Somehow I feel as if the memoir would have been more satisfying if the story line completed a full circle. The beginning of the memoir is particularly compelling and luring with the scene of Walls leisurely sitting in her limousine, on her way to a party; it is at that point that she peers out of the window only to see "Mom rooting through a dumpster". With this opening scene Walls begins the tale of her life with her earliest memory: being burned at three years of age (a horrific event, going back to what I said earlier). When the story begins the reader tends to wonder how Walls' experiences eventually lead to the opening situation in which Walls is well off with an apartment, husband, college education, and stable yearly income. If the story would have also ended with the opening scene of walls in her limousine, the story would have been slightly more satisfying.
But as far as Walls' storytelling skill, she recreates her past by creatively molding the multitude of recollections that she contains from the experiences of her life. One particularly detailed and emotional scene is when she leaves for New York City, gazing out of the window as her father, Rex Walls, is shrinking in succession with the bus beginning to lift off: "Dad was lighting a cigarette. I waved, and he waved back. Then he shoved his hands in his pockets, the cigarette dangling from his mouth, and stood there, slightly stoop-shouldered and distracted-looking. I wondered if he was remembering how he, too, had left Welch full of vinegar at age seven and just as convinced as I was now that he'd never return." (241).
The whole metaphor of the glass castle signifies that the memoir focuses not only on the life of the author but also of the father, Rex Walls. Rex teaches Jeannette tender and unforgettable life-lessons by many different means, and these lessons grow on Jeannette to the point in which she becomes the only one in her family amongst her brother, two sisters, and mother who has hope for Rex even after he transforms into a raging alcoholic. The Glass Castle in its' finality serves as the metaphor that relates to her father in the way that the lives of the Walls family had the potential to not have a poor and run-down life if Rex hadn't turned to alcoholism. The glass castle was completely designed and planned out by Rex but eventually subsided into a theoretical dream only due to the fact that Rex's emotions were unstable and also his personality. Walls lets the reader know that Rex was a compassionate, intelligent and enigmatic man who desired to unlock the mysteries of the universe, and he probably could have done so if alcohol hadn't won the battle with his life and mind. "Dad said he was damned if Feigenbaum didn't make a persuasive case that turbulence was not in fact random but followed a sequential pattern of varying frequencies. " (261)
