marrying the prosperous lawyer. To Lenny and Babe, Meg appears to have had limitless opportunities. At one point, Lenny wonders, "Why, do you remember how Meg always got to wear twelve jingle bells on her petticoats, while we were only allowed to wear three apiece? Why?!" Lenny is clearly fixated on what seems like a trivial childhood issue, but she believes it symbolizes the preferential treatment Meg received. She later tells Meg that the bells are a "specific example of how you always got what you wanted!" However, Meg has learned a harsh lesson in Hollywood about opportunity and success. Old Granddaddy always told her, "With your talent, all you need is exposure. Then you can make your own breaks!" Contrary to this overly optimistic view, Meg's struggles in maintaining a singing career suggest that true opportunity is rare and not necessarily linked to talent or the desire to succeed.

When Babe confesses to Meg about her affair with Willie Jay, she expresses her worry about "his getting public exposure." Her concern is valid, as public opinion could pose a physical threat to Willie Jay. On the other hand, Chick, as described by Henley, has an excessive preoccupation with public perception. She is more concerned about the town's opinion of her than she is about her cousins. From her initial entrance at the play's start, Chick is less focused on Babe's shooting of Zackery and more on how it impacts her personally: “How I'm gonna continue holding my head up high in this community, I do not know." Likewise, when she criticizes Meg for leaving Doc, Chick is primarily worried about her own social standing: "Well, his mother was going to keep me out of the Ladies' Social League because of it." Toward the play's conclusion, Lenny becomes enraged when Chick calls Meg "a low-class tramp" and chases her out of the house. This act of family solidarity marks a pivotal moment, showing that Lenny values the private unity the three sisters achieve by the play's end over the family's public image in the town.

Alongside its exploration of good and evil, Crimes of the Heart delves into themes of violence and cruelty. Although Babe seemingly commits the play's most violent act by shooting Zackery in the stomach, the audience is led to sympathize with her due to the violence Zackery inflicts on Babe (stemming from his "hating me, 'cause I couldn't laugh at his jokes") and, in a jealous outburst, on Willie Jay. Throughout the play, there are other, less prominent acts of cruelty, as well as many more that are revealed through exposition, such as Meg's desertion of Doc after his injury. Ultimately, Henley prompts the audience to adopt a more nuanced perspective on what defines cruelty, encouraging an understanding of the motivations behind her characters' actions and fostering a spirit of forgiveness and acceptance that prevails at the play's conclusion.

Crimes of the Heart is about the little crimes people daily commit against each other, crimes of unkindness and insensitivity, forgetfulness and thoughtlessness, fibs and white lies. Although the only genuine crime of the play is Babe’s shooting of Zackery, everyone is guilty of both little everyday sins against others, and larger, more destructive crimes against themselves.

Most obvious of the “criminals” is Chick, who has spent the last several years insulting her cousins with her putdowns, but the sisters are equally guilty. Babe is basically selfish, often thinking only of her own comfort even in the face of the family scandal that she has precipitated. She is concerned with her saxophone and picture album; because she does not want to think about what has happened, she initially refuses even to talk to the lawyer her family has hired for her. Although Meg also appears selfish, her real crime is thoughtlessness, as evidenced in her systematic foray through Lenny’s candy. Having promised to marry Doc, she had left him after his accident during the hurricane five years ago because “I thought I was choking.” The audience learns later that since their mother’s death Meg has been terrified of emotional attachments; nevertheless, her behavior underscores her inability to understand how other people might feel. Lenny’s jealousy of Meg surfaces frequently in her constant reiterations of the jingle bell story and in her readiness to condemn Meg’s treatment of Doc.

The absent Old Granddaddy is in some ways the guiltiest character in the play, because his “crimes” have precipitated the self-destructive sins of the MaGrath sisters. Overly ambitious for Babe and Meg, he has managed to force one into a loveless but socially desirable marriage and the other into lying about her career in order to win his approval. When Lenny defends the old man by saying that he only wanted the best for them, Meg counters with, “Well, I guess it was; but sometimes I wonder what we wanted.” Ironically, although Lenny is Old Grandaddy’s defender, it is she who has been the most damaged by his actions. Completely without ambition for his oldest granddaughter, he has convinced her that her “shrunken ovary” will prevent any man from loving her. Thus he gains a housekeeper and companion in his old age. Old Granddaddy is the indirect cause of their greatest crimes, those against themselves. Babe shoots her husband and attempts suicide; Meg isolates herself into a nervous breakdown; Lenny spurns the man she loves so that he will not have the opportunity to reject her for her inability to bear children. Each sister unconsciously attempts to doom herself to a solitary life.

The play is also concerned with portraying the impact of strong patriarchal forces on women’s lives. Clearly, Old Granddaddy is responsible in a large part for the women that the MaGrath sisters have grown up to be. Although he wants what is best for them, the definition of “best” is his own; neither Babe nor Meg nor Lenny is allowed any real choice—Babe must marry well, Meg must become a star, Lenny must take care of the old man.

Like all comedies, however, Crimes of the Heart has a happy finale, which offers real hope for the MaGraths. It ends in a celebration, not only of Lenny’s birthday but also of the new camaraderie the sisters have discovered among themselves. Furthermore, the three women have irrevocably removed themselves from Old Granddaddy’s influence: Babe by discarding a painful marriage, Meg by deciding to stop lying about her singing career, Lenny by calling Charlie. Physically, Old Granddaddy has been rendered ineffective—the stroke has seen to that. More important, Babe and Meg and Lenny have taken the first tentative steps toward deciding their futures for themselves.