You're My Fire

FIre is a very consistent and frequently mentioned word in The Glass Castle. Fire carries many different kinds of connotations, two specifically being positive and negative. Fire can give warmth and life to things in this world, which shows off its positivity. Walls uses fire in a more negative manner compared to the positivity it provides. Although Walls says thigs like "I became fascinated by it"(Walls 15) and "I was always on the lookout for bigger fires"(Walls 15), fire in the book represnts the spontaneity and over-threatening power that it contains. Fire can cause huge demolitions and damage to people's lives. Tragedies, horrors, traumatizing events can arise out of nowhere. A tiny spark can cause a fire to become huge and do a lot of damage in its surroundings. It can appear out of nowhere. Jeannette Walls has sudden sparks of changes in her life in a very random and sudden manner. Walls tries to make an inference that life is like fire. You never know what will spark changes or you''ll never know what will happen in your life, whether it be tragic or good. Her life throughout the storyline was very unpredictable in her perspective. Her family was always on the move and such.

"bad" fire

"I wondered if the fire had been out to get me. I wondered if all fire was related, like Dad said all humans were related"(Walls 34). Fire is spontaneous and can happen without notice, but human actions can cause bigger fires in life at times. In the end, fires and humans are more related than people think they are. Human relations in this world are just as unpredictable as spontaneous formations of fire. Although not all the time, humans cause their own fires in their lives.