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Originally Posted by
Janine
Yes, isn't the story's beginning wonderful? I absolutely agree with this part "he's aware of his faults, aware of his weaknesses, humanizes him,"...to the extend that I could then identify with the character and his longing and his feelings of doing wrong, guilt. I think sometimes things drive a person inwardly and they are caught up in this current and this is especially true when younger. I noticed how the story is like a chain of events that lead him onward in this quest. He is swept up in the beauty of the night, his surroundings (that are familiar to him and he states he loves:
I think Lawrence had to do that. He's faced with a delimma (sp?) in writing this story. He's writing about a guy who's being unfaithful, but yet we've got to see him in some sort of positive light, otherwise it's a different story I think. The humanizing and the guilt qualify the infidelity.
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Also, this strong sexual urge, that is feeding his excitement and may have a possible outlet (on a night like this) for his pent-up desires, drives him forward towards the imminent encounter with Winifred. This night described to me is a very sensual night and one made for temptation and a temptress...is not Winifred the witch/temptress? Michael Black refers to her as a 'druid princess'. Coutts not only 'sees' everything, but just imagine, he feels it and he smells it - the night, the flowers, the breeze, the glow of the lamps - this whole experience would be very alluring and inviting; it would emerse a person in another 'secret' magical/mysterious world...the night would shroud a person in wonder and longing, would it not?
Everything in the story works toward the temptation, nature, Winifred's attractiveness or should I say spell, and one thing we haven't discussed, the music. The story is filled with musical metaphors, as well as that music scene.
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Dark Muse, I think that church tower is a 'forboding image', also, the way it is decribed as
"the black bulk of the church tower".
This interests me completely and I am still not quite sure what to make of it, but from other readings, I have heard Lawrence describe similiar images in his travel books on Italy, along with crucifixes and other religious symbols, also in "The Plumed Serpent". Also, the opposite is when I have heard him describe a man as luminous and a 'tower of light' or life. In the reverse this is a sort of 'tower or darkness' or looming death. As Virgil pointed out to my remark of it as a phallic symbol as well, I think this blackened church tower has multiple meanings and hidden symbolism, complex and not easily explained. It is a vey curious image, because if it being described as black, a witch color, the color of death, the color of night....
That is interesting. We do see that frequently with Lawrence. There is a similar image in The Rainbow. I've always felt that Lawrence liked Hardy's use of that image in Jude The Obscure. The church tower in Jude is very prominant if I remember. Whether Lawrence is using it in the same way as Hardy uses it oin Jude is a good question.
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Virgil, you asked about my thoughts connecting this story with death. Ok, the church spire and the story may correspond, closer than you realise, to that event, and the idea of death or disintegration. In some way, this would lead us to a sort of 'emotional suicide' for Coutts and the ending could be interpretted as the end of both of his female relationships for Coutts.
To be honest Janine, I don't see any motif or theme or even metaphor of death in this story. I think you got that from Michael Black, and I'm just going to have to disagree with him.
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I don't want to jump too far ahead, but if this was the case, Virgil, the ending to this story is quite tragic and remininscent of how Paul in "Sons and Lovers" feels at the end of the story.
There are similarities to S&L, I agree. I guess Black is going cross texts and linking things in that sense, but I like to hold each work as an individual self enclosed piece, and in my way of reading i don't really see death as a theme. I think the church, may or may not suggest phallic, but I do think it reminds the reader of conscience. Plus Connie is supposed to live in a "rectory", a residence for religious people, that's mentioned more than once, and that I think links again to conscience.
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Originally Posted by
Janine
So, here Lawrence would be assosicating the 'evening star' as having been bathed in the light of the sun, when he states ' bathing in the surf of the daylight,"...but he goes on to say it is now 'walking shorewards to the night'. I know this 'evening star' is a vital sign to Lawrence - a kind of mystical omen or 'heavenly mystery' and some of his novels and stories even signifying union with a woman, but 'equal union' - as two stars are in orbit and balanced opposite each other. Virgil can explain this better. In this case, in this particular story, I also think of the star in terms of 'immortality' and perhaps Lawrence's ideas of 'eternity' and 'everlasting life'. In the one novel I read "The Plumed Serpent' they spoke often of the evening star and the morning star in conjunction with Lawrence's ideas on spirituality. It seems that this time between day and night(evening or dawn) are always vitally important to Lawrence, in his spiritual thinking. Also, the image of the star bathed in sunlight is appropriate to Lawrence in his ideas of the sun being as an object of worship, such as in the stories we already read, most notably 'Sun'. If you think of it, stars are like the sun and made up of gases that burn brightly. In a immortality sense, I think this particular star could also be a remembrance of his own mother, now residing in eternity. I thought this when he 'bowed' to it and also it conjures up thoughts of worship and spirituality; the church image supports this idea as well.
You know I did not give a lot of thought to the star imagery in this story. I think Janine is referring to the balanced star imagery in Women In Love, where the male and female are in perfect balance with each other. That's a later work and I'm not sure Lawrence had worked out that imagery yet when this story was written. I will go back and re-read that tonight. It's an interesting thought.
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I looked up many references on churchs and church spires and towers last night online and found that so many, maybe in all of Lawrence novels and many of his short stories present images of churches and church steeples. I will post some of these very interesting references later, after you all get this far into the story text. One to particularly note, is in the story that we discussed months ago, "The Horse-Dealer's Daughter".
Antiquarian, I know you just read that story; do you recall the tower of the church casting a dark shadow on the cementary scene? That is so reminescent of the church tower in this 'witch' story, I believe. Any thoughts on that? I do recall that we discussed much about that scene and the church imagery. I should go back and look that up in our thread.
See my thought in the previous post on it's allusion to Hardy's Jude the Obscure. I don't know if Lawrence is using it in the same way as Hardy, but I do think he became infatuated with that image and used it many times.
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Another idea I had about the evening star and the fading into darkness is that now he is going from the light/sun world of the priestess (Connie) into the dark witch (Winifred) realm/world of night and mystery.
That is an excellent thought!! It is something that Lawrence would definitely do and has done. Like I said, I don't know if at this early date in his career he had worked out his star/sun imagery yet. Perhaps so.
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This, I partly understand, but I am not entirely sure of why he says "amused by his own vanity". Any ideas on that, anyone? Unless it means that is vanity is leading him onward away from the star.
But now, he is forwarned by the image of the 'new moon' as a blade that is 'sharp' and 'keen' and he thinks of himself as the sacrifice. I think at this time he feels he may be the sacrifice for Connie, if he goes through with the marriage. Note that immediately after this statement he mentiones a 'sense of Constance'. At the end I think we see that the sacrifice would be if he remained with either woman. But, let's just stick to his impression at the beginning of the story for now.
I took it as a sacrifice of Connie, but you may be right. Perhaps sacrifice of his innocence, or naivete.
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I did read something about lamp light and how it was to Lawrence an unnatural light. I will try and research that better today. I feel that this golden light would be warm and illuminating as it "heaps golden fire on the floor of the blue-night"...the word fire again and more forshadowing of the fire at the end of the story. Image after image will appear of darkness and illumination - piano candles, lamps, shops alight, street lamps, the golden lights of the train like a serpent, the hearth and the blaze at the end....all against the backdrop of the dark, mysterious night. Interesting.
Dark Muse did suggest a distiction between natural transportation (walking) and powered (car, train, tram) transportation. Lawrence did that in amny places, but I'm not sure I can see a significance in this story. But natural and artificial light might also be significant.
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Originally Posted by
Dark Muse
In a way I thought it was just sort of a comical gesture on his part, he is looking out the window, and thinks to himself that it looks like it is greeting him, but than he just sort of laughs at himself for having such a notion as that.
The vanity I think is that he thinks he can play this game with Wini while engaged to Connie. At least that's how I read it. I also think it reinforces his youth and inexperience, and that this event will be a maturing process.
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But it could be a way to help further establish his own character for the events that are later to come in the story. It sets him up in someway's, of a man whom does tend to focus upon himself and think first of himself, but also his awareness of this flaw of his.
Yes, I think that fits with what I just said.
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have briefly touched on this idea before, but I think in a way all three of the characters could be potentially seen as being sacrificed. Connie, Coutts, and Winni. I do am not convinced that the line refers strictly to him as being the one have to sacrifice himself.
Good point. I hadn't thought that. Although I'm not sure how Wini gets sacrificed. She seems to be in control. In fact after the initial shock she has in finding Coutts at the house, she has all the power in the story. She's the witch who casts a spell and breaks off the spell at her whim.
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And though Winni is more aware of the situation and what she is getting herself into, in a way she is sacrificed because it seems that ultimately he uses her only to satisfy his physical desires, his attraction to her seems primarily a sexual one as he becomes angry once he realizes she only wants him to kiss her and does not want anything else from him. He does not seem to genuinely love her beyond his passion for her.
Though I think Coutts actually sought encountering Wini, I'm convinced now that it's Wini who reels him in and manipulates the situation to cast her spell.
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When I read this, it made me think of an altar cloth, and the house when we get to the part, has an almost temple like feeling to it, with the music, and the vivid description of the statues.
Good thought. That's quite typical in Lawrence's work. he's always drawing on religious/magical mysteries.
Hey, I think I'm caught up. :)
