Ambiguity In Elizabeth Bowen's The Demon Lover

Ambiguity or fallacy of ambiguity is a word, phrase or statement, which contains more than one meaning. Ambiguity is usually a technique used in a text to generate confusion for the reader. For instance, " The Demon Lover” by Elizabeth Bowen is a short narrative that shows this previous characteristic, since it can be interpreted in several ways such as: it is a ghost story or it's simply about a mentally unstable protagonist ( Kathleen). Personally I believe it is just a story about a mentally unstable woman for reasons such as : trauma for having her husband lost and presumably dead, trauma for the war and several other descriptions in the text.

It is important to state that losing a loved one, especially the person you share your life with, is a much dramatic if not traumatic event. From the beginning of the story, it is stated that Kathleen lost her husband during war, so right off the bat she encounters a situation that would engage her mental state. Additionally, we get to know that she decided to escape London because of the war. This adds up to her mental state, since due to constant violence and a

Dislocation means disturbance from a proper, original or usual place or state. This could more than perfectly mean that she suffered some kind of mental change after everything that happened including the war and her husband's loss. The end is a bit fishy, but a possible explanation to back this theory up, is that she just simple went crazy and starting screaming for no reason.

In conclusion, " The Demon Lover” is a story that could be interpreted in several ways. It is a text that really shows its ambiguity in several ways generating confusion for the reader. However there is always some inclination towards a certain theory, which is my case, is the mentally unstable