Near to the Wild Heart opens with a scene of the child Joana playing in the garden, making up poems for her father. Joana's wildness and barely suppressed violence, along with her linguistic creativity, are her most notable features. She is frequently compared to animals: over the course of the book Lispector compares her to a bird, a snake, a wildcat, a horse, and a dog. She commits transgressive acts—as a child she throws a book at an old man's head, for example, and as a married woman she leaves her husband, Otávio, and greets the news of his adultery—he has made another woman, his
A Match Made in Heaven Jane Cronin (Rowan), a single woman who is hesitant to meet someone new after getting out of a five-year relationship. She is taken by Jane's beauty, compassion, intelligence and sense of humor, and immediately decides that she is the one for her son. Helen plays matchmaker between the two of them, much to the chagrin of her longtime caretaker, Katie Beale (Reese). Tom and Jane decide to humor Helen by going out on a date, but Tom is wrong in assuming that Jane likes him. In turn, Jane tells Helen that her date was "the worst social experience since the