The Demon Lover Analysis

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All stories evolve from one fundamental tale. Examples of this is how “The Demon Lover” by Elizabeth Bowen is based off of the Scottish ballad “The Daemon Lover.” Even though Bowen’s text is based off of the Scottish ballad, Bowen’s text has many differences that sets it apart from the original text. For example, Bowen’s retelling contains a flashback that allows for a greater understanding of the characters, while the Scottish ballad is a relatively short tale where one does not obtain as much information. Both stories contain main female characters, the husbands of the female characters, and former lovers of the female characters. The former lovers may cause conflict, but the fault also belongs to the female characters, as well.
In the Scottish …show more content…
Because Kathleen made a promise to her former ex-fiance, she ended up being taken away at the end of the retelling. The flashback that occurs in the story helps establish the message by introducing the promise that Kathleen made to her ex-fiance. Her ex-fiance relays “You need do nothing but wait” which stresses how her ex-fiance was relying on Kathleen to wait for him (Bowen 11). When we come back to the present, Kathleen reflects on her promise thinking, “...she already felt that unnatural promise drive down between her and the rest of all human kind” (11). The fact that she felt uneasy after she made her promise, proves that she should not have made the promise in the first place. Furthermore, Kathleen pays the price for not keeping her promise when, “...the taxi, accelerating without mercy, made off with her into the hinterland of deserted streets” (17). One knows that her ex-fiance is the one who takes her at the end due to a letter he sent to her telling her that he would be awaiting for her at a certain hour. She made a promise to him without knowing whether she would be able to keep it or not, which is something one shouldn’t do. Because she did not keep her promise to him and got married to another man, she got dragged away in the
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