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Comparison Of 'A Wednesday Circle And My Heart Is Broken'

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Comparison Of 'A Wednesday Circle And My Heart Is Broken'
For generations, Violence against women has been a grave cause for concern but it is only recently that women are beginning to stand up against violence such as sexual assault and molestation. The short stories “A Wednesday Circle” and “My heart is broken” give us an insight into our society merely a couple of decades ago and we see a large difference in how sexual violence was represented. Instead of it being characterized as a serious crime, it is deemed as something that should be kept secret and that the victim should be ashamed of discussing it. In addition, closed-knit communities consider these incidents of assault to be non-existent and foreign to their own soil and believe in a sanitized representation of sexual relations put forth …show more content…
Mrs. Thompson immediately expresses that she holds Jeannie responsible for the incident of rape. She says, “I told you to keep away from men. I told you it would make trouble, all that being cute and dancing around”. Mrs. Thompson also blames Jeannie for Vern losing his job and says that Jeannie doesn’t appreciate Vern’s hard work and that she ruined his career by “doing a terrible thing”. This shows that Mrs. Thompson is extremely oblivious to the realities of sexual violence and that she fails to comprehend that Jeannie’s way of dressing or behaving is in no way an explanation for the trauma that she faced. Gallant emphasizes that as a woman, to be harmed does not mean that you will gain sympathy and understanding from the society around you or find support to defend …show more content…
Such a confused and ignorant society withholds Jeannie from expressing an appropriate reaction to her situation. We see this in the conclusion when Jeannie says, “He could have at least liked me. He wasn’t even friendly” and “My heart is broken”. Jeannie has thoroughly internalized the values surrounding her and she does not find the right language in her culture to express what she really feels but instead falls back on the clichéd expressions of “love” and
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