Love in Allison's Bastard Out of Carolina "Love" is a word, a signifier, linked to multiple meanings, all different in context, cultures and ideologies. Love is used in many ways in Allison's Bastard Out of Carolina, by many characters. In Bone's character, love is a confusing, ever-changing thing, as Bone uses it to adapt to his life on the fly. Related to parental love, Bone wants Daddy Glen to love her. However, at the beginning of the book, Bone's conception of "love" is that of a child, obviously. On page 52, she says, "I wanted him to love us. I wanted to be able to love him. I wanted him to pick me up gently and tell Mommy again how much he loved us all." This idea of ​​love is simple and involves hugs, smiles, and friendliness, the kind of "love" that Bone receives from Anney. However, as Bone's relationship with Glen changes, so does his perception of "love". On page 108, Glen asks Bone, "'Don't you know how much I love you?'" Bone thinks to himself, "No, I didn't." This is near the beginning of Bone's confusion about love, what it means and what it does. The moment she asks him, he is harassing her. It's no wonder Bone was confused, seeing love expressed simply by her mother and sexually (if it really is "love") by Glen. This confusion leads Bone to question the idea of ​​love and look for it elsewhere, perhaps for comparison. Love, he discovers, is a prominent idea in the Southern Baptist church. Bone is fascinated by the black and white of Christianity, the definitive line drawn between good and evil, because she can see where love is and what it does. He believes that he can see that other people truly love each other, and by believing this, he thinks that they have a better understanding of the abstract idea of ​​love. However, as Bone later discovers, love is abstract and, being abandoned by her mother, she can never truly understand it. The internal problem, for Bone, is that love is a conceptual idea and that, in reality, it means something different to each person. Not only that, but love is used by others, in ways that may not fit someone else's conception of the idea. So when Anney insists to Bone and everyone else that Glen loves her and her girls, Bone tends, of course, to believe her, and so the idea of ​​love carries over to how Glen treats Bone..