“The Demon Lover” is a short story about a woman, Kathleen Drover, returning to her abandoned home in London to collect old belongings. The moment Kathleen reached her destination at the house, she began to feel unsettled and anxious. Kathleen’s once familiar home now gave off an unfamiliar queerness (Bowen 1). Kathleen and her family evacuated their quaint house to move to the countryside for safety from the destruction of war. As Kathleen explores her house more, she encounters unexpected items and occurrences. Several book critics have varying opinions on what the moral of the story is. I believe that there can be a great number of interpretations of The Demon Lover; however, the theme of the story is the effects that war has on civilians. …show more content…
At the beginning of the story, the readers are told that Kathleen has returned to her old house in London to collect a few belongings. Almost immediately, the tone of the story is eerie and uneasy. She has trouble unlocking the house and is overwhelmed by a sense of oddness as she investigates the remains of her former home. She soon discovers a letter left on the escritoire that was dated for the same day she had arrived. Kathleen reads the mysterious letter and soon realizes it is a letter from her supposed dead fiancé, a soldier, from two decades ago (Bowen 3). The letter is vague and she had not remembered what promise the letter had referred to. I believe the author wants the readers to infer that the promise made was the promise for Kathleen to marry the soldier, but when the soldier was presumed dead, Kathleen had no obligations to wait anymore, and she could move on with her life. Mrs. Drover romanticized soldiers and I believe she was only infatuated with the idea of her old fiancé and she did not love him for who he was. When his presumed death was announced, she did not feel an enormous amount of grief, yet, Kathleen was almost relieved. I believe Kathleen realizes that she did not love her fiancé, and that she has barely even knew him before he left for the war (Bowen
In the “Demon Lover”, Elizabeth Bowen uses foreshadowing, flashback, and point of view to convey a story of a young woman haunted by her pass. In the short story The Demon Lover, Mrs. Drover returns to her home to collect some personal belongings during the aftermath of a recent bombing, while gathering things she finds a letter and thinks of her long-dead fiancé. This causes for questions to rise. Imagery, flashback, and point of view are all used to convey the story of The Demon Lover by Elizabeth Bowen.
H.W. Brands' book was a pretty solid read. It provided a different outlook on the Cold War, as it sought to show that it was not merely an American victory over "communism" and the Russians. There was far more to the Cold War than most Americans would care to admit, but Brands puts it out there for the reader to take in.
The battle with love is a major struggle to even the most pure souls. The obsessive nature controlling ones mind can cause people to act in demonic ways. In Demon Lover written by Elizabeth Bowen, the author portrays the short story in a setting surrounded by distress and chaos. The gloomy background followed the protagonist Kathleen Drover throughout the entire story, portraying her twisted fate. Like this story, the Scottish ballad of Demon Lover, whose author is unknown, had the protagonist in a similar predicament. The stories relate in the same plot and some of the main similarities include that both women were being stalked and hunted down, both women had families away kept away from their ex lovers, and both women end up with their lovers
“The Devil in the Shape of a Woman” was an excellent book that focuses on the unjusts that have been done to women in the name of witchcraft in Salem, and many other areas as well. It goes over statistical data surrounding gender, property inherence, and the perceptions of women in colonial New England. Unlike the other studies of colonial witchcraft, this book examines it as a whole, other then the usual Salem outbreaks in the late 17th century.
“The Demon Lover” by Elizabeth Bowen is a short story that takes place during World War II in London, England. The main character, Mrs. Drover travels by herself to the bombed city to return to her boarded-up house. While gathering belongings, Mrs. Drover notices particular and out of place that begins to haunt her. The reader witnesses her mental state deteriorate as she begins dreaming of safety. The use of vivid imagery and flashbacks in “The Demon Lover” by Elizabeth Bowen develops the mysterious and paranoid mood throughout the piece of literature.
On page 125, When she was nine, my daughter asked if i had ever killed anyone. She knew about the war, she knew i’d been a soldier . “You keep writing these war stories,” she said,” So i guess you must’ve killed somebody”. It was a difficult moment , but i did what seemed right, which was to say, “ of course not”, and then to take her onto my lap and hold her for a while. Someday , i hope , she’ll ask again. But here i want to pretend she’s a grown -up….}. This quote shows that Kathleen is just a young girl asking many questions to her dad to know if he has ever did anyone because she is very curious and seemed very interested in knowing what her father did when he was in the war. If her dad tells her that he has killed someone then she might think that he is a bad guy and not a good father but killing someone that is so
As the tale begins we immediately can sympathize with the repressive plight of the protagonist. Her romantic imagination is obvious as she describes the "hereditary estate" (Gilman, Wallpaper 170) or the "haunted house" (170) as she would like it to be. She tells us of her husband, John, who "scoffs" (170) at her romantic sentiments and is "practical to the extreme" (170). However, in a time
Milton’s Satan in Paradise Lost is a complex character meant to be the evil figure in the epic poem. Whenever possible Satan attempts to undermine God and the Son of God who is the true hero of the story. Throughout the story Milton tells the readers that Satan is an evil character, he is meant not to have any redeeming qualities, and to be shown completely as an unsympathetic figure. Satan’s greatest sins are pride and vanity in thinking he can overthrow God, and in the early part of the poem he is portrayed as selfish while in Heaven where all of God’s angels are loved and happy. Satan’s journey starts out as a fallen angel with great stature, has the ability to reason and argue, but by Book X the anguish and pain he goes through is
The events in Elisabeth Bower's 'The Demon Lover'; can be explained naturally. The story being as vague as it is leads most to concur with the title of the story and imagine that there is a supernatural aspect in the story. In the short story, Kathleen has returned to her home in London that has been abandoned during the bombing of World War II. She is not expected, yet she finds a letter addressed to her on a table in the hallway. Twenty-five years has past since the leaving of her former lover during World War I. Kathleen's lover is had been presumed dead after months of being missing in action and she has moved on. She is now married to a William Dover and living the countryside with her immediate
In William Styron’s book Sophie’s Choice Styron explains the effects of World war 2 on an American, a Polish person and a Jewish person. Sophie, the polish women, who is forced to make a very difficult decision during the war, a choice that, affects her mental state of mind for the rest of her life. Stingo, the American and narrator of the story struggles to find inspiration for his writing career while also discovering his families past. Nathan, the Jewish man who is hopelessly in love with Sophie a holocaust survivor, lashes out in anger and questions her about her past. Sophie’s Choice uses three characters guilt to portray the hardships of World War 2 and the mental instability it has caused.
Dante's use of allegory in the Inferno greatly varies from Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" in purpose, symbolism, characters and mentors, and in attitude toward the world. An analysis of each of these elements in both allegories will provide an interesting comparison. Dante uses allegory to relate the sinner's punishment to his sin, while Plato uses allegory to discuss ignorance and knowledge. Dante's Inferno describes the descent through Hell from the upper level of the opportunists to the most evil, the treacherous, on the lowest level. His allegorical poem describes a hierarchy of evil.
The Demonata Demon Apocalypse by Darren Shan. How did the demons get to earth and if people are going to fight back against the demons? Demons kill people and Grubbs Grady gets powers so he starts to fight the demons. You should stop whatever you are doing and start to read the book.Why you should read the book. When I was reading the book, it kept me in the edge of my seat.The book has a lot of different demons it doesn’t just stay with the same demon every demon has a different ability like there is one that has six arms and there is a werewolf and much more. This book is the best one in the demonata series it keeps you on your edge of your seat. What other people are saying about the book. People are saying that book six is the best one
Satan’s definitions include the advocate of God, a personification of evil, the fallen angel, a spirit created by God, and also the accuser. People see Satan differently, some know of his existence, others think of him as just a myth, and there are those that just ignore him. John Milton's Paradise Lost tells of Satan's banishment from Heaven and his gain of earth. He and his brigade have plotted war against God and are now doomed to billow in the fiery pits of hell. Satan is a complex character with many different qualities. God is a character who we, as Christians, know about but do not completely understand. We also do not completely understand Satan. Some may think they know Satan but when asked “Is Satan divine?”
Since the beginning of Paradise Lost, a reader can witness the dramatizing power possessed by Satan, and how he takes advantage of this very power in order to satisfy his own causes. One such property of Satan's fantastic powers is his ability to manipulate any individual into a false belief of who he really is, and therefore prevent a habitant of paradise from discovering his true purpose that is hidden behind his actions. One such example of this, and one of the most major in the epic, are the events that occur in Book IX involving Satan and Eve around the forbidden tree. Here, Satan uses, what is to Eve, excellent reasoning to convince her to eat the forbidden fruit, thereby exploiting
Ten children are killed every day in the United States by guns; people are murdered senselessly; Columbine High School; Over one-third of middle school children in Cascade County have used illegal drugs and over one-half have tried alcohol; innocent people in foreign countries are being wiped out (Kosovo); The Holocaust; Hiroshima; Vietnam; poverty, starvation and oppression in third world countries; Capitalism; environmental decay and neglect; the media; Oklahoma City; the uni-bomber; earthquakes, fires, tornadoes, hurricanes, volcanoes, airplane crashes; domestic/child abuse; disease, birth defects and mental disorders. Why?Why?Why?… The question never changes and is asked over and over and over and