«Mysterious Kor» de Elizabeth Bowen: la representación del Blitz más allá de los paradigmas del mito

Abstract

as some historians are deconstructing the «Myth of the Blitz», little credit is given to the capacity of wartime writers to see beyond the British government’s propaganda. angus Calder states that the literature of the time offers limited material for us to understand what individual experience was really like during the bombings, since only a few authors work outside the Myth’s paradigm. This analysis suggests a much more sceptical view of Britain at war in Elizabeth Bowen’s short story «Mysterious Kôr» (1942). I highlight how the representation of a Gothic metropolis and the hallucinatory visions of frightened Londoners reject the traditional values of Blitz culture.