Motherless Child
The Death of the Heart (1938)
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 23759273 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Neil Corcoran (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2004 |
| Pages | 102-125 |
| Publication date | 2004-09-16 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | CHAPTER |
| Venue | Elizabeth Bowen (SOURCE_BOOK) |
| Publisher | Oxford University PressOxford (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198186908.003.0006 |
| OpenAlex | W2480200142 |
| ISBN | 9780198186908 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 9 |
This chapter examines Bowen's novel, The Death of the Heart, proposing that its analysis of class relations in 1930s England has affinities with the work of Waugh, Green, and Lawrence. This analysis is focused on the fate of the orphan and ingénue Portia, and emphasizes her various states of mind partly by concentrated close readings of particular passages. Portia's developing sexuality and her awareness of it impels the plot, and is extensively treated in the context of the history of the child and sexuality in the English novel. The chapter also considers a number of related themes, in particular those of survival, money, doubling, servitude, and writing itself (since Portia is presented as a putative writer), suggesting that Bowen's work may be profitably related to later writing by Harold Pinter and Kazuo Ishiguro.
Evelyn Waugh and Hans Urs von Balthasar Studies · Literature and Culture Studies · Modernist Literature and Criticism · Psychology
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |