Slave to Delusion Some people tell the truth and some people show the truth. Elizabeth Bowen shows the truth in her story, “The Demon Lover”. Her story is about a forty four year old woman who revisits her childhood home to collect some possessions for her family. However, the woman finds a letter from an unknown source that she believes is from her dead fiancé. Many readers believe this piece of fiction to be a ghost story, but it is one that is about a woman with acute psychological delusion portrayed through the use of characterization and occasion. Bowen begins her dramatization by defining the woman’s psychological delusion through the characterization of her anxiety and isolation. She establishes the woman’s anxiety in the beginning
To believe that it is impossible to imagine a letter, is someone who does not know the mind of a person plagued with psychological delusion. She could have completely imagined it or it may have been a bill, an idea which she had earlier rejected. The narrator suggests that, “she felt intruded upon-- and by someone contemptuous of her ways”. But in the time that she ran up the stairs to read the letter, she could have fabricated the material in her head, and subconsciously imagined the feeling of another outside person, which would validate her story. Similarly, the face that she could not remember of her first fiancé is another valid argument that this is a ghost story by the opposing side, but is once again linked to symptoms of her delusion. The audience should realize that she had not imagined her fiancé because her family knew him enough to know he was not kind to her. Most likely, the woman was not able to remember her first fiancé’s face because she subconsciously blocked it out through time. Whether this is because of their abusive connection or his premature death is unknown but crucial in explaining the absence of his face in her memory. “The Demon Lover” exhibits much support of the one critic’s claim that “The Demon Lover” is “a masterful dramatization of acute psychological delusion”. Elizabeth Bowen does this through her uses of literary elements, specifically characterization and occasion. But although she has many details that support a story of a woman with psychological delusion, her main intention may have been to create a ghost story to disguise the woman’s psychological issues. Ultimately, it was a story of a woman with a mental
In Mary Downing Hahn’s “The Ghost of Crutchfield Hall,” Downing Hahn shows that sometimes the best of people who deserve the best end up getting the worst. In this companion book, you will see the difference between the two main characters; Sophia and Florence. You will also find out about the setting and what dangers can go on at Crutchfield Hall. You will see what something in the book symbolizes, including the cat and the mice, and the cold. I will show you Sophia’s mind and her thoughts, and what she is planning on doing, more about her death, and possibilities of what could’ve happened.
A Delusion of Satan was written in 1995 by Frances Hill, and published by Da Capo Press. Frances Hill, an accomplished writer and journalist from London, has been writing for a decent period of time. Aside from publishing two novels, Hill has written fiction reviews for The Time (London) and has worked as a reporter in in both New York and London. With such an accomplished journalist, reporter, and writer, we are due to receive a good read in A Delusion of Satan.
The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions by David Berlinski uses clever and unique critiques of militant atheism and its devotion to scientism. Ten in depth chapters shed light on the dogmatic stance of many of today’s popular “new atheists.” According to Berlinski new atheism poses itself as the sole holder of truth through science, “And like any militant church, this one places a familiar demand before all others: Thou shalt have no other gods before me” (10). Berlinski (a secular Jew) approaches ideas with his own mixture of intelligence and thought filled logic; exploring the world as well as important philosophical questions pertaining to “new atheism”. Thus providing the information needed to explore the sides for both and existence and nonexistence of God.
Trapped in the upstairs of an old mansion with barred windows and disturbing yellow colored wallpaper, the main character is ordered by her husband, a physician, to stay in bed and isolate her mind from any outside wandering thoughts. “The Yellow Wallpaper”, written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, describes the digression of the narrator’s mental state as she suffers from a form of depression. As the story progresses, the hatred she gains for the wallpaper amplifies and her thoughts begin to alter her perception of the room around her. The wallpaper serves as a symbol that mimics the narrator’s trapped and suffering mental state while she slips away from sanity reinforcing the argument that something as simple as wallpaper can completely deteriorate an entire identity.
In this story we see many strange things taking place at a house on Harley Street in a town called Bly. We meet Mrs. Grose a housekeeper who is taking care of the house while the master is out of town. The governess, also the narrator and unnamed in this story, has more credentials than the housekeeper and is mainly in charge of caring for the children. Flora and Miles, two young children who are left in the care of these women until their uncle returns. Throughout the story the governess explains to Mrs. Grose that she is seeing two people staring at her. At first Mrs. Grose thinks what she is saying is ridiculous, but after careful examination she begins to agree with the governess. The governess explains in full detail what these people looked like and Mrs. Grose tells her it's the ghosts of Peter Quint (the previous butler) and Miss. Jessel (a previous maid).
...ouse wives, and mothers who are fragile and insignificant. Instead, she is to remain in a “closed pot” (228), just as she is expected to do. As a result, she cries at the truth that she will always be reminded, that she is a “weak” and “useless” woman, which only increases her frustrations and dissatisfactions about her marriage (238).
This poem dramatizes the conflict between love and lust, particularly as this conflict relates to what the speaker seems to say about last night. In the poem “Last Night” by Sharon Olds, the narrator uses symbolism and sexual innuendo to reflect on her lust for her partner from the night before. The narrator refers to her night by stating, “Love? It was more like dragonflies in the sun, 100 degrees at noon.” (2, 3) She describes it as being not as great as she imagined it to be and not being love, but lust. Olds uses lust, sex and symbolism as the themes in the story about “Last night”.
Many people on this earth will commit a sin, they find they wish they had not, and 1 in every 5 Americans suffer from a mental illness. In a story named “Young Goodman Brown” by the author Nathaniel Hawthorne, the people in his story have all sinned and meet with the Devil. Then in another story named “The Yellow Wallpaper” by the author Charlotte Perkins Gilman the main character is suffering from a mental illness while her husband, a psychiatrist, tries to help her, but in doing so only makes her condition worse. Throughout both literary texts of “The Yellow Wallpaper” and “Young Goodman Brown,” the authors show numerous entries of Gothic Literature. And although “Young Goodman Brown” and the “Yellow Wallpaper” share similar Gothic elements, the two stories are very much different.
The creation of a stressful psychological state of mind is prevalent in the story “The Yellow Wall-Paper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, as well as, Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart”, Ophelia’s struggles in William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”, and the self-inflicted sickness seen in William Blake’s “Mad Song”. All the characters, in these stories and poems, are subjected to external forces that plant the seed of irrationality into their minds; thus, creating an adverse intellectual reaction, that from an outsider’s point of view, could be misconstrued as being in an altered state due to the introduction of a drug, prescribed or otherwise, furthering the percep...
“…one could not be certain witness to anything: Miriam, so vividly there – and yet, where was she? Where, where?” In the fictional short story Miriam by Truman Capote, Miriam is a queer, mysterious little girl who haunts Mrs. H. T. Miller, a widow who lives alone and isolated in an apartment. Throughout the short story, Miriam remains strange and mysterious, and the story ends inconclusively, with the question “who is Miriam?” unanswered. But through evidence found throughout the text, readers are able to speculate who, or what, Miriam is. From my perspective and the evidence gathered, I believe Miriam is a supernatural being; a mischievous Angel of Death who likes to ‘play’ with her victims for a while before she takes them away to the realm of Death.
In the story, the narrator is forced to tell her story through a secret correspondence with the reader since her husband forbids her to write and would “meet [her] with heavy opposition” should he find her doing so (390). The woman’s secret correspondence with the reader is yet another example of the limited viewpoint, for no one else is ever around to comment or give their thoughts on what is occurring. The limited perspective the reader sees through her narration plays an essential role in helping the reader understand the theme by showing the woman’s place in the world. At ...
Illusion vs. reality has been a major running theme in all the plays we have read in class. By interpretation, the idea of illusion is a way to build an alternate fantasy world for oneself where he/she can escape from reality. From all the characters analyzed in class, Blanche from A Streetcar Named Desire would definitely be the one character who is so steadfast on illusion that she lets it shape her life as she believes it is her only way towards a happier life. As seen in the above quote, Blanche chooses to dwell in illusion, for it is her primary defense against the troubles in her life. Illusion has had a freeing enchantment that protects her from the tragedies she has had to endure. However, Blanche is not the only character with this fixation on illusion. In this paper, I will be analyzing other characters like Nora from A Doll’s House, Eliza from Pygmalion and Mrs. Hale from Trifles, who just like Blanche have also succumbed to the world of illusion as opposed to reality.
When reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being, I was often confused about the meaning behind Tereza’s dreams. During my class discussion, I learned about the Freudian dream analysis and heard several perspectives behind Tereza’s dreams. This new information clarified why she acts the way she does.
In the short story “ A Dead Woman’s Secret by Guy de Maupassant, the basic theme is devoted to family and private relationships. The main characters in the story are Marguerite (the daughter), the judge (the son), the priest, and the deceased mother. Marguerite is a nun and she is very religious. The dead woman’s son, the Judge, handled the law as a weapon with which he smote the weak ones without pity. The story begins by telling the reader that the woman had died quietly, without pain. The author is very descriptive when explaining the woman’s appearance - “Now she was resting in her bed, lying on her back, her eyes closed, her features calm, her long white hair carefully arranged as though she had done it up ten minutes before dying. The whole pale countenance of the dead woman was so collected, so calm, so resigned that one could feel what a sweet soul had lived in that body, what a quiet existence this old soul had led, how easy and pure the death of this parent had been” (1). The children had been kneeling by their mother’s bed for awhile just admiring her. The priest had stopped by to help the children pass by the next hours of great sadness, but the children decided that they wanted to be alone as they spend the last few hours with their mother. Within in the story, the author discusses the relationship between the children’s father and their mother. The father was said to make the mother most unhappy. Great
In "The Demon Lover," by Elizabeth Bowen, Kathleen Drover returns to London from her house in the country in order to gather some things that she and her husband had abandoned during the bombings of the war. It is a humid, rainy day in late August and her once familiar street is now mostly deserted. The caretaker of her house is supposed to be out of town for a week and her arrival is assumed unknown. Mrs. Drover enters the old musty house and discovers a letter addressed to herself and it is marked with the present date. Curious to know if the caretaker is back in town and a little annoyed by the letter seeming to have no urgency in being mailed to her, she proceeds upstairs to her old bedroom to read it. In utter shock and complete horror, Mrs, Drover realizes that the letter is from her dead fiancé from twenty-five years ago. The letter is written in a threatening tone and is very vague but refers to a promise that she made to him and it is apparent that he plans to meet with her at the "agreed upon hour" to fulfill the promise. She can not remember what promise she had made was nor had any idea of what time he intended to meet, but she, in a panic of terror, flees the house. She proceeds to go to the town square where she might be safe and hails a cab. Mrs. Drover gets into the cab that almost seems to be waiting for her and as the driver turns to look back through the partition her jaw drops open and she proceeds to scream and helplessly beat on the glass. The driver then speeds off onto the deserted street and takes her away. We are led to believe that the driver is indeed the demonic lover that has captured her and going to force the promise to be fulfilled. Through this bone chilling suspenseful story, Bo...