The Princess of Las Vegas

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of sexual violence and harassment and death by suicide.

When telling Marisa about her childhood, Betsy recounts a story about her stepfather winning Crissy and her dolls at the carnival. However, he didn’t really win the dolls; he was tricked into paying an exorbitant amount of money by a carnival worker who let him play until he won two dolls. Betsy is never able to look at the dolls—or her stepfather—the same after the incident:

But she did recall how neither Crissy nor she cared when the glass feet broke off the dolls or the dresses tore, or one of the heads cracked and they finally threw them both away. The dolls had become soiled for them because they were symbols of the way their stepfather had been hoodwinked. The lesson for Betsy? Life will fuck over even the smartest among us: people like her stepfather, who—despite what later would happen—had brains (252).

Betsy notes that the dolls symbolize how her stepfather was tricked by the carnival worker; however, they also symbolize how the family was tricked by her stepfather’s family man persona. Betsy is shocked when she learns that her stepfather was sexually abusing Crissy and her idyllic picture of her family is shattered.