the "foul-smelling" trailer in Phoenix, Arizona where they lived after leaving Welch. This imagery helps the reader to understand the poverty and neglect that Walls and her siblings experienced, and to feel the emotional impact of these circumstances.
Another literary device that Walls uses is symbolism. The "glass castle" of the title represents the dream that Walls's father had of building a beautiful home made of glass, a dream that he never realized due to his alcoholism and refusal to work. The glass castle symbolizes the family's instability and their inability to provide a stable and secure home for themselves. The contrast between the dream of the glass castle and the reality of the dilapidated homes in which the family lived serves to highlight the dysfunction and disappointment that characterized Walls's childhood.
Walls also uses metaphor throughout the book to describe her relationship with her family and her own emotions. For example, she compares her mother's erratic behavior to "a weather vane spinning in the wind," and describes her father as a "tumbleweed," always moving from place to place and never putting down roots. These metaphors help the reader to understand the instability and uncertainty that marked Walls's childhood, and to feel the emotional impact of these experiences.
Finally, Walls uses repetition as a literary device to emphasize the themes and emotions of the book. She repeats the phrase "I was the one who had to fix everything" throughout the book, highlighting the burden that she and her siblings often felt as they struggled to care for themselves and each other in the absence of responsible parenting. This repetition serves to underscore the resilience and resourcefulness of Walls and her siblings, as well as the emotional toll that their upbringing took on them.
In conclusion, Jeanette Walls uses various literary devices in The Glass Castle to convey the emotions and experiences of her tumultuous childhood. Through the use of imagery, symbolism, metaphor, and repetition, she brings the reader into her world and helps them to understand the challenges and triumphs of her upbringing.
