Scobie’s stern structure for living is shaken up as he progresses towards his demise. His faith in his religion starts to seem as though he is simply fulfilling the requirements of another duty. He acknowledges the fact that he does not love Louise, and she similarly recognizes this fact. This allows her to manipulate Scobie’s guilt to get the things she wants. Her demands to go to South Africa are only within reason if Major Scobie borrows money from Yusef, a Syrian merchant well known to the police for accusations of diamond smuggling. Scobie’s feels responsible to keep his wife happy and to love her, and affection is demonstrated easier with enabling her to take the trip. The loan endangers Scobie’s career and reputation, but pacifies his wife.
The addition of love in Scobie’s bland life complicated his situation. While Louise was away, Major Scobie falls into an affair with Helen Rolt, a young widow who Scobie met as a victim of a shipwreck. Scobie becomes enthralled in the relationship. Louise’s decision to return home because of knowledge of the relationship and Scobie’s obligation to keep both women happy forces Scobie to turn to God. He places their well being before his own, leading to self-damnation and a deeper plunge into the tangled string of emotions and duties he is now in.
Scobie’s guilt for being unable to be loyal and to please both his wife and his mistress interferes with his judgment on how to solve the situation. Although he was not in control of the circumstances he was dealt with, he was responsible for his reactions to these. It was not wise for Scobie to allow himself to become involved in a relationship with Ms. Rolt, as this is a betrayal of God and his wife. Scobie seals his fate of damnation with a series of events beginning with his attempt to make the situation right by going to confession. Although he confesses, he cannot be truly sorry and fails to repent. He is not willing to turn from sin by terminating the relationship because of the responsibility he now possesses for Helen. As Louise returns home, she brings him to church for mass and Scobie participates in communion in a state of sin, he was never absolved because he could not stop loving Helen and be genuinely sorry for the affair. This pleases Louise since she does not think he can lie to God as a ‘devout’ Catholic. So, instead of breaking a loyalty to either woman, Scobie dishonors God.
“All you have to do now is ring a bell, go into a box, confess…the repentance is already there, straining at your heart. It’s not the repentance you lack, just a few simple actions: go to the Nissen hut and say good-bye. Or if you must, continue rejecting me but without lies anymore. Go to your house and say good-bye to your wife and live with your mistress. If you live you will come back to me sooner or later. One of them will suffer, but can’t you trust me [God] to see that the suffering isn’t too great?”
His damnation was a result of taking the Eurychist under sin.
Scobie’s inability to disappoint either Louise or Helen also influences his death. He masks his suicide by making it appear that he died of a heart attack, a plan that is transparent to the ones who knows him best. Although he feels intense guilt, even at the time of his death, he is unable to make praying his final action, missing yet another opportunity to have his sins forgiven by God.
“He tried to pray, but the Hail Mary evaded his memory, and he was aware of his heartbeats like a clock striking the hour. He tried out an act of contrition, but when he reached ‘I am sorry and beg pardon’, a cloud formed over the door and drifted down over the whole room and he couldn’t remember what it was that he had to be sorry for.” (p. 265)
Scobie’s culpability and emotional torture is proven to be in vain at the end of the novel as both the women in his life have other men at their side, neither his immature mistress nor his pious spouse was worth his sacrifice.
Greene strongly establishes the view that love leads to sin in The Heart of the Matter. This book illustrates the confusion of a Catholic man as he is torn between the obligation to his wife and the oath to a piteous young woman. The sympathy and responsibility he feels for every other person but himself leads him to commit sins and destroy himself. Scobie is a man tormented by the impossibility to live up to the dictates of his religion, wife, and heart.