My Heart is Broken- Mavis Gallant (Jeannie, Mrs. Thompson, Vern, Mr. Sherman)
- Introduced as silent character
o Passive and objectified(described by separate body parts)
o Doesn’t respond to Mrs. Thompson’s revelation of her most shocking moment
o Town is silent
Country where nothing exists
No towns btwn camp and railway for miles
- Other’s respond by ignoring the issues, change topic
o Ppl evade sexual topics an live in comm. where it isn’t discussed
o Mrs. Thompson’s most shocking moment is Jean’s death
Inappropriate response, doesn’t have meaningful thing to compare to
Doesn’t understand Jeannie
o Canned and preserved, Ms. Thompson’s values and judgements given by mom, things
you put a lid on and don’t
Potentially explain her experiences and thus her culturally developed
values/beliefs
o Ms. Thompson is ignorant, asks if she used Javel, showing she’s more concerned with
being tainted physically rather than emotionally
- Jeannie is blamed for what happened
o Mrs. Thompson blames Jeannie for what happened
Should have followed her advice and kept home
Shouldn’t have behaved like a little girl, all dressed up and dancing around
Shouldn’t have gone for a walk
Jeannie let it happen, could’ve protected herself
o Ms. Thompson has false assumptions of what is rape (ex. no man alone can do it,
dressing proactively, occurs by soldiers or strangers)
o Mr. Sherman tells Vern that that he’s had to leave 2x cuz of her
That no man can rape alone, either story is invented or 2 men
o Jeannie says she just went for a walk and didn’t mean to cause trouble
No one believes her
- Difficulty communicating
o Husband keeps silent about it
- Keep their violent incidents a secret
o Mrs. Thompson says not to say name
Pushes Jeannie at the same time and then suggests names herself
Another man shouldn’t be thrown out of work cuz of what happened
- Community fails to help Jeannie
o Community is alienated so that characters create their own world
Live in a culture that’s being influenced by Hollywood
o Heartbreak from Jeannie’s inability to bridge diff btwn cultures, generations and gender
o The comm. doesn’t do anything to get justice for what happened to Jeannie, rather it is
kept quiet, and dealt with by Jeannie and her husband leaving town Rape is criminal offense, but Mr. Sherman threatens Vern that if they press
charges he’ll never work again
- Jeannie internalizes and excepts the abuse
o Jeannie has internalized the prevailing culture’s view of woman as objects
o Have to live with what’s happened to her, with a broken heart, never receiving justice
- Jeannie makes mistakes in judging others
o Jeannie drove around with a German after her husband had come back from WWII,
fighting against Germany
o What Jeannie sees as innocent is read diff by others but she doesn’t realize this
o At end she says that she would have accepted the sexual violence if he would have been
nice, it’s not like the movies
Disappointments brought on by misguided expectations, rape is romanticized in
the movies but not so in real lif
More
Less
