Genital Jail: The Confinement of Chatterley’s At first glance, “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” isn’t just another novel about finding true love with a happy ending. D.H. Lawrence implemented his philosophy into it for the sole purpose for readers to experience and be aware of the world around them. A few of the major topics in the novel is the relationship between the body and the mind, and the sexual freedom of an individual. However, many problems arise between characters that consist of physical and internal conflicts. These conflicts cause characters to be unable to escape each other and themselves. In the novel, Constance and Clifford Chatterley are physically trapped within their marriage, their own bodies and pride. At times, there are characters that are pulled into the confinement causing more endless suffering with the Chatterley’s. Constance “Connie” Chatterley is a woman full of independence and free-will. Emma Wisniewski stated that Connie embodied “the quintessential modern woman: engaged entirely in the life of the mind, dwelling wholly in the upper realm Berry speaks of.” (Wisniewski). However, she is often depressed and trapped in a crumbling marriage. She feels stuck with her husband and desperately seeks a way out. Connie eventually falls into an affair with Oliver Mellors. She soon pleads with Clifford for divorce, which he detests. To Connie, Clifford makes “eternity sound like a lid or a long, long chain that trailed after one, no matter how far one went," and Clifford intends to keep the chain around Connie until he can pass on the family name to his illegitimate child (Lawrence 172). For Connie, the chain links were holding her from being free and she becomes trapped even further within her marriage.
“One was less in love with the boy afterwards…as if he had trespassed on one's privacy and inner freedom. For, of course, being a girl, one's whole dignity and meaning in life consisted in the achievement of an absolute, a perfect, a pure and noble freedom.” (Lawrence 5).
The quote can describe Connie’s feelings about Clifford and helps pinpoint the reason behind their failed marriage – being that he intruded on her inner freedom and dignity over her own body. Connie does believe that mental intimacy is important in a marriage. However, she also believes that sex plays a part in a successful, passionate marriage and Clifford too believes that sex perfects the intimacy. If Clifford does feel this way, then a sexless marriage between the two will never work even if he allows her to have sex with other men of decency and same level of class. Connie was stuck in a marriage with a man that she cannot completely be passionate with and she cannot be with another man because Clifford would not allow divorce. In a way, Clifford is completely aware of the impending doom of the marriage but is willing to invade Connie’s nobility and freedom for the sake of having an heir. Even though Connie felt that she had no control over her life while Clifford kept her confined, she at times felt that she had a sense of freedom. One particular scene is when Connie and her lover, Oliver Mellors, are having sex in the rain. It all but seems as if Connie is cleansing her body from all the strife in her life. Upon her return home, Clifford scolds her reckless behavior. Connie was stuck where she fluctuates between depression and happiness in two different worlds: one with Clifford and the other with Mellors. Connie is also trapped within her own body, for she cannot understand herself and accept her physical appearance. If she had any pride of her body it was very low. During the 1920’s, which the plot of the novel is taking place, the ideal woman’s body shifted to a slimmer form. “The body had taken on new meanings of health, beauty, and sexuality” and that according to Annette Kellerman “the beautiful woman should, of course, have a pretty face, but the perfect figure is even more essential…” (Harnett, 88). Connie shows the insecurity she has of her curvy body while staring nakedly in the mirror. Despite being uncomfortable with her figure, she only accepts and feels the freedom when Mellor’s compliments her body, specifically her bottom. They both enjoy their imperfections when together, even when standing in a mirror together. Being with Clifford however, Connie is trapped in her bodily image and is constantly disgusted by it when she is in her room alone.
Besides having Connie in confinement and attempting to control her, Clifford Chatterley has his own issues. Upon returning from the war, Clifford was paralyzed and moved around in a motorized wheelchair. This disability cripples him as a man and wedges between his control over his wife’s actions and his marriage. Being in a wheelchair damaged his ego and competence of a passionate loving husband – if he ever intended to be one. “It’s obvious I’m at everybody’s mercy!” Clifford says when his wheelchair stops working during walk with his wife and Oliver Mellors (Lawrence 279). This scene in particular Clifford truly felt that he needed to prove himself as a man in front of his wife. However, at times he uses his disability against Connie to try and keep her under his control at the estate in Wragby. Clifford made sure that he kept a closer eye on Connie for “She was not even free, for [he] must have her there,” because he wants to be in control (Lawrence 118). Clifford could not be in control of his own actions, so he made sure that he would exert some dominance in the next area of his life he felt that he could. Clifford tries to keep Connie under his control and even makes sure that she is always there when he needs her, including the care of the estate and his private care. Clifford even exerts his compulsivity when Connie left the room without giving him a kiss and “He watched her with sharp, cold eyes… gazed coldly and angrily at the door whence she had gone. Anger!” (Lawrence 149).
Clifford is also trapped by the dignity of his family name and continuing its line of heritage. He even treats Connie as an object to continue the family name, even if she is unhappy in the marriage. “His importance as son of Sir Geoffrey, and child of Wragby, was so ingrained in him, he could never escape it,” and Clifford wants to make sure he lives up to the family name and dignity (Lawrence 10). Even though he is unable to have children, he welcomes his wife to have sex solely to get pregnant. “That’s why having a son helps; one is only a link in a chain,” says Clifford to Connie, which cements the idea that his true motive in life is the existence of his family’s name (Lawrence 47). His pride deteriorated being paralyzed and as a man Clifford felt ashamed.
Clifford is with coming to terms with his disability and often tries to find acceptance of his physical state. He also finds it difficult to find someone to be vulnerable with because he has pushed Connie away. With a damaged ego and a withering control over Connie, his disability hinders him as a man and goes into child-like state. His need for control is undoubtedly noticeable when his nurse, Mrs. Bolton is with him. The two often boss each other around, but because of Clifford’s social class Mrs. Bolton enjoys tending to Clifford’s needs. In the final chapter, Clifford received the letter from Connie that she was leaving him. He then has a breakdown in front of Mrs. Bolton, and Clifford was described being like a child. He is a child-like man that demands control and comfort, to which Mrs. Bolton enjoyed it. She becomes the dominant, motherly figure and “Any attempt to rouse his manhood and his pride would only make him worse: for his manhood was dead, temporarily if not finally.” (Lawrence 313). Clifford being confined to a wheelchair became dependent on both Connie and Mrs. Bolton, like a child. In the novel “Lady Chatterley’s Lover, both Connie and Clifford experience various issues that physically confine them. The two are suffering an unhappy marriage as Clifford’s pride of passing along the family name causing Connie to feel nothing more than a link in the chain; a womb to carry a child. Clifford struggles to accept the boundaries he is placed being paralyzed and feels trapped and unable to provide a healthy relationship with Connie, while she feels trapped in her body. Both Connie and Clifford find difficulty of achieving true freedom over their own lives because of the inability to escape each other and from their insecurities to accept who they are.
Works Cited:
Garnett, Kerry A. Appearing Modern: Women's Bodies, Beauty, and Power in 1920s America. Diss. Boston College, 2009. Boston: Boston College, 2009. Print.
Lawrence, David Herbert. Lady Chatterley's Lover. N.p.: Barnes & Noble, 2009. Print.
