The rental heart by Kirsty Logan is about a person who is dating a lot of people and gets heartbroken every time they part ways so the main character goes to the heart rental place and rents a new heart to mend their broken heart. Throughout the story we hear about seven different partners, both men and women. The main character is currently dating Grace but looks back to past relationships.
We are not told if the main character is male or female, so my interpretation is they could be gender neutral or a woman just like the author, it might be written from personal experience. She dates a lot of people, so she’s desperate for other people’s affection but she can’t deal with the pain that comes with it, so every time she breaks up with someone …show more content…
The rental hearts are a symbol of broken machinery that needs to be replaced, so the broken heart is equivalent to being heartbroken in real life. And opening your chest can be a symbol of opening your heart to other people. The whole story is a symbol of having your heart broken, wishing to replace your heart and to forget bad memories.
Her first love was Jacob, and she was very in love with him. ‘Jacob was as solid and golden as a tilled field, and our love was going to last forever, which at our age meant six months.’’ The story uses flashbacks; to each person she fell in love with, as you can see in the quote above.
‘’ When Jacob left, I felt my heart shat¬ter like a shotgun pellet, shards lodging in my guts. I had to drink every night to wash the shards out’’ This means to drink your pain away as many people tend to do when they are heartbroken. In the story feelings are made into objects, where in real life you can’t see or replace feelings. They can replace their heart, drink to get shards out of their hearts and open their chests. It’s a very literal version of …show more content…
Everything seems to be normal except the rental hearts, so it could be in a parallel universe where humans are some kind of robot instead. The hearts also gets described as metal, so that seems consistent with a robot.
My interpretation of the ending is that being with Grace, she never looked inside her chest and when after the three years she does, she realizes that she doesn’t love Grace anymore. Once she probably did, but when the love went away, the heart had rotten away and she didn’t even notice. Where in real life you can also suddenly notice that you don’t love your significant anymore and the relationship has become an obligation.
‘’ I hadn’t opened myself in years, trusting the tick of the heart. I’d kept it for so long that I knew I’d have lost my deposit, but I hadn’t wanted to return it, to lose the image of Grace coiled in the centre of it. I’d forgotten the face of the rental guy; had forgotten the warm weight of a new heart in my palm.’’ As I mentioned above this quote expresses that she hasn’t looked inside herself to see how she really feels because she trusted the tick of the heart. And she forgot how it was to hold a new heart in my palm could mean that she can’t remember how it felt to fall in
We are not told if the main character is male or female, so my interpretation is they could be gender neutral or a woman just like the author, it might be written from personal experience. She dates a lot of people, so she’s desperate for other people’s affection but she can’t deal with the pain that comes with it, so every time she breaks up with someone …show more content…
The rental hearts are a symbol of broken machinery that needs to be replaced, so the broken heart is equivalent to being heartbroken in real life. And opening your chest can be a symbol of opening your heart to other people. The whole story is a symbol of having your heart broken, wishing to replace your heart and to forget bad memories.
Her first love was Jacob, and she was very in love with him. ‘Jacob was as solid and golden as a tilled field, and our love was going to last forever, which at our age meant six months.’’ The story uses flashbacks; to each person she fell in love with, as you can see in the quote above.
‘’ When Jacob left, I felt my heart shat¬ter like a shotgun pellet, shards lodging in my guts. I had to drink every night to wash the shards out’’ This means to drink your pain away as many people tend to do when they are heartbroken. In the story feelings are made into objects, where in real life you can’t see or replace feelings. They can replace their heart, drink to get shards out of their hearts and open their chests. It’s a very literal version of …show more content…
Everything seems to be normal except the rental hearts, so it could be in a parallel universe where humans are some kind of robot instead. The hearts also gets described as metal, so that seems consistent with a robot.
My interpretation of the ending is that being with Grace, she never looked inside her chest and when after the three years she does, she realizes that she doesn’t love Grace anymore. Once she probably did, but when the love went away, the heart had rotten away and she didn’t even notice. Where in real life you can also suddenly notice that you don’t love your significant anymore and the relationship has become an obligation.
‘’ I hadn’t opened myself in years, trusting the tick of the heart. I’d kept it for so long that I knew I’d have lost my deposit, but I hadn’t wanted to return it, to lose the image of Grace coiled in the centre of it. I’d forgotten the face of the rental guy; had forgotten the warm weight of a new heart in my palm.’’ As I mentioned above this quote expresses that she hasn’t looked inside herself to see how she really feels because she trusted the tick of the heart. And she forgot how it was to hold a new heart in my palm could mean that she can’t remember how it felt to fall in