1. “The Demon Lover” by Elizabeth Bowen

2. About the author… Elizabeth Bowen (1899-1973) –Born in Dublin, Ireland. –Father suffered a nervous breakdown when she was 7 –Sent away to England to live with her mother –Mother died of cancer when she was 13

3. Elizabeth Bowen During the last year of WWI, she returned to Dublin and nursed soldiers suffering from shell shock. In 1918, she returned to London and began writing stories. She published more than 20 novels and volumes of short stories.

4. Elizabeth Bowen Other jobs: –Worked for the Tatler –Worked in the Ministry of Information during WWII –During “The Blitz,” she volunteered as an air-raid warden. Her home was bombed The hotel she and her husband took refuge in was bombed

5. Picture from “The Blitz”

6. London During WWII The flashbacks in this story are set during “The Blitz” The Blitz- a series of German nightly air attacks designed to force Britain to surrender. German aircraft bombed British cities for more than 4 yrs

7. The Blitz People hid in subway tunnels and shelters Some left the cities and moved to the country

8. Air raid tunnels

9. Air Raid Warden saving a girl

10. Advertisements for bomb safety precautions during “The Blitz”

11. Things to know before reading the story Mrs. Drover- the protagonist –Rich –Moved to the country to escape “The Blitz” –As the story begins, she is returning to her home to fetch some personal belongings.

12. Bowen’s Stories: –Bowen uses setting to build suspense in the story –She also uses flashbacks and foreshadowing –In Bowen’s stories, a fundamental uncertainty is ascribed to the individual, and the ghosts from that individual’s past dissolve the line between the present and the past –The reader is thus left to make the moral decision at the end: to decide what should happen to Mrs. Drover. That decision is not supposed to be easy.

13. Sources…if you’re interested: http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/ransomedition/2008/spring/bowen.html Identity at Risk: An Analysis of Female Identity in Four of Elizabeth Bowen’s Wartime Texts / Ingfrid Thowsen, 2007 "Even a Shelter's Not Safe": The Blitz on Homes in Elizabeth Bowen's Wartime Writing / Kristine A. Miller, Twentieth Century Literature, 1999 Nostalgic narcissism in comic and tragic perspectives: Elizabeth Bowen's two fictional reworkings of a Tennyson lyric / Martin Bidney, Studies in Short Fiction, 1996. Postscript U.S. edition The Demon Lover / Elizabeth Bowen Lecture 6-11-2008 on D.H. Lawrence / Michael Newton Collected Stories / Elizabeth Bowen, Vintage, 1999