Heart-Shaped Box

“He’d been married once, to a woman who used a glass and put things away when she was done, who read the paper in the morning, and he missed their talk. It was grown-up talk. She hadn’t been a stripper.”

In this quote, retired rock star Jude describes his previous marriage and arrested development after outliving his two bandmates. This quote also belies his misogyny: He assumes there’s something inherently negative about a woman being a stripper—the woman in question being his current girlfriend, Georgia (Marybeth), a former stripper.

“Jude hadn’t been able to repeat the act himself, not even onstage, for show, when he could afford all the guitars he wanted. He was, however, perfectly willing to use one to defend himself. In a sense he supposed he had always used them as weapons.”

Here, Jude contemplates using a guitar to bludgeon an intruder. The final sentence reinforces music as having always been a “weapon” for him—a way to distance himself from his abusive father and former girlfriends.

“His own farther had treated the family dogs better than he ever treated Jude, or Jude’s mother. In time it had rubbed off on Jude, and he’d learned to treat dogs better than himself as well.”

This quote reveals Jude’s internalized loathing due to his father’s abuse. It also increases pathos for his two dogs, Angus and Bon, who eventually die due to an equally abusive father figure’s machinations.