structure that a reader might encounter in a fairy tale; a Cinderella fan might link it with the glass slipper that saves Cinderella from a life of undeserved misery. Ironically, Walls's glass castle has the opposite effect on the children of the Walls family, as Rex and Rosemary indulge their fantasies of good parenting while enjoying freedom from convention. Though Rex and Rosemary might enjoy their lives in the glass castle of their own creation, the children suffer greatly from their selfishness.

Glass is a transparent substance that is highly breakable. Rex and Rosemary are obvious in their selfish approach to parenting, and they do not attempt to hide their irresponsibility and their tendency to treat their children badly. As a result, their family ties are vulnerable and fragile. At the same time, a castle is a building that implies cold grandeur. Castles are often large and full of hidden secrets and dark corners that are rarely explored. The darkness of the children's lives and the secrets that they must keep from others outside their family are a heavy burden for young people who simply need warmth and a stable home. The castle of Rex's vivid imagination holds no such comfort for the Walls children, and they are left to grow up without the nurturing that healthy families can offer.

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls is a memoir full of symbolism.

Walls shares one of her earliest memories with readers, a time when she was a three-year-old cooking hot dogs by herself on a stove. Walls accidentally sets herself on fire. Fire is a symbol throughout the novel. Most times in this novel, Walls alludes to fire as something that makes one stronger rather than causing danger. When she lights herself on fire as a toddler, she is scarred by the flames but is not damaged permanently. Later on, her father burns down their Christmas tree. This could hurt a child's mental stability, but in reality, it made Jeannette and her siblings more mentally tough.

Another symbol throughout the novel is the symbol of the Joshua Tree. This tree symbolizes beauty through struggle. In most ways, the tree is a symbol of Jeannette's life, that her life is the way it is because of the struggles she had to overcome and learn from.

A third symbol in this novel is the desert where the Walls family spends time. This desert is a symbol for the life the Walls children are living, an empty and barren life.

There are many symbols that the author uses in the glass castle.  The first is of the glass castle itself, which in its transparency and emptiness reflects how impractical such a dream home is in the desert where the heat of the sun would be too much.  The desert symbolized the family’s life, which was barren of possessions and regular access to running water just like the sparse and arid climate of the desert.  The third symbol in the novel was the cactus.  Just like a cactus that drinks as much as possible when it rains, the family did not eat regularly and when they did they would stuff themselves.  Whenever the family moved, Jeanette, allowed to bring only one object, would bring her favourite rock.  This rock symbolized what the family was missing.  A rock is strong, and solid.  It is permanent and difficult to move, unlike the family which lacked permanence.  And finally, like a Joshua tree that grows in any which direction in order to survive, the children were forced to be equally adaptable in order to survive the neglect in their lives.

The Glass Castle is a memoir about the childhood of author Jeanette Walls. In the memoir, Walls relates about the neglect, pain, and poverty she experienced as a child. Despite all of the issues, her parents were very good at convincing the children that their lives weren’t terrible but rather that they were going on an adventure, and they should look on the bright side of things.

For example, Wall explains to a neighbor that the family doesn’t have a telephone because her mother says that telephones take away from the face-to-face interaction that people enjoy. The real reason is that the family barely has enough money to eat, but Jeanette’s mother would never tell them that because it’s depressing and reveals that their lives are hard.

The sugarcoating is a method of deflection that helps the children cope with their parents's neglect and failure. A good symbol of this is rotting Ham. In the story, the family buys a canned ham when they have a bit of money. They have no fridge, so it sits on the shelf, and after a week, it is full of maggots. The narrator goes to talk to her mom and sees her eating a piece of ham.

"Mom, this ham's full of maggots," I said.

"Don't be so picky," she told me. "Just slice off the maggoty parts. The inside's fine."

The ham is like their reality. It is covered in maggots, but her mother says to simply cut around them—to find the good in the bad. The problem is her mother is trying to coat over how awful their life is, but the kids catch on. It would be impossible to hide the maggots covering the ham, but her mother tries to help her see the “brighter side” so the ham acts as a symbol revealing how the children are starting to realize the true nature of their lives rather than believing the lies and sugar-coating of her parents.

These chapters have multiple symbols that are candidates for the "major" category. Here are a couple suggestions—but there are even more than these two to consider.

1. On page 169, Jeannette's father comes home drunk and injured. When Jeannette asks him what happened, he says:

"I got in a fight with a mountain," he said, "and the mountain won."

We can take this statement in two ways: first, recall that Welch, West Virginia (where Jeanette's father grew up and later fled, only to bring his family back to), is a mountain town. This statement shows how Jeannette's father is fighting a losing battle with the demons from his childhood.

As Jeannette tries to help her father stitch up a cut he got while drinking, he calls her by the nickname "Mountain Goat." Her father gave her this nickname because she never falls when scrambling around on the side of the mountain. This extends the symbol. While Jeanette's father fights a losing battle with metaphorical mountains, Jeannette doesn't fight, but accepts it and finds a way to avoid falling. This proves true in her own life, as she finds a way to survive in whatever difficult environment or situation she's thrust into.

2. Another major symbol throughout the book is fire. On page 179, Jeannette's sister, Lori, catches on fire after using kerosene to light the fire.

"Just remember," Mom said after examining the blisters, "what doesn't kill you will make you stronger."

This response pretty much sums up the Wall children's childhoods. What doesn't kill them (many, many things beyond just fire—including near-starvation) makes them (well, most of them) stronger.

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The symbols in The Glass Castle are:

the glass castle - her Dad planned to use his knowledge in science and math to design a building made of glass, the roof of which would have solar cells that would capture the sun's energy to convert it to energy for air-conditioning, heat and electricity. It was the family's dream home and her father worked on the plans for years. The symbolism is that glass is seemingly transparent and empty, like his plans. It sparkles and looks pretty, but is impractical for a home, particularly in the desert where the solar heat would be oppressive. When he talked about the glass castle, her Dad created a sparkling picture in their minds about what their home would be like, but it was an empty dream that would have been impractical even if he did achieve it.

the desert - Deserts typically have sparse terrain, devoid of the massive colors and variety of plants and flowers found elsewhere. It was symbolic of her life, in which her family had few possessions, even things like furniture, let alone excessive trappings such as fine china, tablecloths or electronic equipment. The desert has very little water, and her family usually had little access to water, since they often didn't have running water in the places they stayed.

-the cactus: Jeannette said, "We were sort of like the cactus. We ate irregularly, and when we did, we'd gorge ourselves."

In contrast, the grandmother's house in Phoenix represented civilization and restrictions, which Jeanette's parents rebelled against. The house was what most people would consider "normal." The Walls didn't like staying there and their visits were usually shortened by quarrels between Jeannette's parents and grandmother.

the Joshua tree: her mother stopped to paint, which resulted in their staying to live for awhile in Midland. A Joshua tree is resilient, and twists and turns whichever way it needs, in order to survive the elements, just as the Wall children did whatever they needed to do to survive in their neglected environment.

rocks- which traditionally represents a solid foundation, permanence, something that isn't easily worn away. Whenever the family pulled up stakes and moved (usually in the middle of the night), in an effort to travel lightly, each child could bring one object. Jeannette chose her favorite geode from her rock collection. She loved to explore the desert for interesting rocks and always hoped to discover gold. Instead, she often found iron pyrite, "fool's gold."  Jeannette had very little permanence in her life, so a rock was a symbol of what she was lacking.

The archetypal symbols in the book are: the sun in the desert, which represents the creative energy of Jeannette's mother in her painting endeavors and Jeannette's writing talent; and rocks, which represent Jeannette's longing for something solid and stationary in her life.