Conclusion

Abstract

In The House in Paris, the youthful protagonist, Henrietta, recounts her older sister’s response to losing her heart. Despite the failed love affair, the girl goes on to marry someone else and, as Henrietta attests, “[o]n no other occasion did she speak of her heart.”² In this case, marriage, meaning maturity, marks the death of the heart. Henrietta, however, seems unable to fully register this claim, confused as she is about the ontological status of hearts: “Henrietta knew of the heart as an organ; she privately saw it covered in red plush and believed that it could not break, though it might tear” (House 58, 47). The Death of the Heart moves this uncertainty perceptibly further. Like objects, hearts are continually broken. Indeed, alarmed by Portia’s determined questioning of her own history, Matchett remarks, “Why do you want to start breaking your heart?” (italics in original; Death 99). The assumption here is not only that all adult hearts are already broken but also that engaging one’s heart in such matters is useless and impractical. While Matchett implies that Portia’s heart is still subject to her own possession, she must eventually lose it, or she will not survive her own development.

“Oh, one forgets, you know. One can always patch oneself up.” “… Is this being grown up?”

—Elizabeth Bowen1

“Something has gone inside me. My heart, I think.”

—Elizabeth Bowen