Elizabeth Bowen's The Demon Lover

In the novel In a Glass Darkly, author Le Fanu expresses perspectives on the supernatural world through the memoirs of Dr. Hesselius, a physician who studies metaphysical illnesses. The first three short stories, titled “Green Tea,” “The Familiar,” and “Mr. Justice Harbottle,” involve separate patients that Hesselius writes on. Through these stories, the novel expounds themes concerning the supernatural’s effect on the real world, the guilty consciences of the haunted victims, and the ambiguity of the spirits and demons supposedly seen.

    As the time passes she can clearly see the woman in the paper. The woman in the paper is quiet and peaceful during the day, but at night she is imprisoned by the bars in the paper. This is reflection helps the narrator identify her own bars--her husband John. He is away during the day and at home in the same bed with her at night. She also identifies with the woman in the paper by sharing their similar routine. "At night in any kind of light, in twilight, candlelight, lamplight, and worst of all by moonlight, it becomes bars! The outside pattern I mean, and the woman behind it is as plain as can be"..."by daylight she is subdued, quiet. I fancy its the pattern that keeps her so still. It is so puzzling. It keeps me quiet by the hour".

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.

As the women walk through the house, they begin to get a feel for what Mrs. Wright’s life is like. They notice things like the limited kitchen space, the broken stove, and the broken jars of fruit and begin to realize the day-to-day struggles that Mrs. Wright endured. The entire house has a solemn, depressing atmosphere. Mrs. Hale regretfully comments that, for this reason and the fact that Mr. Wright is a difficult man to be around, she never came to visit her old friend, Mrs. Wright.

“Don’t judge a book by its cover.” “We are all equal.” “ No one person is greater than another person.” “Treat others the way you would want to be treated” These are all sayings we have heard in our life, all of those quotes had one thing in common they are all about treating people fairly and not discriminating against other people.Not all human beings are alike matter of fact no human beings are like and I guess some people feel like just because other people aren’t like them they should be treated the way they would. In the texts “The Wife’s story “ by Ursula Leguinn , “I, Too” by Langston hughes , and “Towards a true refugee ” by Suu Kyi each of these stories were created by authors who showed us their viewpoints on tolerance. When

Darkness is a recurring image in literature that evokes a universal unknown, yet is often entrenched in many meanings. A master poet, Emily Dickinson employs darkness as a metaphor many times throughout her poetry. In “We grow accustomed to the dark” (#428) she talks of the “newness” that awaits when we “fit our Vision to the Dark.” As enigmatic and shrouded in mystery as the dark she explores, Dickinson's poetry seems our only door to understanding the recluse. As she wrote to her friend T.W. Higginson on April 15, 1862, “the Mind is so near itself – it cannot see, distinctly”(Letters 253). In this musing, she acquiesces to a notion that man remains locked in an internal struggle with himself. This inner

Cynthia Rowland was an outwardly vivacious and successful television news reporter, who inwardly had slipped into the depths of bulimia. An addiction to binging and purging and heavy doses of laxatives finally landed her in treatment. The Monster Within tells the story of her descent into sickness, her struggle to learn why she was engaging in slow suicide, and the courage and grace it took to get well.

The essay, “No Sympathy for the Devil”, written by Heather Havrilesky, is about the concept of antiheroes, and how much of an impact they have made on modern media and the characters hollywood choose to create. For many years, most of the TV and movies made had a cookie cutter, almost perfect hero(s). But as of late, the entertainment industry has come to the realization that people with pros and vices, are much easier for the audience to relate to. Heather’s goal is to dive further into these antihero characters, and unravel what exactly makes them so relatable. In the process of explaining to us all of these different, complex characters, Havrilesky seems to get lost in her topic from time to time. However, the evidence she uses to back all of her claims is both plentiful, and very strong. The overall tone of the essay is not excessively opinionated, yet she does not sound

The Demon’s Parchment, by Jeri Westerson, follows private investigator Crispin Guest and his apprentice Jack as they investigate a series of mysterious murders in 1350s England. The historical setting of the book references the Medieval Period of Europe, a dark age filled with superstition, disease, and political overturn. Westerson’s setting incorporates elements of religion and politics, offering a view of Medieval England from Guest’s perspective; the narrative also does a thorough job accurately describing the breadth and depth of the Christian-Jewish hostility of the era, as well as portraying the enormous role of the English Church in everyday life.

Hitchcock’s 1946 Notorious takes place in the morally ambiguous world of post-World War II where the questioning of alliances and moralities have reached a breaking point. Alicia, the daughter of an incarcerated Nazi supporter, finds herself in the midst of a purgatory world stuck in between love and hate, in other words one of ambivalence. When she is asked to travel to South America to become close to one of her father’s German contacts so that the American Government may gain valuable information about their upcoming plans she readily accepts in an effort to escape her destructive tendencies. This state of ambivalence as discussed in Philips “Against Self-Criticism” entails conflicting feelings of hatred and love for the same individual lead to a world of uncertainty or irrationality, the death drive, where the lines of morality only continue to be blurred as illustrated by Alicia, Sebastian her father’s contact whom she has wed in order to gain information, his mother, and Devlin the American Agent whom she has fallen in love with. In other words, intoxication amidst ambivalence leads to the death drive which is the driving force of the storyline aimed to showcase the extremes of this desire of self-destruction reinforced by destroying the ones who they show ambivalence towards. This drive shown in Laplanche and Pontalis’ “The Language of Psych-Analysis” is the desire for self-destruction

n 1918, the world seems on the verge of apocalypse. Americans roam the streets in gauze masks to ward off the deadly Spanish influenza, and the government ships young men to the front lines, creating an atmosphere of fear and confusion. Sixteen year old Mary Shelley Black watches as desperate mourners flock to seances and spirit photographers for comfort, but Mary Shelley has never believed in ghosts. During her bleakest moment, however, she's forced to rethink her entire way of looking at life and death, for her first love; a boy who died in battle, returns. But what does he want from

“There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air” (7). Mrs. Mallard started to feel a minimal amount of freedom from her husband. “ When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: “free, free, free! The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stared keen and bright. Her pulse beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body” (7). Mrs. Mallard’s emotions are described through imagery. Imagery helps us to get a feeling of what is happening in the story through wordplay, and

Seth Schaller Chris Lipovsky Mrs. Costanzo English 11,Period 7 18 September, 2014 Story of an Hour Mrs. Mallard changes from a sick and unhappy young woman to a happy and independent widow as the result of realizing her freedom after her husband’s death. Death normally is not associated with happiness but with the overwhelming situation of being a woman in the 1800’s, it was almost a blessing to go from containment to freedom. Unfortunately, this feeling of freedom was only a feeling and nothing more.

Kirsteva, J. 1982. Powers of Horror: An essay on abjection. New York: Columbia University Press.

Touched by fading moonlight, the girl looked pale as a ghost, distressed and sorrowful. Great drops fell from her eyes; the heavy rain clouds in her mind let loose their turbulent nature. She felt the muscle of her chin trembled like a small child, again, she looked toward the window as if the darkness outside could soothe her. However, she tried to keep her sobbing down by biting her lips, afraid the woman would “visit” again. Meanwhile, in the hallway, there was only deadly silence, creating an overwhelming sense of emptiness.