SOURCE: McGowan, Martha. “The Enclosed Garden in Elizabeth Bowen's A World of Love.” Éire-Ireland 16, no. 1 (1981): 55-70.

In the following essay, McGowan discusses Bowen's use of the garden scene in A World of Love as a way of achieving ironic contrast between innocent idealism and harsh reality.

Several of Elizabeth Bowen's novels express in various ways the theme of the dangers of innocence. Typically, a garden scene points an ironic discrepancy between the Edenic dreams of an innocent heroine and the reality of the fallen world she must inhabit.¹ The garden scene in A World of Love has received little attention, however, despite its abundant detail and its climactic position in this, Bowen's eighth novel. When Lilia Danby sits in the walled garden at Montefort, the third “appearance” of Guy, her long-dead fiancé, occurs, capping the chain of reactions that makes up the plot. The effects of Jane Danby's...