Reed, Toni. Demon-Lovers and their Victims in British Fiction. Lexington: UP of Kentucky, 1988.

Grinnell library catalog page

Reed defines the demon-lover conflict as “a struggle between misogynist and female victim resulting in her psychological or physical destruction” (vii). Reed examines the formula of the demon-lover tale that recurs throughout literary history, drawing on Freud’s and Jung’s ideas about myth and archetype. The demon-lover prototype was introduced by Richardson’s Clarissa, writes Reed: a dark deceptive man who destroys his victims at night, “much in the way Satan is said to behave toward his victims (7). Reed discusses the feminist critical response to patriarchal critics who have misrepresented the woman’s point of view in such works as Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights.

Chapter Two expounds on the view of Satan which aligns seduced women with witches (who are seduced by Satan). Reed traces the seduction act throughout literary history: Greek mythology, biblical times, the Middle Ages and Christian lore. Chapter Three traces the form of the English “Demon Lover” ballad. Chapter Four is a lengthier study of the demon-lover in British fiction, beginning with the dark and sexually aberrant Gothic and vampire stories, most specifically Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Reed draws a parallel between the character of Dracula and that of Lovelace in Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa, and extends it to Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights. She traces the prototype further toward the modern, citing Thomas Hardy and D.H. Lawrence among others.

In the final chapter, Reed returns to Freud and Jung, examining the dynamic between demon-lover and victim in fiction and in ballad. She looks at the instinctual basis for human agression, violence incited by lack of meaning, and the paradigm of the “absurd criminal” or habitual victimizer. She cites modern pyschiatric theory, particularly focusing on the recent work of M. Scott Peck on healing human evil and Stanton Peele’s work on love and addiction.

The book closes with the texts of English ballads featuring the demon-lover.

Entered by Sarah on 28 July 2004 at 11:46 AM.