Elizabeth Bowen's The Demon Lover

3 March 12, 2014
The Promise
In the short story “The Demon Lover,” written by Elizabeth Bowen, she describes a story of a middle aged woman who had made a promise with her fiancé twenty-five years ago. It begins by Mrs. Kathleen Drover coming back to her old bombed house in London to pick up a few things left behind. While she was there, Mrs. Drover finds a letter which makes her recall of her soldier fiancé twenty-five years ago and the promise that he made her make. After she had read the letter she goes to get a taxi and screams when she sees the driver’s face. Bowen implies two possible hypotheses in this short story: one being that Mrs. Drover is mentally unstable and she is hallucinating things and events, or that there is something
Bowen portrays Kathleen’s arrival to her home in London as a surprise because no one knew she was going to come today; while Kathleen was there she found a letter addressed to her. Bowen implies that the letter did not get there through the mail because “…the post office [redirects Kathleen’s mail], to the address in the country… [and this particular letter]…bore no stamp.” (5). The letter which had this days date talked about Kathleen’s anniversary with her long ago soldier fiancé and the promise they made before he left; which by the fact was signed “K.” The fact that no one knew Kathleen was going to be there this day seems to indicate that she brought in the letter with her. For the most part people who are mentally
Bowen writes that Kathleen “never knew much about [her soldier] fiancé [and she] never saw completely his face… [When they would talk outside the garden, she would sometimes]…verify his presence by putting out her hand… [which] he pressed painfully on one of his buttons… [and cut her palm]… [One night Kathleen] felt that unnatural promise drive down between her and the rest of humankind.” If Kathleen’s soldier fiancé was some kind of demon it would be accurate that it would let anyone see his face. The fact that Kathleen had to put out her had seems to be that his presence might have been there sometimes as a spirit but once she would but out her hand he could have verified his presence but marking her. Bowen seems to indicate that everything related with the fiancé was unnatural such as the “unnatural promise.” This unnatural promise affected Kathleen so much that she isolated herself from everything and everyone. The fiancé might be a supernatural being that is after Kathleen