The Inter-War Years

The period between World War I and World War II (1918-l939) was an era in which many people became disenchanted with society, politics, and traditional institutions. The carnage of the First World War had disillusioned many British, who once felt that the new century would be the start of a fresh and prosperous period for humanity in general and the United Kingdom specifically. This may be one reason why, in The Death of the Heart, the Quayne household seems isolated from most of the local and world events occurring in the 1930s.

In the 1930s, under Hitler, Germany was rearming itself in preparation for aggression against its neighbors. But Britain's foreign policy became stagnant and the government was unwilling to address the coming international crises; there were simply too many problems to worry about at home. The working class had begun to unionize, and labor...