Jar of Hearts

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

Jar of Hearts’s protagonist is Geo. Fourteen years after helping cover up the murder of her best friend, Geo must finally face legal consequences and confront her past, and her character arc revolves around her efforts to come to grips with her trauma and shame. 

Geo is characterized most prevalently by her grief and remorse, described as a “profound sadness—which she’s carried with her every day of her life since Angela’s murder” (6). Prior to her encounter with tragedy, Geo is portrayed in a positive light. For example, she rarely stays out late because she knows her father can’t sleep until she’s home, and she doesn’t want him to be tired at work. She doesn’t give herself credit for such selflessness later, when her actions surrounding Angela’s murder devastate her self-image. Instead, she sees herself as a liar and as someone who only takes from others and hurts them, her emotional baggage illuminating The Psychological Weight of Guilt and Secrets. She covered up her best friend’s murder, allowing Angela’s family and the community to suffer needlessly and allowing Calvin to keep killing other women.