Read the excerpt from chapter 2 of Night by Elie Wiesel.

There was a woman among us, a certain Mrs. Schächter. She was in her fifties and her ten-year-old son was with her, crouched in a corner. Her husband and two older sons had been deported with the first transport, by mistake. The separation had totally shattered her.

How does the word shattered affect the tone of the excerpt?