good point Malins - yes, resignation, submission to my fate,I don't think that's where we've reached 'broken' quite yet - that's more 'acceptant' - having watched, I see it's my place even if I'm trembling, and I want to do the best for my part. (Just like a certain Lulie MacAlister wasn't anywhere near broken when she stepped up for that whipping by the McRaes, wasn't she in fact more determined, although knowing 'broken' would be on its way...)
Broken comes when they drag me away from the post, roll me off the platform, dropping me onto the muddy ground churned up by the feet of the crowd, my blood mixing into the puddles of dirty water, then suddenly yanked by my wrists onto that wooden beam, roughly fixed with ropes, hearing someone rummaging through the tools... a nail placed... disbelief then realizing that for some, the whipping post was the measure of their punishment, for others it just now truly begins... I thought I'd somehow just barely got through something but that was nothing at all... absolutely nothing...
isn't the same as being 'broken', it still entails courage,
even some traces of self-respect, 'broken' means I've lost any
free-will, even the will to participate in my own torment,
I'm just an automaton, a living toy in the hands of my tormentors.
That's a powerful image, I identify with it a lot,
perhaps on the borderline of being truly 'broken'?