The Death Of The Heart

Elizabeth Bowen’s The Death of the Heart, published in 1938, chronicles heroine Portia Quayne’s loss of innocence and coming-of-age. Bowen referred to the work as a “pre-war” novel, set in the time between World War I and World War II, and characterized it as a reflection of British society’s growing tensions and anxieties in the days before World War II. Bowen is remembered today for her novels on life in wartime London; The Death of the Heart can be read as a prelude to later works like The Heat of the Day and the short story “The Demon Lover.” In 1948, Bowen was appointed a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) for her body of work.

The novel opens when 16-year-old Portia Quayne moves in to her half-brother Thomas’s London home after her mother’s death leaves her an orphan. Portia is the product of an affair between her mother and her already-married father, but with an unusual twist. After Portia’s mother became pregnant, her father’s wife learned of the affair and insisted her husband “do the right thing” by divorcing her and marrying Portia’s mother instead. He does so, even though British society frowns upon him for this impropriety. Portia spent her childhood traveling with her father and mother across Europe, the three of them living as outcasts from the Quayne family and from genteel society as a whole.

After Portia’s nomadic upbringing, she doesn’t find it easy to adjust to London society with the much-older Thomas and his wife Anna. She is frequently troubled by the disparity between other people’s words and their actions, between what is said and what is really meant. She is used to change, upheaval, and never getting a chance to know the people around her, so some of her social skills are lacking, and her innocence is unusual even for a girl of her age.



Neither Anna nor Thomas are thrilled about hosting the girl in their homes in the first place, and they find it difficult to warm to her awkward ways. They are uncomfortable with a girl who does not conform to their expectations or those of society. To Thomas, she is also a constant reminder of his father’s affair and subsequent disgrace. Portia longs for affection, but the closest thing she finds to companionship is with the family’s housekeeper, Matchett.

Portia is lonely and longs to understand what she observes of upper-class society, so she keeps a detailed diary in an attempt to analyze and discover the key to understanding other people. Many of her entries focus on her sister-in-law Anna, who later discovers and reads these entries. Furious and afraid to confront the flaws Portia has observed, Anna vents her outrage to her friend St. Quentin.

Romance begins to blossom for Portia when she meets a man named Eddie, who works with Thomas at an ad agency. Portia’s love for him is both innocent and intense, and it does not occur to her that Eddie might not be genuine in his affections. In fact, he flirts just as much with Anna, who pays him no heed. Eddie’s modus operandi is to flirt with women, seduce them, and move on. He has no intentions towards forming the emotional connection Portia imagines and yearns for.



Things come to a head when Thomas and Anna travel to Italy and Portia is sent to the seaside with a governess, Mrs. Heccomb. One weekend, Eddie pays a visit and she discovers his lack of real feelings for her. She is devastated and undone by this revelation. Her innocence and trust are gone.

Later, St. Quentin tells Portia that Anna has read her diary. In response, Portia runs away. Still shell-shocked and out of options, she makes a last-ditch effort to win him over. Eddie rejects her and tells her that he has been Anna’s lover all along. Another revelation comes to Portia, and she tells him he is afraid of her because he is too superficial to understand the depth of her feelings for him. Then she retreats to the hotel room of another family acquaintance, Major Brutt. Brutt is described as the product of a bygone era, forever marked by his service during World War I, but now far past his glory days. Like Portia, Brutt does not fit in with modern society and its mores. When Portia begs him to run away with her, however, he is horrified and contacts Thomas and Anna to tell them where Portia is. Portia declares that she will not leave the hotel room unless they “do the right thing” by her. Thomas and Anna send their housekeeper, Matchett, to fetch Portia as the novel ends.

The ending offers ambiguity rather than resolution. Portia’s fate is left up to the reader to decide. Her ultimatum echoes the one issued by Thomas’s mother to her father. It is not clear what Portia means by “the right thing,” and it’s doubtful that Thomas, Anna, and Portia share the same definition of what “the right thing” is. At the novel’s beginning, Portia hopes to find her place in society, but by the novel’s end, that place still eludes her. Bowen refuses to offer easy answers--or any answers at all.



Bowen’s novel has gained widespread and lasting acclaim for its depiction of the casual cruelty that underlies polite society, a common theme across her work. According to critic Jonathan Yardley, it “was received at once with universal enthusiasm bordering on awe.” Both Time and Modern Library named The Death of the Heart among the 100 best modern novels. Many critics, including Yardley, consider the work a masterpiece.