Heart-Shaped Box

Heart-Shaped Box’s four parts are music references, with the titular phrase “Heart-Shaped Box” referencing the 1993 Nirvana song. These references fit Jude’s character as a retired rock star and offer a lens through which to understand his perspective. The narrator of the Nirvana song describes being trapped in his love interest’s “heart-shaped box.” Thus, Joe Hill’s allusion associates heart-shaped boxes with entrapment and embodiment. The first heart-shaped box in the novel is Jessica Price’s black box that encases her stepfather Craddock McDermott’s suit. When Marybeth tries to open the box, Jude reflects on what she imagines might be inside: “Candies sometimes came in boxes like that, although this was much too big for candies, and candy boxes were pink or sometimes yellow. A lingerie box, then—except he hadn’t ordered anything of the kind for her” (11-12). The box’s design creates expectations only to subvert them: The intimate symbolism of a heart is made sinister by Craddock’s presence, further exacerbated when Jude finds a second heart-shaped box in his closet. This is a box from his past, with bullets collected during childhood. Overall, the two heart-shaped boxes signal movement away from intimacy and toward violence.