#1

She describes it as “shut-up,” “dead,” and dusty

She depicts the air outside as “steamy” and “humid” and “yellow”

She also mentions towering clouds that precede a storm

#2

The letter makes her tense; she wonders who could have possible left it, since the house was closesd up

#3

She looks at herself in the mirror

#4

The flashback describes her last meeting with her fiance, a soldier going off to war

#5

She acts and feels as if she is being pursued

#6

The description creates an atmosphere of foreboding and the suggestion that something supernatural might happen

#7

Her reaction suggests that she is a private, pragmatic woman who has led a sheltered and routine life for many years

#8

Her reaction indicates that she was afraid of her fiance and that he had power over her

#9

It suggests that she has blocked out the memory because it is too frightening for her to recall

#10

She was driven off to a fate in which she will continually feel the same fear and feeling of dislocation her fiance originally caused in her

#11

The omniscient narrator offers the reader details to which Mrs. Drover would be insensible

If the story were told in the first person there would be fewer poetic descriptions of the eerie setting

#12

The flashback intensifies the eerie atmosphere of the story by introducing the fiance as a faceless, frightening figure

#13

opinion

#14

Mrs. Drover is dislocated physically because of the war in the same way she was dislocated emotionally after her fiance died

Setting the story in wartime adds to its mood of strangeness and threat

#15

She suffers from the illusion that by behaving as if life is proceeding normally, she can make it proceed normally

Her relationship with the soldier disillusioned her about love, and the was has added to her disillusionment

Literary Elements #1

Bowen creates a scene in which things appear normal but are not

She includes a threat to her main character, and she describes the mysterious letter

Literary Elements #2

The surprise ending either defies the reader’s expectations that Mrs. Drover will get away or fulfills the reader’s worst fears for her

By not revealing what Mrs. Drover’s fears will be, Bowen heightens the suspense even more