The Demon Lover
In Bowen’s famous story “The Demon Lover,” a woman returns to her old house and discovers a note from the groom who died at the front, and then becomes hostage to his ghost in a taxi rushing nowhere. In this work, the unworked, repressed experience of the First World War is personified and embodied in the image of the ghost of a person who died in this war. By turning to the first-person narration, the writer addresses this topic directly and makes it possible for a reader to immerse in the problem through involvement in a specific story. The reader identifies themselves as the addressee of the text while realizing that this text passes through them, bypassing them and their death as a reader – in a ghostly, double sense – to the future readers.
In Elizabeth Bowen’s 1945 short story, The Demon Lover, the ballad’s central idea is used to narrate the ghostly return of war to London. The case with the heroine’s fiancé who went missing on the battlefields is not an isolated one. The World War has traumatized all of humanity, creating billions of passions. The story “The Demon Lover” is a story that war, as a common, global sorrow, will return again and again in the form of various symptoms, no matter how hard we try to forget it. Although at first glance, this is only a story about how a ghost from the heroine’s past appeared to the woman, this ghost personifies war, personalizes it.
Like all military prose by E. Bowen, “The Demon Lover” is filled with a sense of war; its presence is almost invisible but undeniable. Thus, the famous ballad story about the return of the dead groom for his bride is used. This plot is reproduced against the background of a specific historical time (the years of the first and second world wars). The correlation of this background and the “scary story” allows us to speak of this novel as an allegory, which is based on an attempt to comprehend the course of history. At the same time, only in-text dating allows us to get as close as possible to the story’s concept as a whole.
However, the supernatural can be introduced into the text implicitly, in the form of a special mystical mood, which is created thanks to the detailed landscape, interior, and the image of the play of light and shadow. To achieve such an effect, the writer allows her unique impressionistic narration from the first person. Thus, through mystical plots and Gothic landscapes, the reader is imbued with deep collective trauma, transmitted through the technique of personifying the story through a first-person narrative.
A&P
In John Updike’s A&P story, the first-person narrative allows the author to convey the reality of individual experiences and motives. Experiences told and felt in the first person are always more real and tangible than those transmitted from the third person. If in the latter case it seems to the reader that the author is giving an interpretation to the thoughts and behavior of the character, as if bringing their contribution and their personality to what is happening, then in the first-person narration, the reader is faced directly with what is happening in the character’s life and head and has the opportunity to give an interpretation of what is happening. That is why there may be many different views on what this story is about, why the main character acts this way and not otherwise, and what the author wanted to convey in the end.
For example, on the one hand, one might think that the protagonist decides to rebel against A&P and thereby rebel against a consumer-driven society, and thus decides to act clearly and meaningfully. At the end of the story, he quits his job to become a hero for girls and as a way to rebel against a strict society. In a moment of sudden insight – epiphany – he realizes how complicated the world will be for him in the future if he refuses to follow the traditional paths.
On the other hand, one can imagine that this story is nothing more than a little story about the checking clerk’s interest in three girls in bathing suits. Despite being dressed for the beach, Sammy allows the girls to keep shopping while he rates them sexually. He presents details about the girls based only on their looks, an experience that, to his surprise, is overwhelming when the leader of the trio, a gorgeous, stylish beauty he named “Queenie,” speaks in a voice, unlike the one he created in his mind. Lengel, an old and prim manager, thinks the girls are not dressed for the grocery store and admonishes them that next time they should cover their shoulders, which Sammy thinks is embarrassing. Offended by the manager’s disregard for the three clients’ dignity, Sammy solemnly takes off his apron and bow tie and immediately resigns, despite the manager’s mention of the pain it might cause his parents. Sammy then leaves the store, seemingly expecting some expression of love or appreciation from the young women involved, but discovers that they have already left, apparently oblivious to his presence.
At the same time, one can imagine that through this interest, the reader learns about his mechanisms for constructing a young man about his place in the world. Besides, many factors intrude into the narrative that the reader may see familiar to himself: hated but necessary work, the authority of parents and public opinion, conformism, and many others. Whatever the interpretation, the reader sees and feels Sammy anxious, suffering from his awkwardness and insecurity, is a witness of his experiences and thoughts, genuine interest, and the path he goes through to realize the changes in himself.
The Great Gatsby
Fitzgerald uses a first-person narrative in The Great Gatsby. More often than not, first-person storytelling implies that the narrator is also a character within the story being told. The complexity of this type of narration is that the narrator, through his opinion, looks, and judgments, does not always let the reader understand some of the other heroes’ thoughts and feelings. He provides information or hides it depending on his view of what is happening, which sometimes creates specific difficulties for the reader. The narrator can be the main character, someone very close to him and his environment, or a supporting character.
Fitzgerald’s novel is a kind of author’s attempt to develop traditional narrative techniques. Fitzgerald creates a narrator through whose perception the narration is conducted, a narrator who is a witness to the events taking place, allowing the reader to draw the line between the real and the fictional. Nick Carraway, although not the main character of the novel, is one of its key figures. It is in Nick’s memories that the whole story is built. Taking on the role of a storyteller, he acts as a judge and evaluates himself and other characters. This way of narrative emphasizes the credibility of the story, its integrity. Fitzgerald uses a variety of techniques to organize the narrative in the novel.
One of these techniques is a misrepresentation of the point of view. Through their perception, the narrator can make a vivid and convincing impression on the reader. However, the narrative, which develops through the prism of the hero’s perception, has certain disadvantages. The narrator can describe only those events in which he was directly involved and talk about those feelings that he knows about, but he cannot penetrate the minds of other heroes to convey reliable information to the reader. Thus, the narrator must overcome the so-called “storyteller’s limit” for a fuller display of events.
In addition to disrupting the way of storytelling, Fitzgerald uses a point-shift technique in his novel. A shift in point of view occurs when moving from the narrator’s point of view to another character’s opinion. This technique is applicable to describe events in which the hero-narrator was not a direct participant. This technique helps avoid the omission of important events for the novel and contributes to the development of the story’s content.
Fitzgerald uses a temporary glitch technique in organizing the space-time structure. A feature of this technique is that the hero-narrator can interrupt the chain of events, clarify uncertain moments of the story, provided that this information became known to him after the events described in the novel were completed.
One of the hallmarks of Fitzgerald’s narrative technique is the use of spaces in the narrative. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald introduces gaps in the narrative, leaving the action unfinished to allow the reader to make his guess about what will happen next. Since the narrative is based on Nick’s recollections, the author admits that he may have overlooked some events. Fitzgerald uses this technique deliberately to gain more in-depth involvement of the reader in the events of the novel.
References
Bowen, E. (2019). The Demon Lover. Soundings.
Fitzgerald, S. F. (2019). The Great Gatsby (Wordsworth Collector’s Editions). Wordsworth Editions Ltd.
Updike, J. (1986). A & P: Lust in the Aisles (1st ed.). Redpath Press.