“The Demon Lover” by Elizabeth Bowen begins in the early 40’s Kensington area in
London, where the main character Mrs. Drover is introduced while returning to retrieve the articles for herself. She returned to her house she saw the WWII cracks and trouble times, the piano, the struck clock and the letter K. (on the letter by her demon lover which becomes dear to the reader and represent how the life can bring the past to revenge and haunt the mind). Bowen ultimately uses different literary elements within her story to develop the theme of revenge , war and peace, identity , doubt and ambiguity and victim and victimization to her main character
“Mrs. Drover” past events. In the short story “The Demon Lover,” by Elizabeth Bowen
symbolism, …show more content…
“From which she never fully recovered; that her visit to her war – ravaged home occasions a threshold experience that activates her dormant hysteric” (Faustino 10). It is seen by Mrs. Drover’s reaction when she saw the letter on the table which has no stamps on , she looked for the date , it was today’s and also it is signed by the letter “K” which is a symbolism of Mrs. Drover repressed consciousness of the war that shows the theme of identity . The frightened face on her makes the reader put all the possibilities of events over how did the letter get to the house on the table and also the letters date is today? Which here Bowen shows the theme of doubt and ambiguity that her house is obviously deserted and seems untouched, which makes the appearance of the letter even more enigmatic. “She dropped the letter on the bed – spring, then picked it up to see the writing again
_ her lips beneath the remains of lipstick, beginning to go white” (Bowen 66). After she saw …show more content…
He has gone” (Bowen 104). And some months after her fiancé has been reported missing “missing, presumed killed” (Scott26). She was not courted by many, and she felt herself “watched” by unseen eyes. She married Mr. Drover and here she felt with the broken promise she did when her fiancé told her “I shall be with you sooner or later”,
“mysterious letter in the damaged house. The letter’s message unleashed her repressed memory of her lover’s promise to be with her forever”. She is a “prosaic” woman whose movement as
Mrs. Drover circumscribed, and her marriage is simply conventional” which shows that Mrs.
Drover as a discontented wife in an unfulfilling marriage runs into difficulty (Calder 43). The reader becomes aware to that she is frightened by a character in her past, and an unnatural promise that keeps haunting. Bowen’s uses of symbolism and allusion shows Mrs. Drover that her “love” demon lover intends to his twenty-five- year-old promise when he return back he will be with her .The demon lover who has come back to take Mrs. Drover away with him due because of her broken promise, taking to her death which is the fact that he “the