In fact, the way in which Elizabeth Bowen delineates her disoriented national identity becomes the most alluring aspect in the novel. The two family homes, Holme Dene and Mount Morris serve as key representers for London and Ireland respectively. Stella’s visit to Mrs. Kelways house provides her the motivation to shift her thoughts from ignorance to knowledge about Robert. Mount Morris, on the other hand, restores Stella’s vision of her heritage but she quickly realizes that she could never live there due to feelings of inferiority among different societies. Wills incapsulates the “issue of neutrality” for Bowen to be a common occurrence as it “was intensified and took on something of the form of a personal crisis for many of the leading Irish
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It is as a result of this perpetual state of neutrality established by Ireland that Bowen, through her actions, struggles to resolute her identity. “Her espionage activities for the British Ministry of Information-visiting Ireland to gather public opinions about Irish neutrality for Churchillian Britain-seem to suggest that her loyalty lay elsewhere”(Nagashima 5). It is not only the danger and the ever-present terror of the war that Bowen depicts in her story, but it’s the loss of identity within the lives of the characters that further exemplifies the lingering solitude. Bowen’s impartial emotional state is pertinent to Stella’s melodramatic dilemma; she is not sure if Harrison is telling the truth or not. Stella, in one way or another, embodies Bowen’s way of thinking in the novel; her expressive personality binds with Bowen’s evocative style of writing. The first encounter with Stella, in her rented flat, resembles an detached state of being. For Roderick, the apartment “did not look like home” (Bowen 48). The usage of windows and mirrors, in the novel, denote the existing atmospheric pressure and amplify the notion of alienation. Bowen uses Stella to convey the importance of discerning …show more content…
Similarly, the expulsion of Bowen’s characters, as they struggle to keep themselves intact in a world that seems to be fragmenting around them, exhibit the danger and destruction that is present in London. Both narratives successfully illustrate a lost sense of identity, not only in the lives of characters, but also in the novel as a whole. Dubliners, written by James Joyce, probes into the everyday life of the people who live in Dublin. The stories that are present in the book speak mainly for the Irish community, in which the characters discern a sense of pressure from the society and exhibit their desire to break free. This seeking for escape from the existing paralyzed civilization is clearly revealed in multiple stories within the
It is as a result of this perpetual state of neutrality established by Ireland that Bowen, through her actions, struggles to resolute her identity. “Her espionage activities for the British Ministry of Information-visiting Ireland to gather public opinions about Irish neutrality for Churchillian Britain-seem to suggest that her loyalty lay elsewhere”(Nagashima 5). It is not only the danger and the ever-present terror of the war that Bowen depicts in her story, but it’s the loss of identity within the lives of the characters that further exemplifies the lingering solitude. Bowen’s impartial emotional state is pertinent to Stella’s melodramatic dilemma; she is not sure if Harrison is telling the truth or not. Stella, in one way or another, embodies Bowen’s way of thinking in the novel; her expressive personality binds with Bowen’s evocative style of writing. The first encounter with Stella, in her rented flat, resembles an detached state of being. For Roderick, the apartment “did not look like home” (Bowen 48). The usage of windows and mirrors, in the novel, denote the existing atmospheric pressure and amplify the notion of alienation. Bowen uses Stella to convey the importance of discerning …show more content…
Similarly, the expulsion of Bowen’s characters, as they struggle to keep themselves intact in a world that seems to be fragmenting around them, exhibit the danger and destruction that is present in London. Both narratives successfully illustrate a lost sense of identity, not only in the lives of characters, but also in the novel as a whole. Dubliners, written by James Joyce, probes into the everyday life of the people who live in Dublin. The stories that are present in the book speak mainly for the Irish community, in which the characters discern a sense of pressure from the society and exhibit their desire to break free. This seeking for escape from the existing paralyzed civilization is clearly revealed in multiple stories within the