Elizabeth Bowen, The Demon Lover

Résumé du document

Commentaire de texte en littérature britannique sur une nouvelle d'Elizabeth Bowen, The Demon Lover
Commentary on a short story

Extraits

[...] Bowen writes : « Kathleen behave well then [ . ] some months later, her fiancé was reported missing, presumed killed ». The suggestion that supernatural forces are at work. A growing feeling of uncanny alongside the novel Foreshadowing as a literary device. The author puts immediately the reader on guard for something out of the ordinary. « an unfammiliar queerness had silted up ; a cat wove itself in and out of railings, but no human eye watch Mrs. [...]

[...] Bowen's use of the the third-person omniscient narration allows the reader to look into her mind. The story focuses on Mrs. Drover's thoughts and feelings. The sense of gloom of a mind tortured with guilt : how can a promise haunt you ? Through imagery of the house and surroundings the author develops the sense of gloom, that reflects Mrs. Drover's tortured mental state. Thereupon the text is enriched by Bowen's use of a selected vocabulary : « broken down », « dusty », « cracked », « dead air ». [...]

[...] Drover reads the letter, a summer storm breaks overhead - foreshadowing the psychological tempest that is about to come). A terrifying resolution: Kathleen realizes the driver is the soldier and that he knows where she wants to go before she has even spoken. She is supposedly trapped in the taxi with the ghost of her « Demon Lover », reported missing during WW1. At the end of the novel, she is left screaming and trying to find a way out. A pathetical psychological drama ? [...]

[...] But, on the other side, once alone in the deserted home, prompted by her dowdy reflection in the mirror, she transforms for a moment into the girl she was when, at the age of nineteen, she had fallen desperately in love with « K » (ironically the same initial as her own name), a soldier from WW1. After the devasting news of her fiancé's death, the narrator indicates « she suffered a complete dislocation from everything ». In order to suggest the complex and divided identity of her character, E.Bowen mixes the way the story is told. While most of the story is told in third person omniscient, Bowen suddenly uses the first person mode of speech. The story of one character's neurotic mental state A confused mental state Mrs. [...]

[...] Bowen does not reveal exactly what Mrs. Drover sees, but the reader is inclined to believe it is the vision of her dead lover. The literary analysis of the tale confirms the idea of a ghost story. A ghost story is a tale in which part of the past - typically, a dead person - seems to make a supernatural appearance in the present. Bowen's novel is indeed characterized by these elements : An eerie or mysterious atmosphere. For example, the house becomes vaguely alive as she walks up and through it. [...]