The Demon Lover Themes

Twenty-five years ago, Mrs. Drover was engaged to a soldier—an unkind and mysterious man—who then died in the First World War. Somewhat relieved by his death, she married someone else and created a life. However, after fleeing London during the Second World War, she returns to her house to collect some belongings and finds a letter, signed “K,” reminding her that today is “the day we said.” Immediately, she thinks of her old fiancé…

One reason that this story is so unnerving is that it turns the familiar cliché of wartime romance on its head. Rather than a romantic relationship between a woman and a soldier who must leave his home to protect his country, Bowen portrays Mrs. Drover’s former fiancé in a suspicious and sinister light and suggests that Mrs. Drover is with him not out of love, but fear. The man seems infected by wartime, taking on…

At the heart of this story is an unkept promise, and the question of whether Mrs. Drover should be held accountable for her apparent failure to keep it. While the letter states a promise has been made, its exact terms are unclear: is the promise that Mrs. Drover would marry her fiancé, whom she believed died at war? Is the promise to meet on this day as the letter describes, which is a promise…

Mrs. Drover’s relationship to time governs her actions in the story. She is consistently trying to evade the past, she becomes uncomfortable and disturbed within the present moment, and she is always looking to the immediate future as a place of safety. Though she initially enters her house with the intention to retrieve items from her past to use in her present life (she and her family are living in the country in an…