Literary Devices

Settings:

• Three settings are located in the state of Nevada. The Wall's family lives in Las Vegas, Blythe and Battle Mountain.
• The family also travels to San Fransisco for a short period of time.
• The Walls's family stay's in Phoenix, Arizona for a long period of time after Mary inherited Grandma Smith's house.
• The family buys one of their homes in the city of Welch, West Virginia.

Point of View:

•  The point of view in the Glass Castle is in the first person with Jeannette Wall's narroating.

Style/ Tone:

• Jeannette Wall's narroating style is a very upbeat, humerous and fast although it has very negative undertone. This meaning Jeannette talks about very negative experiences in a very upbeat way, even though she is truly angry and upset about the incidents.
• Some words that help to develop Jeannette's narative style is words such as Snot locker, Mountain goat and blubbering.
•  An example for Jeannette's upbeat narrative style is on page 31.

" You busted your snot locker pretty good. I started laughing really hard, " Snot locker" was the funniest name i'd  ever heard for a nose."

This quote comes from right after Jeannette had fallen out of a moving car and it had taken her parents minutes to realize that she had fallen out. Immeadiatley following her falling out of the car Jeannette is very upbeat and laughing about the experience.

( Picture of a nose)

Mood:

• Jeannette creates a very happy mood with the words she uses and her sentence structure despite the horrific experiences she experiences.
• Most of her sentences are structured in a way that makes her horrific experiences seem like no big deal at all.

" Look, I'm a half mummy,"  i said to one of the nurses." (Page 10)

• Jeannette is making it seem like no big deal that she was just very badly burned by boiling water. She starts to joke a bout how she looks even though she is truly hurting inside.

Simile/ Metaphor:

• A metaphor in this book that is very commonly used is when Rex calls Jeannette a mountain goat.

" That's enough , Mountain Goat." (Page 92)

•  This is a metaphor because Jeannette is not actually a mountain goat but she is being compared to one.

(Mountain goat)

Irony:

•  Situational and verbal irony are very commonly used through out the book.

" Without taking the cigarette out of her mouth, she gave us each a quick, stiff hug. Her cheek was tacky with sweat. "Pleased to meet you, Grandma, " I said. " Don't call me Grandma," she snapped. ( Page 130- 131)

•  This is situational irony because you would assume that Erma would be extremley excited to meet her grandchildren. Except she snaps at Jeannette when she calls her Grandma.

" This isn't exactly the garden of Eden," Lori said." (Page 149)

• This is verbal irony because Lori is sacaristically saying that their new home isn't exactly the nicest place around and isn't something as nice and beuatiful as the Garden of Eden would be.

Symbolism:

• One of the biggest symbols through out the book so far is the Glass Castle. The Glass Castle symbolize something that the Wall's family see's as perfect. It is something that they all look forward to happening someday and that smbolizes the idea of having the perfect life, which they do not have.

Themes:

• Bad parenting
• Independence
• Responsibility