Minnie herself stayed on the shelf, alone and unbefriended on the farm, until the coldness of her marriage, her life in general, broke her apart. Her secrets kept under pressure burst from their fragile containers . . . The single intact jar symbolizes the one remaining secret, the motive to complete the prosecutor's case" (Smith 175). 2. "'Preserves' explode from lack of heat, a punning reminder of the causal relationship between isolation and violence