Ellipsis
The ultimate example of ellipsis of the novel is the mill scene in which Marda Norton is shot. Corcoran explains the function and effect of ellipsis in the novel:
The ruined mill is, as it were, the terrible secret of Anglo-Irish history still architecturally articulate on the land, even in its desolation; and Hugo begins to elaborate something like this before he is prevented by yet one more elision: “‘Another,’ Hugo declared, ‘of our national grievances. English law strangled the –’ But Lois insisted on hurrying: she and Marda were now well ahead.” That ellipsis is the gap through which along Anglo-Irish history falls: the issue is raised, as so often in Bowen, only to be turned from, but in a way that makes it in some ways all the more insistent, with the insistence of the hauntingly irretrievable.
Maud Ellmann also illustrates: “The narrative also cocoons itself, in the sense that most events occur offstage, as in Greek tragedy.” A number of the conversations in the novel are full of pauses, unfinished sentences or awkward silence. The conversation that takes place between Gerald and Laurence about civilization and its meaning eptomizes how the meaning happens in interruptions and pauses which are not actual words. Just like Ellmann's analogy of the Greek tragedy where action takes place outside stage, the meaning in The Last September happens in ellipsis.
Read more about this topic: The Last September, Motifs