The Heart of the Matter

The Heart of the Matter
	Cover of the Library edition
Author	Graham Greene
Language	English
Genre	Spy novel
Publisher	Bodley Head
Publication date	1948
Publication place	United Kingdom
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
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Preceded by	~prior book in series if relevant~
Followed by	~subsequent book in series if relevant~

The Heart of the Matter (1948) is a novel by British author Graham Greene.

Plot introduction

It deals with Catholicism and moral change in the protoganist, Scobie. Greene wrote the novel drawing on a background he got to know operating as a British intelligence officer in Freetown, Sierra Leone. (Although the location is not specifically mentioned throughout the novel, it can easily be deduced.)

Explanation of the novel's title

The book's title appears about halfway through the novel in the following passage:

If one knew, he wondered, the facts, would one have to feel pity even for the planets? if one reached what they called the heart of the matter?

Plot summary

Template:Spoiler Major Henry Scobie is a longtime police inspector in a British colonial town on the West Coast of Africa during the World War II, responsible for providing both local and wartime security as well as controlling smuggling. He is married to Louise, a solitary woman who loves literature and poetry but struggles to form social relationships, but he does not love her. He feels responsible for her happiness, but is unable to love anyone, including himself. They had a daughter, Catherine, who died at school in England several years before. Louise calls Henry “Ticki,” although it’s apparent that he dislikes the nickname. Louise is a devout Catholic, and for her sake Henry converted to Catholicism. Although he firmly believes in the teachings of Catholicism, his practice of his faith is largely superficial.

Scobie is passed over yet again for a promotion to Commissioner, causing Louise great distress, both for her personal ambition and her hopes that the local British community will begin to accept her. Louise asks Scobie to send her away to South Africa, and then to join her there in a few years when he can retire.

At the same time, a new inspector, named Wilson, arrives in the town. He is priggish and socially inept, and hides his passion for poetry for fear of ostracism from his colleagues. He and Louise strike up a friendship, which Wilson mistakes for love. Wilson rooms with another colleague named Harris, who has created a sport for himself of killing the cockroaches that appear in the apartment each night. He invites Wilson to join him, but in the first match, they end up quarreling over the rules of engagement.

One of Scobie’s duties is to lead the inspections of local passenger ships, particularly looking for smuggled diamonds, a needle-in-a-haystack problem that never yields results. A Portuguese ship, the Esperança (the Portuguese word for "hope"), comes into port, and a disgruntled steward reveals the location of a letter hidden in the captain’s quarters. Scobie finds it, and because it is addressed to someone in Germany, he must confiscate it in case it should contain secret codes or other clandestine information. The captain says it’s a letter to his daughter and begs Scobie to forget the incident, offering him a bribe of one hundred pounds when he learns that they share a faith. Scobie declines the bribe and takes the letter, but rather than submit it to his superiors, he reads it and burns it after deciding that it was innocuous.

Scobie is called to a small inland town to deal with the suicide of the local inspector, a man named Pemberton, who was in his early twenties and left a note implying that his suicide was due to a loan he couldn’t repay. Scobie suspects the involvement of the local agent of a Syrian man named Yusef, a local black marketeer. Yusef denies it, but warns Scobie that the British have sent a new inspector specifically to look for diamonds; Scobie claims this is a hoax and that he doesn't know of any such man. Scobie later dreams that he is in Pemberton's situation, even writing a similar note, but when he awakens, he tells himself that he could never commit suicide, as no cause is worth the eternal damnation that suicide would bring.

Scobie tries to secure a loan from the bank to pay the two hundred pound fee for Louise’s passage, but is turned down. Yusef offers to lend Scobie the money at four percent per annum. Scobie initially declines, but after an incident where he mistakenly thinks Louise is contemplating suicide, he accepts the loan and sends Louise to South Africa. Wilson meets them at the pier and tries to interfere with their parting.

Shortly afterwards, the survivors of a shipwreck begin to arrive after forty days at sea in lifeboats. One young girl dies as Scobie tries to comfort her by pretending to be the girl’s father, who was killed in the wreck. A nineteen-year-old woman named Helen Rolt also arrives in bad shape, clutching an album of postage stamps. She was married before the ship left its original port and is now a widow, and her wedding ring is too big for her finger. Scobie feels drawn to her, as much to the cherished album of stamps as to her physical presence.

He soon starts passionate affair with her, all the time being aware that he is committing a grave sin - adultery. A letter he writes to Helen ends up in Yusef's hands, and the Syrian uses it to blackmail Scobie into sending a letter for him via the returning Esperança, thus avoiding the censors.

When Louise unexpectedly returns, Scobie struggles to keep her ignorant of his love affair. But he is unable to renounce Helen, even in the confessional, so the priest tells him to think it over again and postpones absolution. Still, in order to please his wife, Scobie goes to mass with her and thus receives communion in state of "mortal sin" - one of the gravest sins for a Catholic to commit.

Shortly after witnessing Yusef's boy delivering a 'gift' to Scobie, Ali is killed by wharf rats, we are led to believe that Yusef arranged this, although Scobie blames himself. In the body of his dead servant, Scobie sees the image of God.

Now desperate, he decides to free everyone from himself - even God - so he commits suicide, being aware that this would end in damnation according to the teaching of the Church. But his efforts prove useless in the end - Louise had been not as naive as he had believed, the affair with Helen and the suicide are found out, and his wife is left behind wondering about the mercy and forgiveness of God.

Characters in "The Heart of the Matter"

Major Henry Scobie – is a longtime police inspector
Louise Scobie – Henry's wife
Catherine Scobie – their deceased daughter
Ali – Scobie's long time African servant
Wilson – new inspector
Harris – housemate to Wilson
Pemberton – inspector who is killed
Helen Rolt – newly arriving widow
Yusef – Syrian local black marketeer

Main themes

Template:Endspoiler

Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

The Heart of the Matter has been adapted for films twice, once in 1954 for the cinema, and once in 1983 for television. The 1954 version was criticized for softening the book's severe ending. Martin Scorsese is also developing a film adaptation which he plans to direct; the project is being produced by Terrence Malick.[1]

External links