Break

Jigsaw puzzles are powerful symbols due to the nature of their construction: Puzzles are either fractured into individual pieces or connected to form one, bigger picture. Laux uses the jigsaw puzzle in “Break” to symbolize the private and public spheres of her life, revealing what happens when the ills of the outside world invade her home life (see: Themes “Private vs Public Sphere”).

At first, the puzzle comes together easily as “one curved / notch fits so sweetly with another” piece (Lines 2-3). Laux describes how “we,” she and her husband, sit and rest, enjoying the reprieve this activity offers (Line 1). However, as Laux’s focus shifts instead to her young daughter circling the room, her anxieties start to invade the poem, represented by the puzzle breaking apart (Lines 18-20). As Laux begins to worry about her daughter growing up, fostering an awareness of the horrors of the outside world, the task at hand no longer grounds her, but rather, becomes tedious, another requirement of adulthood (see: Literary Devices “Diction”).

The image of the sky represents Laux’s shifting emotions throughout the poem. From the onset of “Break,” every puzzle piece “fits so sweetly” together, creating a natural scene that is completed with the addition of “two blue arms” that “fill in the last of the sky” (Lines 3, 5-6).