Elizabeth Bowen's The Demon Lover

The article on the fantasy within the novella reveals the debate of the governess’s mental state during her time with the children. The debacle that can be depicted within the work can be surrounded through the idea that her fantasies represent the point in which she is at her most anxious. When her anxiety reaches a certain peak, the ghost then appears. This can especially be seen just before the first sighting, when she says, “I was giving pleasure-if he ever thought of it! - to the person to whose pressure I had yielded” (38). The pressure she is experiencing allows her mental state to bring out the fantasy aspect of the apparition. Using Zacharias’s article, the audience can see the fantasy is a mechanism that is used by the governess and

Now there is the matter of how did the letter get to the house. The story mentions that the door was warped. Mrs. Dover had a hard time getting her key into the lock. Was the door even locked at all? There is

The seclusion endured by the narrator causes a dramatic change in her mental state. Her surroundings are now coming alive within the walls around her. “I didn’t realize for a long time what the thing was that showed behind, that dim sub-pattern, but now I am quite sure it is a woman” (736). Initially, the figure witnessed around the walls was merely just the shadow projected from the narrator creeping around the paper. Now this shadow is taking on not just any life form but ironically the form of a woman. Just like the narrator is trapped within the barred windows of the mansion, the woman is trapped within the patterns of the paper. This parallel view is transforming the narrator’s identity within the walls of the paper. However, this obsession begins to heighten. She begins to see the woman through every window in the bedroom. She appears to be creeping not only around the walls but now outside in the garden and along the

99) Along with other narrators, Bromberg has “little to report about the next phase [1932 through the beginning of World War II] until they are directly affected by the war through military conscription or Allied bombing raids on their home town” (Bessel, p. 101). Herbert’s recurring theme is that “’Quiet’, ‘normal’ times, then, clearly leave behind few experiences that are imprinted on the memory and recalled in the narratives; ‘disturbed’, ‘bad’ times are filled with unique and extraordinary experiences, and come up at corresponding length in the life stories” (Bessel, p. 101).

Carol Karlsen 's "The Devil in the Shape of a Woman” was written to provide the reader with an understanding of the role of the “witch” in colonial New England. During the early colonial period, pilgrims lived in a male-dominated society and the classical witch hunts were conducted in an attempt to maintain this societal structure. Since these hunts were placed under a religious guise, it was simple for these individuals to act as if they were maintaining the safety and justice of society. Karlsen explains that in many instances, women who were labelled as witches were often females that had managed to acquire great economic and social status and society. In fear of these women, the neighborhood targeted them and called them witches to weaken their power. Independent of guilt, women who were accused of witchcraft could not possibly recovered. If they claimed their innocence, they would be stoned or burned to death because the counsel would decide that they were not being truthful. If they admitted to their guilt, their place in society would be marred and they would be embarrassed for partaking in these evil acts. Through this violence, men have been able to maintain their place in Puritan society. In her book, Karlsen aims to provide the reader new insight into the witch trials, demonstrating the societal, rather than religious causes for this well-known historic tragedy.

The terrifying step from adolescence into adulthood is evident in memoirs, Night and Derivative Sport in Tornado Alley. Elie Wiesel, author of Night, tells of his time as a child during the terror of the Third Reich. Wiesel writes to expose the malevolence of man and how it destroyed his innocence. In a similar vein, David Foster

Imagine living in a city where hundreds of people go missing in just six months. Then, we find out that one person is suspected of killing over 200 people. This serial killer was Herman Webster Mudgett, common alias H. H. Holmes. At the Chicago World’s Fair, when the head architect, Daniel Hudson Burnham, attracted thousands of people to Chicago, hundreds of people went missing and nobody noticed. However, through historical records, letters, and documents, we know that Burnham’s intentions were good. In Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City, Holmes and Burnham were polar opposites brought together by the Chicago World's Fair. Holmes represented evil while Burnham represented good. However, they did have two things in common, their negative perspective about women and their need for riches.

From 1939 through 1941 millions were faced with the violence and devastation of World War II. Life on the Homefront in the United States and Great Britain was difficult and overwhelming.World War II was one of the most bloody battles in history, and most of whom were civilians.In this paper, we will explore what life is like for people during a terrifying war.

When the narrator first encounters the girl, his friend's older sister, he can only see her silhouette in the “light from the half-opened door”. This is the beginning of his infatuation with the girl. After his discovery, he is plagued by thoughts of the girl which make his daily obligations seem like “ugly, monotonous, child's play”. He has become blinded by the light. The narrator not only fails to learn the name of his “girl”, he does not realize that his infatuation with a woman considerably older than himself is not appropriate. He relishes in his infatuation, feeling “thankful [he] could see so little” while he thinks of the distant “lamp or lighted window” that represents his girl. The narrator is engulfed by the false light that is his futile love.

Finally, the reader is introduced to the character around whom the story is centered, the accursed murderess, Mrs. Wright. She is depicted to be a person of great life and vitality in her younger years, yet her life as Mrs. Wright is portrayed as one of grim sameness, maintaining a humorless daily grind, devoid of life as one regards it in a normal social sense. Although it is clear to the reader that Mrs. Wright is indeed the culprit, she is portrayed sympathetically because of that very lack of normalcy in her daily routine. Where she was once a girl of fun and laughter, it is clear that over the years she has been forced into a reclusive shell by a marriage to a man who has been singularly oppressive. It is equally clear that she finally was brought to her personal breaking point, dealing with her situation in a manner that was at once final and yet inconclusive, depending on the outcome of the legal investigation. It is notable that regardless of the outcome, Mrs. Wright had finally realized a state of peace within herself, a state which had been denied her for the duration of her relationship with the deceased.

As long as there has been war, those involved have managed to get their story out. This can be a method of coping with choices made or a way to deal with atrocities that have been witnessed. It can also be a means of telling the story of war for those that may have a keen interest in it. Regardless of the reason, a few themes have been a reoccurrence throughout. In ‘A Long Way Gone,’ ‘Slaughterhouse-Five,’ and ‘Novel without a Name,’ three narrators take the readers through their memories of war and destruction ending in survival and revelation. The common revelation of these stories is one of regret. Each of these books begins with the main character as an innocent, patriotic soldier or civilian and ends in either the loss of innocence and regret of choices only to be compensated with as a dire warning to those that may read it. These books are in fact antiwar stories meant not to detest patriotism or pride for one’s country or way of life, but to detest the conditions that lead to one being so simpleminded to kill another for it. The firebombing of Dresden, the mass execution of innocent civilians in Sierra Leone and a generation of people lost to the gruesome and outlandish way of life of communism and Marxism should be enough to convince anyone. These stories serve as another perspective for the not-so-easily convinced.

In the article “Bearing Demons” by Margaret Homans, Homans emphases how Mary Shelly incorporates the way women were portrayed in Frankenstein’s time period and how they were devalued and undermined throughout the novel and it reveals how women made a huge impact on the preparations that emerged Frankenstein to create the “demon”. Homans believes that Victors drive to create the monster was due to his early passion for science and the destruction of the mother. Homans main idea is to come across the understanding that Frankensteins creates the monster out of pure interest due to science, death and loneliness. The article includes how at the beginning of the novel Victor is preparing to go to the university of Ingolstadt until he had postponed

The human brain is a muscle in the body with extraordinary characteristics and capabilities. It can formulate people or ideas that appear real, when in reality the brain is constructing an illusion that only they can see, using their fears and weaknesses against them. Elizabeth Bowden demonstrates this in the short story “The Demon Lover” when the main character, Mrs. Dover, returns to her old, abandoned house to collect her belongings, however, she is met with horrific, unwanted memories and thoughts that engulf her and present her fear through the appearance of a ghost ex-lover. The ‘Demon Lover” is not just a true ghost story, but a brilliant presentation of the main character’s mental disorder through the metaphorical use of setting and

In “The Son of Man,” Natalia Ginzburg asserts that while the war did irreparable psychological damage to its survivors, it also gave the young generation enough strength to confront the stark reality of the precarious nature of human existence. Passionately but concisely, through the use of repetitive imagery, fatalistic tone and lack of classic organization, Ginzburg shows how the war changed the world around Man and how Man changed his perception of the world.

Mrs Hayward is a contradictory character who is established through Stephen’s fragmented memory to be both a character of smiling perfection and a broken woman, sitting in the dust weeping. She is both the embodiment of a perfect British wartime wife and a character of suspicion; a spy, a traitor, the epitome of deceit and the focus of two young boys’ overzealous imagination.