Hayley Gillespie

In both The Demon Lover and The Happy Autumn Fields, characters are haunted by the past and the unknown. In The Demon Lover, Mrs. Dover does not remember her past lover’s face, this uncertainty adds to her fear from the unknown fear of who has entered her abandoned home. The layering of the unknown and her past leaves her feeling threatened and vulnerable. Mary, in The Happy Autumn Fields, is also haunted by the past, but not her own. She is haunted by what happened to her ancestors Sarah and Henrietta. She does not know how they died, when they died, or why they remained single their whole lives. Mary is in an old home too as she stumbles onto a chest filled with photos and papers from the past, it even feels as though she is dreaming of Sarah’s memories.