Jar of Hearts

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death, physical abuse, emotional abuse, child abuse, and rape.

Nearly every character in Jar of Hearts is still affected by Angela Wong’s murder 14 years later. Angela’s parents divorced after her disappearance. Kaiser is emotionally stuck, feeling incapable of love after years of wondering why one of his best friends disappeared and why the other abandoned him. It is Geo’s experiences, though, that epitomize the text’s message on violence, revealing how traumatic and lasting such events can be for survivors and perpetrators alike.

As Calvin’s accomplice in disposing of Angela’s body, Geo struggles not only with guilt but also with the social and legal ramifications of her actions. Logically, Geo recognizes that after her five-year prison sentence ends, she’ll still “have plenty of time to start over” and to “get married, have children, have a life” (5). Yet she qualifies this by saying, “In theory, anyway” (5), because she knows her criminal record and notorious connection to the Sweetbay Strangler’s first murder will make life after prison extremely difficult. Her conflict with a society that doesn’t feel she’s suffered enough plays out through loan and job refusals, hateful graffiti, and verbal attacks, all of which—coupled with her enduring sense that she deserves it all—suggest that even people who genuinely regret their past crimes may struggle to move on from them, both emotionally and practically.