25 pages • 50 minutes read
Jeanette WintersonThe Passion
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1987A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 4 Summary: Pages 130-145
At the start of Part 4, entitled “The Rock,” Henri confesses to killing the cook and is sentenced to life imprisonment at San Servelo, a mental institution. Villanelle, having inherited her husband’s fortune, vows to bribe the judge to get Henri released. While Henri is in San Servelo, Villanelle buys a house opposite the Queen of Spades. When they see each other again for the first time, the Queen of Spades invites Villanelle to dinner and she accepts. The Queen of Spades tells Villanelle that her husband has left, perhaps for good. She asks Villanelle to stay. Villanelle refuses, maintaining that “[p]assion will not be commanded” (141). Villanelle explains that if she gives in to this passion, her real life will be swallowed whole. Villanelle boards up her house and never returns to it again.
At first, Villanelle visits Henri in San Servelo often. Henri tells Villanelle that he hears the voices of the dead. Villanelle tells Henri that she is pregnant. Henri asks her to marry him. After refusing, Villanelle clarifies that Henri cannot live in Venice and she will not live in France. Henri asks how he will see his child. Villanelle replies that she will bring the child to France when it is safe, or else Henri will come to Venice. When they have sex, Henri puts his hands around Villanelle’s neck and claims he is her husband. Once he snaps out of it, he cannot be consoled.
Villanelle bribes an official to let Henri escape, but Henri does not want to leave San Servelo. “This is my home,” Henri says, “I cannot leave. What will mother say?” (146). Villanelle again returns to San Servelo to convince Henri to leave, but Henri refuses to see her. He returns her letters.
Part 4 Summary: Pages 146-160
Villanelle lives a quiet life raising her daughter. She gives up cross-dressing and only visits the casino to see old friends. On a daily basis she boats by San Servelo to wave at Henri. Sometimes he waves back. However, despite her sedate life, she claims that she will gamble her valuable, fabulous thing—her heart—again.
Henri details the visits he receives from the dead—the cook tries to kill him, Napoleon cries to him, and Patrick tells him stories. He says they all leave their smells behind, and Bonaparte’s is chicken. Henri tells the reader that he returns Villanelle’s letters because they hurt him too much. He wishes to stay at San Servelo, where it is safe, and claims that the only true freedom is love. He says that if he escaped San Servelo, he would have been alone again, and that is the opposite of what he wants. He is content to spy Villanelle and their daughter sailing by in a boat.
Henri begins to garden, taking comfort in things that outlive him. He makes a distinction between his love for Bonaparte and his love for Villanelle: “My passion for her, even though she could never return it, showed me the difference between inventing a lover and falling in love. The one is about you, the other about someone else” (158).
Part 4 Analysis
Henri expands his philosophical musings to interrogate his understanding of freedom. While Villanelle cannot understand why he chooses to stay at San Servelo, chalking his decision up to madness, Henri explains to the reader that he prefers to stay in one place. For Henri, freedom means making his own mistakes, however big or small they might be. To Henri, the geographic realities of his life—that he is relegated to one room, one window—matter less than being able to decide his fate. He notes that while he traveled the world doing Bonaparte’s work, he was not really free. In other words, Henri does not mind imprisonment so long as he has chosen his prison.
Meanwhile, Villanelle cannot help but pursue her passion. Against her better judgment, she buys a house opposite the Queen of Spades, risking her heart once more. Yet, when offered all that she has wished for—the Queen’s love on a silver platter—she refuses, opting for a more stable life instead. However, Villanelle’s admittance that she would gamble her heart again reveals the cyclicality of passion in the eyes of the author. It also refers the reader to Villanelle’s hypothesis that humans risk what is dearest to them, and that everyone is a gambler.
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