Transcript Frankenstein - Miller Hosey

“THE DEMON LOVER”
By Elizabeth Bowen
“THE DEMON LOVER”
Allusion
•English
Ballad
•Absent
lover
•Intervening
•Desertion
return
marriage
upon lover’s
“THE DEMON LOVER”
Setting and Mood
•PRESENT
•Month
and year: August, 1941
•War: London Blitz WWII
•House with cracks on a deserted street
•Weather: Humid, sunny day interrupted by rain
•PAST
•August 1916, WWI
“THE DEMON LOVER”
Setting and Mood
•Shut-up
house
•Steamy, showery day
•Humid, yellow, afternoon sun
•Batch of clouds…ink-dark
•Broken chimney
•Cat wove itself
•No human eye watcher Mrs. Drover’s return
“THE DEMON LOVER”
Setting and Mood
Death and Decay
•War
destroyed London - blitz
•Buildings
and silence
•Abandoned
•Lives
lost
“THE DEMON LOVER”
Flashback & Foreshadowing
•Fiancé
•Letter
left for war and went missing
signed “K” from fiancé
•Fiancé
alive
•Indicates she might have to confront him
•She broke promise
“THE DEMON LOVER”
PoV
3rd Person Omniscient
God-like perspective not restricted to
time and place
Switches to 1st person – why?
“THE DEMON LOVER”
Protagonist
Mrs. Kathleen Drover
• Age:
• 44 years old
• Family:
• husband, 3 boys, sister
• Physical appearance
• Thin from wartime rations
Stability and dependability
Completely unnerved by the letter
“THE DEMON LOVER”
Symbolism
Structurally unsound HOUSE
• Wartime damage
• Mrs. Drover’s PSYCHE is damaged by war
• Muscular flicker on the side of her mouth
• Lost husband, displaced family
• Letter and taxi – exist??
“THE DEMON LOVER”
The CLOCK
Symbolism
• Passage of time
• Importance of time
• WWI – peace – WWII
“THE DEMON LOVER”
Symbolism
The LETTER
• Signed by “K” – her own initial
• WWII triggers repressed memories of WWI – lover
• Cannot remember lover’s face (may be Everyman)
• War is a DEMON that lingers over her
“THE DEMON LOVER”
Symbolism
The TAXI and the DRIVER
• Knows where to take her
• Heaven (save) or Hell (torture)
• Can’t escape from taxi…WAR
• Driver
• Only sees his face
• Can’t remember face of fiancé
• Does it/he exist??
• Who do you think it is??
“THE DEMON LOVER”
Themes
Appearance vs. Reality
• Similar to “The Necklace”
Heaven vs. Hell
Sanity vs. Insanity
“THE DEMON LOVER”
Themes
Death vs. Life – surviving the war
War vs. Peace – after WWI
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War disrupts Drover’s family
Takes her fiancé
Internal war of lover returning
War or driver cause her to scream in taxi?
“THE DEMON LOVER”
By Elizabeth Bowen
Does she see the visage of her fiancé?
OR
Does she have an emotional and
psychological breakdown?