A Closer Look At The Work Of DH Lawrence

Throughout the work of DH Lawrence there is the common theme of the relationships between men and women. In these three stories we explore the uncertainties of romantic love. All of the characters discover that they have not seen the other as they truly are but rather as an idealized and impossible halucination. In Elizabeth's case in Odour of Chrysanthemums she realizes the truth of her relationship with her husband Walt when she is faced with his death. The cold room magnifies the feeling of their distance, and when she compares Walt's mothers response to her own she knows she has not loved him or ever really seen him.

Hilda reveals to Syson that he never could accept her how she truly is, that he could never love her if he really saw her, and this is why she broke things off with him. Hilda shows off the antique chair she has found, and Syson is suprised that she would like something like this. He begins to notice Hilda may not be the person he thinks he knows. She shows him the scissors that she found hidden in the chair, and has him try them on. She is pleased with herself when Syson's fingers fit into the scissors perfectly, and claims that she suspected they would. She is telling him that he needs to cut off this attatchment to her.

In Shades Of Spring his wife's past is unveiled before him revealing the reason for her distance and coldness towards him, and also a women he did not see before. He feels she does not take him seriously. She is polite but distant and cold towards him. He is 'The Stag At Bay' that he observes in the painting in the living room.

Lawrence consistently uses birds in his writing and the key to understanding their role in each story is to pay attention to the action the birds are taking. A bird is a messenger, and the soul is often depicted being carried by birds or with wings itself. Why does Lawrence use so many varieties of birds to tell a story? Odour of Chrysanthemums introduces their message in the beginning.

Fowls have moved into the fowl house signaling the coldness of winter is near. The word, fowl, as it stands alone brings to mind everything one represses, tries to push back into the dark boggy places in ourselves. The birds are picking at the scarlet hips, these are the messengers of death, from under the withered oak leaves. Right away we get an uneasy feeling. You may argue that the literal interpretation of a word is too crude for use in literature, but this makes for easy reading. The suggestion of these words ,simple as they are, are passed over easily by the conscious mind so as to play on the readers natural association with the words without disturbing the story and revealing everything too soon. If the words used to foreshadow key events were uncommon and complicated they would draw too much attention to themselves.

Shades of Spring shows us the fowls are molting as they 'litter the path with feathers' revealing our characters are about to shed something they have not wanted to see before. Hilda reveals to Syson the hiding places of many bird's nest she has found in the way he had shown her years before until finally she reveals to him her own hiding place. It is in this secret room that Hilda reveals to Syson the nature of her relationship with the new warden and unveils her soul completely for Syson to see.

As the story trails off we leave Syson at the murky waters edge as a Kingfisher flies from the scene. Syson has come to this place fishing for clues to their past and how Hilda thinks of him after so many years as she never responds to his letters and gifts. As the truth is revealed to him the Kingfisher flies away. A bee crawls up Hilda's guy's sleeve. The truth of Hilda's past has stung him, but she comforts him, she sucks the poison from his wound.

In A Shadow In The Rose Garden the black fly that lands on her knee 'that she observes as if detatched from herself', reveals the coming interaction between her and her soldier. Archie, the women's ex fiance, exclaims 'the Owl is coming', and she understands in this moment that Archie

has gone insane. He is lost to her, and her dream has died.The owl, though only a metaphor used by Archie, has been the bearer of the message.

As this story opens up by taking us along with the husband as he wanders the garden we begin to see another language through the use of blooms and leaves. He walks past the Tree of Heaven to the apple tree and takes an apple. Right away we undertand the association with the story of adam and eve. Breakfast has been withheld for hours waiting for his wife to wake up.He is impatient and hungry, and he has given into the temptation to eat the apple. Soon we discover that his wife is attempting to get rid of him for the day, and she withholds her true chores as she sends him off. He has bitten the apple again.

When he notices his wife at the living room window, as he stands in the garden, he is annoyed by the fact that she does not look to him. Seeking consolation he throws a poppy hip at the window to gain her attention. In Lawrence's era, the Victorian age, there was a popular way of communicating true feelings through plants. Florigraphy granted every plant, from trees to flowers, a special association.

If this line of thinking is followed we discover that poppies do symbolize consolation, and apple trees temptation, to the victorians.

Let's continue with this mode. His wife stands in the morning light staring at the glory roses that frame the ocean beyond them.

'They were like bowls of fire turned towards the morning sun'

The glory rose, or the love glorified in her life, is portraited as a bowl of fire to the morning sun. Fire is made in vigilance, wether against the dark, or in reverence of something one is devoted to. She keeps some flame alive for what we do not yet know. But the day is new, hopeful, and ripe in the Summer air.

She follows her memory to the rose garden of the Rector where she meets the gardener with his basket of gooseberries. Goosebumps, goosed. This word, gooseberries, stirs up anticipation and suprise. She is dressed in white as if present for a ritual of some kind. There are roses of all varieties here. This love she has kept alive is a love that posessed all idealistic qualities to her. She feels shy before so many of them.

'She was no more than a rose, a rose that could not quite come into bloom'.

After the shock of learning the truth about Archie she goes directly back the cottage where her husband is waiting for her. She stares out the window at the ivy, fidelity and dependence, waving in the breeze. She realizes her dependence on her husband, and has been made faithful to him through the events of the day, though she does not welcome it. Her husband enters to make sure she knows that 'dinner has been served'.

The early winter scene opens up in Odour Of Chrysanthemums with primroses, withering oak leaves, and rotting cabbages. Inconstancy, withering strength, and the rotting profit of this family's life is laid out. Elizabeth finds her little boy standing in the raspberry vines, signifying remorse to the victorians, that 'stand like whips'.

We soon find out the problems and worries Elizabeth faces due to her husbands drinking problem and distance from the family. He follows his mother through the garden as he pulls the petals from the ragged chrysanthemums, her favorite flower. She is disturbed by the distruction of this charished thing, and she tucks a bloom safely in her apron pocket. It is strange that someone would pick such a plain flower, one that is often given at funerals, as a favorite. To the Victorians chrysanthemums were symbols of love, but not so gloriously as roses. When she is married, and when her children are born there are pink chrysanthemums, and when her husband is brought home too drunk to stand on his own, there is tucked in his shirt pocket a brown chrysanthemum bloom. The roseiness of their love is gone. The vase of chrysanthemums sits above the scene as Walt is brought lifeless into the room. The vase is broken by the comotion, the illusion shattered, and Elizabeth sees that she and her husband have always been dead to eachother..

The constancy of bluebells is literal in Shades Of Spring. Syson is suprised that the plant he introduced to the setting years before has spread so thickly and are described as being like pools of shadowed blue flood water. Syson is flooded with memories and we begin to understand the connection Syson has with Hilda that he has not completely broken from despite his distance and his marriage to another woman. Hilda discribes herself as being a plant, growing best in her own soil. She is expressing to Syson that she wishes to be her own person and not the one he thought her to be even if that means breaking ties with him. When Hilda reveals her secret room to him there is a spray of honeysuckle on a shelf. Syson comes to understand that Hilda has now devoted her affections to another. As Syson says his goodbyes to this place that is haunted by his past he observes the murky water and the marigolds at its edge. The name, marigold, suggests merriness and richness, and to the victorians it means grief. Syson grieves his rich past in this place.

The language of flowers may be lost on a modern audience, but their constant presence pokes at the mind. Some symbols keep their meanings everlasting. Birds, roses, the sting of a bee. Even if the meaning is lost the picture Lawrence creates is unique in literature and just like looking into a great painting. His style with words does flow like a paintbrush. It is a great pleasure to read Lawrence.