The_Demon_Lover

The Demon Lover During times of war, “people [are] often led down strange paths in search of indestructible landmarks in a destructible world” (Mitchell 44). Hallucinations provide such landmarks in extreme moments. Paranoia appears to those who encounter the intense emotions of war. The psychological shocks of war deprive and fray emotions. Pressures from a previous war threaten uncertainties and fears. In “The Demon Lover,” Elizabeth Bowen reflects how war can take revenge on a person’s emotions through her use of setting and characterization. In “The Demon Lover”, Bowen’s use of setting exemplifies that war can take revenge on a person’s emotions. While walking up to Kathleen Drover’s old home, “an unfamiliar queerness” fills her from the inside out (346). The visit home in which she experiences war, unsettles her. Memories of war escalate inside her. For Mrs. Drover, already prone to a sense of loss, “the return to the house is a shattering revelation, a threshold experience that activates her dormant hysteria” which brews inside her after all these years (Hughes 52). As Kathleen nudges her front door open, “dead air” greets her with remembrance of her past feelings (346). A ghost-like war, mrs, kathleen, emotions, lover, drover’s, bowen, revenge, drover, take, setting, paranoia, home, demon, person’s, nervous, life, hallucinations, elizabeth, breakdown, while, upon, through, someone, people, one, old, memories, inside, feelings, experiences, characterization, bowen’s, after, 346