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The Rental Heart Analysis

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“The Rental Heart” is a short story published and written by Kirsty Logan in 2014, telling the tale of a history of heartbreak where the text’s major themes ‘love’ and ‘heartache’ are gradually introduced to the reader through the protagonist’s actions and thoughts. While the sex of the protagonist is never mentioned, they will be addressed with the use of female pronouns in this essay to make the analysis more fluent and coherent.
The story takes off when the protagonist of the story meets a woman named Grace which causes her to return to a heart rental place to once again rent a heart. Following this incident, a flashback occurs wherein one is informed about the many hearts she has rented as well as about the protagonist’s motivations for …show more content…

As she is capable of growing and changing through the renting of hearts in addition to lovers coming and going, she is not only a round character but a dynamic character as well. Though it is never told by the narrator, the fact that the main character rents hearts to avoid dealing with true feelings is conveyed by showing how she quickly changes her heart after each breakup. Of major characters, there are three – all whom are flat characters. The first is Grace who gives a feeling of being wild and punk rock caused by the description: “her pierced little mouth, her shitkicker boots,” (p. 1, l. 1) and is the character causing our protagonist to rent a new heart after years without one. Jakob is introduced in the flashback as the protagonist’s first boyfriend and heartache while Anna introduces her to the possibility of cog hearts. Of minor characters, there are quite a few names mentioned as a list by the protagonist as people she dated at some point: “After that I rented hearts for Michael, and Rose, and Genevieve,” (p. 2, ll. 31-2). Additionally, the style of speaking of former lovers shows the reader how the protagonist becomes progressively more careless and …show more content…

No matter what you do to secure yourself, you cannot protect yourself from the feelings of love and trying to do so is an unnatural act you will eventually be haunted by. The story taking place in the city reflects not only the fast lane the protagonist lives their life in but also the throwaway culture hearts are treated with. As for why no gender is ever mentioned is perchance because the story deals with love and heartbreak which are universal feelings not limited to

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