The Death of the Heart (Themes)

Themes

The Outsider

Anna and Thomas Quayne live in an insular world, comfortable knowing what will happen from one day to the next. Into their lives comes Portia, the daughter of Thomas' father and his mistress (later his second wife), Irene. Portia's very presence is a source of discomfort to the couple, and she enters their house as the consummate outsider. She is an orphaned love child in a childless household where two miscarriages have occurred. Even before she came to London, Portia was an outsider, banned to the continent by her father's first wife, doomed to wander from cheap hotel to cheap hotel.

In Anna and Thomas' eyes, Portia is in need of housebreaking, like a young puppy, unschooled in the ways of their society. When Matchett asks Anna where Portia will eat, Anna responds that Portia will eat downstairs with the rest of the family. "Surely. She's got to learn to," Anna says, as if Portia must be trained in how to eat in a familial setting after so many years eating in hotel dining rooms.

Throughout the book, Portia is a keen observer, always on the lookout for clues as to what is the right thing to say and do. Often, she is confused about her position in the Quayne household and is overly deferential in her struggle to know what is correct behavior. For example, when Anna and St. Quentin arrive for tea, Portia behaves almost as though she is the maid, offering to take coats and put away hats. She is desperate to find a place for herself in this new world.

Even the language people speak in London is foreign to Portia. She asks herself, "for what reason people said what they did not mean, and did not say what they meant?"

Family

Portia is an orphan from a family that is barely legitimate, wrapped in shame. Her first sixteen years are hardly what most would call normal, moving from hotel room to hotel room, never attending school or making a steady set of friends. She is more like a mother to her own mother, offering tea and comfort after Irene has a crying spell and helping her mother to the hospital when she becomes ill.

Living with Thomas and Anna does not make Portia part of their family even though Thomas is her half-brother. Bowen describes the Quayne's house in intimidating terms, a large home with gleaming marble and ivory-painted walls, and a fire in the hearth that casts a "hard glow." Portia is glad when she comes back to the house and no one is home yet. Anna, as the woman of the house, could go up to say good-night to Portia, but this small sign of compassion is left up to Matchett, the crusty old servant who knew Portia's father before Portia was born.

Offering normal familial attention and love to Portia is simply beyond the capabilities of Anna and Thomas. Thomas is still stinging from the shame he first felt sixteen years ago when his mother kicked his father out of their house, forcing him to marry Irene, then pregnant with Portia. And Anna never feels close to the girl, asking Thomas, "would you really like me to love her? No, you'd only like me to seem to love her." Instead of taking her with them on their trip to Capri, Anna and Thomas pack her off again, only a few months after she has arrived at their house, to stay with Anna's former nanny at the beach. And their concern about her relationship with Eddie is slight. They seem only to be concerned about how it affects them, and think nothing of her sneaking off to see him. When Portia is very late the final evening of the novel, their response is negligible. Anna responds more forcefully to a perceived slight by Lilian's mother, and the couple is truly baffled as to who should go get Portia when she has been discovered at Major Brutt's hotel.

Coming-Of-Age

Portia and the adults around her seem to be from two distinct countries, but this sense can be attributed primarily to their different generations. Portia has seen little of the world while the Quaynes and their friends have lived through World War I, which left millions dead and changed how people thought about society and humanity altogether. Anna does not quite know how to treat Portia, so she enforces her opinions and choices on Portia without much consultation. Surprisingly, Matchett chides Anna when she decides that Portia should not wear the dark clothes she owns when she comes to London and selects brightly colored clothes for her. She also stands up to Anna when she questions the condition and contents of Portia's room.

Portia is struggling to grow up but without much guidance from most of the adults around her. Lacking this guidance, she falls for Eddie, the one person who pays her any attention. Even though he is twenty-three, Eddie is barely an adult himself. He is self-centered and moody, but Portia so desperately wants to please somebody that she ignores this and sees only that Eddie, like her, seems to be misunderstood. This bonds them and fulfills her immature image of what love should be — a relationship that creates an exclusive world of fantasy, away from the realities of the day-to-day. "Oh no! You are my perfect Eddie," she tells him when he begins to talk about his bad side.

As well, Portia is trying to develop her own sense of who she is. Even though Eddie demands that she never change, Portia still has a sense that this cannot be true. "I feel everyone waiting; I cannot stay as I am. They will all expect something in a year or two more." She feels the pressure to become an adult even as she struggles to find her place as an adolescent. And she does change, as Matchett notices, when she returns from Seale-on-Sea more talkative and with more "color."

Death

The Death of the Heart is filled with symbolic deaths, as well as actual deaths. Both of Portia's parents have died, and the first Mrs. Quayne, Thomas' mother, has died, allowing Matchett (who was her servant) to move in with Thomas and his wife as their housekeeper. The novel's title indicates that something will die in the story; indeed, critics have noted that, through the deception of the adults around her, Portia's naiveté and innocence are dead by the end of the book. In one of the novel's final scenes, Portia asks Major Brutt to marry her, assuring him that she can cook and keep a good house. Her romantic ideals of love have been reduced considerably, even killed. At the start of the novel, even nature is pictured as dead. Bowen uses words such as "brittle," "pallid," and "black walks" to describe the park near the Quayne's house, setting the stage for a society where emotion has frozen and died.

Secrets

Secrets play a critical role in The Death of the Heart. Portia's life is launched by a secret love affair between Mr. Quayne and Irene, and their marriage remains a secret of sorts due to the fact that they are banished from England and never allowed to establish roots as a real family might. When Anna tells St. Quentin of Portia's origins, she does so in a conspiratorial manner, away from the house. And when Major Brutt asks about Portia's family ("Can your people spare you?"), she stumbles and can't get out the words to describe her situation.

Portia keeps a diary and is horrified when she discovers that Anna has read it and has discussed its contents with others. Her writing was to remain a secret, except to Eddie, to whom she trustingly gives the diary. But even with Eddie she thinks twice about exposing her background and history and wonders what he would think of her unusual vagabond life before she arrived in London. And, of course, her relationship with Eddie is a secret, and he demands that she not include one word of it in her diary, lest Anna discover their secret liaisons at the zoo, the park, and his apartment.

Anna keeps secrets, as well. Thomas knows that she still keeps Robert Pidgeon's letters, but he most likely does not know how she still thinks of him. And her relationships with St. Quentin and Eddie are strictly out-of-bounds for her husband; he is not even welcome to have tea with Anna and St. Quentin and stays hidden in his library until her friend leaves. Questions arise, in fact, about whether these two men are her lovers or have been at some time, but Bowen is somewhat vague about the status of these connections.

Topics for Further Study

• In The Death of the Heart, Anna has a job doing interior design before she is married to Thomas. Research the status of British women in the 1930s and whether it was typical for a young woman from a wealthy background to have a career. What kinds of work did women do in 1930s England? How did this compare to the United States in the 1930s?
• In the novel, Portia comes to London with little or no formal education. Anna and Thomas put her in a school that appears to be for wealthy girls who have not done well at school. Investigate how women and girls were educated in England in the 1930s. Were there publicly supported schools for girls or only private and church-supported institutions? What subjects did the schools teach? How many girls continued their education at universities and colleges?
• Choose one chapter from The Death of the Heart that you find particularly interesting; adapt this chapter as a scene in a play. Act out the scene with a group of students. What insight can be gained about the characters and their dynamics from this exercise? In what ways are the events of this chapter significant to the novel as a whole?
• In The Death of the Heart, Portia runs away because she is upset by how Anna, Eddie, and others have treated her. Choose another literary work that features a teenage runaway and compare and contrast the works. Possible choices include The Catcher in the Rye, by J. D. Salinger; Rite of Passage, by Richard Wright; and A Girl Named Disaster, by Nancy Farmer. Present your findings in a Venn diagram or an essay.