Hilda Palmer-Smith Character Analysis

Jasper’s wife Hilda, Theo notes, has become senile and disheveled in her old age. He is shocked, however, when he witnesses her as a participant—seemingly against her will—in a Quietus. Theo attempts to rescue her, but she is struck repeatedly by a member of the State Security Police and eventually drowns, and Theo himself is knocked into the treacherous surf while trying to save her. Witnessing Hilda’s murder is part of what spurs Theo to action when The Five Fishes ask him to speak with the Council on their behalf—the memory of her death disturbs him deeply. However, the novel makes clear that “the memory of his own humiliation, his body hauled up the beach and dumped as if it were an unwanted carcass,” is what truly motivates him—a fact that plays into the novel’s depiction of the way that many people pursue moral actions for selfish reasons (and that the selfishness will eventually come out one way or another).