The Demon Lover by Elizabeth Bowen

Elizabeth Bowen’s ‘The Demon Lover’ is a short story centred around the idea of repression and memories from the past coming into the present. The narrative follows Mrs Kathleen Drover, a housewife, returning to her abandoned home in London to collect some possessions left behind. A dark and tense atmosphere is created through the use of pathetic fallacy and the presence of silence (“Dead air came out to meet her as she went in.” p.743) to bring forward the extent of Mrs Drover’s repression.

Within this short story there is many elements that can be analysed through Freud’s theory of the uncanny. For example, the uncanny taxi at the end of the story. It leaves Kathleen’s fate uncertain in terms of explaining what happens next, however, the implications that she is taken away forever are certain. This leaves the reader contemplating on whether she is killed, enabling the taxi to become a metaphor for her journey to death. The idea of death/ spirits from the other side coming back throughout the narrative is also shown through the idea of repression of past events. An example of this is through the ominous letter that appears in Kathleen’s abandoned home. It turns out to be from her lover who died fighting in the war 25 years prior, keeping his promise that they would always be together. The placement of the letter creates an eerie atmosphere, similarly to the use of silence, to bring the reader’s attention to the idea of events in the past coming back to haunt the protagonist in the present.

The binary opposition of the abandoned row of houses and the busy street of London shows the impacts of war. Most residential streets within the city were separated and moved away, while the main streets were still bustling. This contrast shows how communities that left the city during the war never returned, leaving the empty houses to serve as a reminder of the traumatic events. Kathleen becomes the example of the return of the past through her revisit to the London home, with the ominous promise she made to her past lover a haunting turn of events.

Overall, ‘The Demon Lover’ is a dark narrative that engages the reader into thinking about how repression of memories and events can always come back to haunt you.

I hope you enjoyed my post on one of Bowen’s short stories. Please let me know what you think of ‘The Demon Lover’ and any other story you have read!

Mary

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References:

Elizabeth Bowen, ‘The Demon Lover’ in The Collected Stories of Elizabeth Bowen, (Vintage, London: 1999), p.3-880 (pp. 743)