SOURCE: Christensen, Lis. “Communication.” In Elizabeth Bowen: The Later Fiction, pp. 66-83. Copenhagen, Denmark: Museum Tusculanum Press, University of Copenhagen, 2001.

In the following excerpt, Christensen explores Bowen's use of various means of communication, both spoken and written, in her last four novels.

In looking at how Bowen lets her characters convey their meaning to one another, I use ‘communication’ to embrace all exchanges that may establish or reflect a relationship between people, ranging from the serious interchange of ideas to the most casual snippets of conversation, and including also the deliberate absence of verbal expression: the eloquence of silent response.

The limitations of speech were a recurrent concern of Bowen's, culminating in her last novel with Eva Trout's obsession with communication devices and her adoption of the deaf-mute child who shoots her dead on the last page of the book. Other forms of communication besides speech also figure...