Symbolic Stories

Blog #4: Symbols

Jeannette Walls does a great job using symbols in her novel, The Glass Castle, to either foreshadow events to come, illustrate themes, or further characterize the gripping complex characters in the novel. One symbol that caught my eye in the novel was Rex Wells’ stories that he shares with Jeannette and her siblings. His stories symbolize a desperate attempt to escape from reality and provide the reader with more insight into Rex Wells’ dreams, life experience or personality traits.
Rex Wells frequently tells his stories to Jeannette and her siblings during times of confusion or as “bed time stories”. He would tell stories about his past that would grasp the kids’ attention. “…He’d tell us about how, when he was in the air force…he made an emergency landing…or the time when he resulted a pack of wild dogs…or the time when he fixed a broken sluice in the Hoover Dam,”(24). His stories were often exaggerated and held, little if any, truth to them. But they did symbolize Rex Walls’ need to have his children belief that he was strong and a respectable man. It is no coincidence that in all of Rex’s bedtime stories, he is made out as the hero and all problems are easily solved. Again, this symbolizes how Rex wants his children to view him and what he wants his life to be.
As these stories symbolize Rex’s desires, we learn more about his character. We learn that he is uncomfortable with not being to able to provide for his family and he does not want his children to look down oh him because of that. He feels the need to prove to himself and his family that he was, perhaps still is, strong and intelligent and not the poor alcoholic that he really is.