Meg Glawe
Summary of The Broken Chain
The Broken Chain by M.F.K. Fisher is a clear description of how violence can
affect a person throughout their life and how they deal with it. In the beginning of the
story she sounds as if disciplinary violence was just how life is and did not think much of
it. She did not know any different and when she did something wrong she feel she
deserved it. But as time went on she realized that this discipline should not happen no
matter what she had done to upset him. The last time she was spanked her parents felt
bad that they had to spank her but yet still felt it was a necessary to commit this
punishment. The children were upset that they were given spankings as punishment and
held it against their parents even as adults. They felt there was no reason for that kind of
violence and even said if it were to happen again they would do to him worse then he had
ever done to him. This violence was a chain effect from what the father had lived
through as a child himself he knew no other way of communicating his disappointment in
what the kids did wrong. This was the chain that was needed to be broken and after
many years it was finally clear to her that the discipline was just a chain that was yet to
be broken.