Drover recalls that she experienced “a complete dislocation from everything,” and that “I was not myself-they all told me so at the time.” While the possibility that the demon lover saps Mrs. Of the time during and directly following their engagement, Mrs. Drover lose her identity is also present in her recollections of him. The possibility that the demon lover makes Mrs. Her inability to identify with this full, clear view of herself suggests that something sinister has happened-she has lost herself, almost as though she has been possessed. Drover reads the letter, she is disturbed to the extent that she feels “a change in her own face.” She goes to look at herself in the mirror, presumably to reassure herself, but she sees herself as though she were a stranger, feeling “confronted by a woman” of forty-four years. Drover has ever clearly seen his true self-his personality or character-and it suggests that, even though they are engaged, their relationship is not a close one. This detail raises the issue of whether Mrs. Drover cannot remember her fiancé’s face, and in her recollection of the last time she saw him, she notes that she had “not ever completely seen his face” at all. A major way in which Bowen troubles identity, then, is by hiding people’s faces, making it seem as though their identity is inaccessible or even absent. The face is the clearest representation of a person’s identity-it shows who a person is and gives clues as to what they think or feel. Bowen thereby suggests that not only is identity capable of being compromised through trauma, but also-perversely-that a strong sense of self is necessary in order to cope with trauma. Drover’s memories are forcibly returned to the trauma of WWI and her former relationship, her struggles with uncertainty and detachment magnify and she finds herself unable to engage with her present day surroundings, even to the extent that it puts her in physical danger. Furthermore, his dislocation of self is exacerbated whenever she has to think of this period of her life. Drover’s dislocation of self began during the First World War (perhaps because of the trauma of wartime living, and certainly because of the emotional strain of being in a bad relationship). As the story progresses, it becomes clear that Mrs. Drover is sometimes uncertain of both the identity of her former fiancé and her own identity, stating that she cannot recall-and perhaps has never seen-her former fiancé’s face, and failing to recognize her own face in the mirror.
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