Showing results by author "D H Lawrence" in All Categories

"The Wilful Woman" was written by D.H. Lawrence in 1922. "The Wilful Woman" remained unfinished, and so the tough, spoiled, rich American woman, used to having her own way, does not get the nemesis Lawrence may have had in mind for her. Whether it was the Wordsworthian lessons of nature as she battles her way through the American wilderness or the harder lessons of a waiting husband who may or may not want her, we will never know.

"The Overtone" looks at a sterile marriage with no children and no spontaneous sexual feeling between the couple. Lawrence seems to lose interest in the story, although he introduces a younger woman who walks away baffled at the end. His purpose seems to be to analyze the relationship between men and women in religious terms - Christianity for the women and the old Pan religion for the men. Lawrence produces some fine writing, but the argument at the end of the story seems contrived.

"Wintry Peacock" is, on the surface, a tale of misdirected love or even irresponsible love, the relationship between the wife and the peacock being the most strange, but it is the conspiracy of the two men in the story to prevent the truth coming out about the husband's love child that is most disturbing. The innocent are punished and the guilty get away with their sins, and the author goes laughing down the hill at the end of the story.

"The Horse Dealer's Daughter" is a story gripping in its content. It encompasses the terror of death and disgrace, which is redeemed by passion and sexuality. The question Lawrence leaves open is whether the doctor's avowal of love is genuine or driven by the awakening of his own sexuality and pity for the woman.

"Samson and Delilah" is set against a Cornish backdrop. Lawrence and his wife tried to settle in Cornwall during the First World War, but were hounded by the authorities and forced to leave. Lawrence pointedly describes the local people as "mindless" in this story. It is almost a Homeric story of a husband returning home after a long absence, having to fight to regain his wife. But in this story, it is the wife who is the obstacle. But she succumbs to the man's physical presence, as Lawrence demanded all women should if they were to attain happiness.

"The Princess" of the story is a spoiled, sexless woman who is thrown in with a passionate man whom she takes into her bed and then rejects. This rejection leads to his ultimate death. Lawrence again pleads his case for the necessary domination of woman by man and shows the sterility of a life lead without sexual passion. Set against the bleak mountains of South America, it is one of Lawrence's most enduring tales.

"Rex" is a riotous story of the turmoil caused in a household by the arrival of a puppy. The setting is similar to the one found in Sons and Lovers, but Lawrence thought this scene deserved the fuller treatment of a short story. The question of the destructive force of unconditional love is left open.

"Monkey Nuts" was written by D.H. Lawrence in 1922. "Monkey Nuts" turns the traditional love story on its head. It is the woman (the new liberated woman Lawrence had little time for) who does the chasing and the boy who is reluctant. Lawrence seems to be saying it is the unspoken love between the two men in the story which is more satisfying than the possible love between the man and the woman, which the boy rejects. Although the older man goes through the motions of chasing the girl, even he seems to realize the sterility of one-sided love.

The hero of this story returns to England to undertake a "respectable" marriage, but is drawn to see the passionate love of his life once more. Their mutual passion attracts and repels the couple in equal measure, but the young man pulls away in a literal fire of passion. He escapes from the witch of his desires to the respectability he craves, but we wonder if he can be truly happy without the sensual side of his life being satisfied.

"The Blind Man" is a delicate study of a loving relationship blighted by the man's blindness and disfigurement in the First World War. The arrival of an old friend of the woman brings into the open feelings and fears previously suppressed.

"Adolf" is a charming story of a wild rabbit introduced by the father into a miner's home, to the delight of the children and the despair of the mother. Larger questions of life and death and nature and civilization are touched on with a light hand.

In "The Thimble", Lawrence moves to the world of the affluent middle classes, a world to which he perhaps aspired. The story is a touching one of a disfigured husband returning home from the war to a beautiful new wife. The thimble of the story can be seen to represent purposeless, surface beauty, which has no function. The husband casts the thimble away, but can this marriage survive the surface damage and find a deeper meaning?

"The Mortal Coil" is one of Lawrence's darker stories. From adversity the lovers find a kind of happiness in each other, only for death to snatch it away.

The theme of the woman for whom the man is not "good enough" is worked out fully in Lawrence's novel Sons and Lovers. The story is beautifully observed, as are the relationships in working families of the time. The suspense of "will she, won't she marry him" is kept on the boil until the last line of the story. "Fanny and Annie" is a small masterpiece of a short story.

In "The Prussian Officer", there is an anti-militarism theme, unpopular as the nation drew near to war, and an examination of latent homosexuality as the officer in the story struggles with his feelings for his orderly. The young soldier is driven beyond his breaking point, but finds a kind of redemption in his final return to natural surroundings and, symbolically, he finds equality in death with his tormentor as they are put side by side in the mortuary.

"The Thorn in the Flesh" was written by D.H. Lawrence in 1914. The story can be listened to in tandem with "The Prussian Officer", which was written in the same year and has a similar setting and theme. In this story, the young soldier fights against his own shortcomings as a soldier and as a man. He flees the scene of his crime into the arms of his lover, where he finds solace and comfort, but he cannot escape the inevitable military machine that Lawrence hated.

"A Sick Collier". Lawrence returns in this story to the scenes of his childhood and the colliers he was brought up with. The wife in the story is probably based on his mother, although the husband is unlike the drinking, brutal father portrayed in Sons and Lovers, Lawrence's autobiographical novel. The story is a vivid portrayal of the life of a young couple when an accident strikes the husband down, but does not succeed as a short story, lacking any clear focus or message.

"The Shades of Spring". In this story, the hero has moved on in the world and is married, yet cannot forget his old love. He retraces the steps to her farm, hoping for - what? He finds his old love attached to a physical young man who can give the girl what he could not - pure, physical love - and this she prefers to his more intellectual love.

"Delilah and Mr Bircumshaw" was written by D.H. Lawrence in 1912. Lawrence is beginning to move away from his working-class roots in this story and exploring the relationship of a middle-class couple who have a slight argument, egged on by the wife's friend. Bircumshaw loses his dignity and self-respect for the comforts of married life. For all his insights into women, the misogynist in Lawrence can be detected.

"Once" was written by D.H. Lawrence in 1912. The story is largely autobiographical, written when Lawrence and Frieda (Anita in the story) had fled England together to live in Austria and Italy. Frieda had had an affair while they were in Austria and she told Lawrence about it. "Once" explores Lawrence's reactions to being betrayed while still being in love and desiring the betrayer.