Previous
Part 4: Intro
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Break, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Resilience
Racism and Prejudice
Community and Family
Female Solidarity
Inherited Trauma
Summary
Analysis
Cheryl enters Rita’s place before Rita can open the door. She’s brought coffees. Rita smiles and thanks her friend, but Cheryl can tell how broken Rita is, even if she tries to be tough. Cheryl mentions that Stella is at Kookom’s, and Rita, scowling, says it’s “about time.” Rita thinks the family is going easy on Stella—and Cheryl knows she’s right, in a way. But then again, “Rita likes being angry. It distracts her.”
Cheryl easily senses Rita’s inner suffering, and this reinforces how inadequate this kind of resilience is in the long run. Rita’s callous disregard for Stella further paints Rita’s unfeeling, harsh exterior in a negative light. Though her emotional response is valid, the book frames her vengeful attitude as ultimately pointless and unproductive. As Cheryl astutely notes, “Rita likes being angry. It distracts her.” In other words, Rita’s anger doesn’t solve her problems—it simply stimulates her enough that she temporarily forgets about them.
Active
Themes
Just then, Ziggy calls out for Rita, who rushes off to see what her daughter wants. Alone, Cheryl opens a window and lights a cigarette. She thinks about back when the family moved out here, to the city. Rain was still alive then. For a while, everything was good. Cheryl did a lot of painting. But soon, Rain started staying out longer. She was getting high all the time, and sometimes she’d be gone for weeks. So, the family moved back to the bush. Cheryl told Joe, the girls’ father, that it was only temporary, until Rain got better. In truth, she wanted to be back in the city—she felt at home there, just as Joe felt at home in the bush. Over time, the couple drifted apart. Joe started having sex with other women, and Cheryl started drinking. She often thinks about what their life would’ve been like together. It’s been five years since she returned to the bush.
Unlike many other characters, Cheryl doesn’t have a particularly strong attachment to the bush (the countryside)—she doesn’t believe in its power to swiftly restore a sense of calm and order to her life. This passage also gives additional insight into Cheryl’s past love life and how she thinks about men and romance. Though these memories of Joe clearly surface feelings of regret and painful nostalgia in Cheryl, they are eclipsed by Cheryl’s grief over her late sister, Rain. Then and now, Cheryl prioritizes her obligation to her female relatives over any man, though she still holds a special place in her heart for this failed romance.
Active
Themes
Rita returns. She and Cheryl discuss Cheryl’s mom, Kookom, who’s been acting a little strange. They commiserate about the old woman’s stubbornness: she should really be in a home, but there’s no way she’d leave her apartment. And her mom has been so troubled lately, Cheryl thinks to herself. Cheryl knows that her mom must be thinking about Rain. Cheryl remembers when Rain took her to see a storyteller. This was years ago, when Rain was still doing well. He told a story about “our women” being “werewolves” who shapeshift and eat young men’s youth so they can be immortal. Rain thought that’d be great—“No one messes with a wolf,” she’d said. Cheryl thought about that a lot as she cared for Rain through the bad times.
