Elizabeth Bowen - "The Demon Lover" and "Mysterious Kôr" as stories of suspens and stories of war (PDF)

Seminar paper from the year 2002 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2.0 (B), Saarland University (Institute for Anglistics, American Studies and Anglophone Cultures), course: Literature Advanced Seminar, language: English, abstract: Elizabeth Bowen is a well-known author of the twentieth century. Among her biggest success are the novels The Death of the Heart and The Heat of the Day but also some of her short stories won fame in world literature of the last century. Many of her novels and short stories include important elements concerning the Second World War, especially London during the Blitz. Bowen herself worked as an air raid precautious warden during World War II when German bombers regularly attacked London. Her stories successfully try to capture life under this stressful and often frustrating situation of war. She focuses on the different ways ordinary people try to cope with the dread of devastation and the loss of family and friends. In many of her stories she emphasizes that this was a special time in wartime London: "[...] in wartime many people had strange deep intense dreams"1. "The Demon Lover", one of her most famous short stories, and "Mysterious Kôr" are part of "The War Years" stories in Elizabeth Bowen Collected Stories2. Both tales count to those stories, which are temporarily situated during wartime London. The following essay focuses on "The Demon Lover" as a story of suspense and gives a portrait of an unhappy woman, who perishes on the two World wars. "Mysterious Kôr" is also a story of suspense, not in a classical threatening, but in a positive sense. It shows how people in a situation of war helped themselves by means of dreams, to at least grant their souls some shelter.