The Key Themes in the “Mysterious Kôr”, Coursework Example

One prominent theme in the story “Mysterious Kôr” is escaping reality. The novel revolves around the difference between two distinct worlds: the actual reality of wartime London and the imagined realm of Kôr. The story’s first chapters depict reality. It’s a world of wreckage, bombing, and heavily armored airspace officers. It’s a world where personal life has vanished and nights are being spent hunched on the subway. Pepita and Arthur exist in reality. However, in the actual world, the budding romance is defective. Arthur believes that he might not have been attracted to Pepita otherwise; she was just not “his type,” and their affection was indeed a “crash in the shadows.” Or maybe this wartime love was only a forlorn attempt to escape the misery, the solitude.

Pepita, on the other hand, travels into the fictitious realm of Kôr in the moonlight. It is a planet devoid of population, past, and susceptibility. Pepita claims that if the grief surrounding her gets more than that for her to bear, she goes to Kôr, where there are no hearts to shatter. Dreaming with her, Arthur envisions a metropolis where nobody could stand in the way of their meeting.

Isolation and separation is another prominent theme in this story. The concept of detachment and seclusion runs throughout most of the short story. For instance, there are the three French troops, torn from their homeland and seeking a place to stay, when a squad of air raid guards crosses their route without aiding or even recognizing them. Then there is Pepita, who separates herself from Arthur as well as her circumstances by retreating to her fictitious town of Kor. Her roommate Callie, who does not venture out to meet new people, wants to be alone as well.