Demon Lover

DEMON'S WRATH

Elizabeth Bowen's "The Demon Lover" is the story of Kathleen Drover's repressed fear driving her to psychotic madness. The story shows us that what you create in your mind is a reflection of who you are inside.

Kathleen Drover is an indirect casualty of war. When she was 19, Kathleen had lost her fiancй to the First World War. After she heard of his death, she had entered a state of depression that lasted 13 years. During this time, the pledge of binding love that they had made to one another became nothing but a sinister troth. Over time, the memories she had of him entwined with her depression, and he himself became a cold, faceless figure in her dark imagination. However, when Kathleen married William Drover, she had forgot her lost fiancй. Now, 25 years later and with Britain again at war, Kathleen has returned to her old house to collect some things for her family in the country. When Kathleen first finds the letter, she does not open it right away. She waited till she got anxious enough to open the letter. Though the envelope may have been real, the message itself may have been created in her mind. In the end, Kathleen believes she is being spirited away by her demon lover, but now she has become totally deluded. As she enters the taxi, the church clock strikes seven, she then remembers the note saying he would come for her "as the hour arranged." She then believes that her time has come and she suspects the taxi driver to be the evil demon or even her fiancй that has come for her. Kathleen starts to scream in frenzy as she imagines herself being taken into barren, war-torn streets.

Kathleen has lost not only lost her lover, but has lost his entire memory to war. War, not a vengeful lover, is the demon that haunts this frightened woman.