The Glass Castle: Theme

The theme of The Glass Castle so far, is that you don't need material items to be happy. Growing up Jeannette's family didn't own much, and what they did own, they were able to pack up at a moments notice and put into the car. "Dad came home in the middle of the night a few months later and roused all of us from bed. . . We had fifteen minutes to gather whatever we needed and pile into the car" (Walls 17). As this quote shows, the Walls family was always on the move and could fit almost everything they owned into the back of their car.

Despite the fact that they didn't own much, they were still able to find joy in the little things in life. Rex Walls (Jeannette's dad), decided that he wanted to find gold. So, he started building a tool called the Prospector. "Dad let Brian and me help him work on the Prospector. We'd go out behind the house, and I'd hold the nails while Dad hit them. Sometimes he let me start the nails, and then he would drive them in with one hard blow from the hammer" (Walls 23). This quote shows how excited Jeannette and Brian got when they got to help their Dad work on the Prospector. It was a big deal to them because they looked up to their dad. It made them happy to spend time with him when he wasn't drinking.