Fears of the Demon Lover : Female Paranoia in the Demon Lover Stories by Elizabeth Bowen and Shirley Jackson

This paper examines the concept of paranoia found in two short stories based on the same folk ballad of the demon lover. Some critics read Jackson's "The Daemon Lover" and Elizabeth Bowen's "The Demon Lover" as stories of paranoia, suggesting the strong connection between the fears of demon lovers and the typical paranoiac delusions. However, a close examination of the concept of "female paranoia," referring to psychoanalytic studies as well as clinical literature, reveals the issues of interpretations involved not only in the diagnosing stage but also in the alleged patient's thinking process. "Female paranoia" manifests its symptoms when the alternative interpretations of their lovers' behaviors emerge, forcing the female characters to question heterosexual romance scenarios. I argue that the demon lover stories, a variation of erotomanic delusions, express a critique of the patriarchal society that exposes women to perpetual threats that are represented ambiguously in the form of demon lovers. Jackson's story in particular shows that fears of the demon lover, however supernatural he may appear to be, are in fact of this world. The seemingly strange world to which the demon lover takes the protagonist, the world of conspiracy, is nothing but her own everyday realities