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Originally Posted by
grace86
I do not think that the scene at the end of the book is the last of it at all. Elsie seemed like a woman who liked the attention, if it wasn't this one man with the stockings, it could likely be someone else. And her husband seems like he would be the one to take that kind of tension until it just breaks him and he is caused to harm her again...or possibly kill her. Kind of reminds me of Gerald in Women in Love
I might be up for another short story. I read the white stocking completely and loved it, my capabilities on commenting though were a little restricted. But the move is almost completed and I will have about a month before school starts. So let us know Janine!
Hi Grace, Glad to see you resurface as Pensive did. We also have a new face here - Quark stopping by since I said I would be a part of his Chekov SS thread. It is interesting so far if anyone else cares to check it out, but I know we are all pretty limited in our time schedules. I know I am. I was trying to make August a bit of a rest period but I did want to finish up this story. Important thing is that you did read the story - glad you liked it so much, too. I will pick the next story by Monday. I have a few in mind.
I agree with you that the ending does remind me of the problems that existed between Gerald and Gudrun somewhat, but I think in this instance the married couple are wanting to be 'committed' to each other and marriage and they just do not know at this point how to be that or how to effectively live with each other; but like you, I do see problems down the road for the two of them. Actually, Lawrence, himself, did not have a particularly 'peaceful' marriage and there were random reports that he did hit Frieda, but unlike Elsie, Frieda I believe dished it right back to Lawrence. Lawrence always did want to be the boss and the king of his realm, but even though his wife humored him by moving about to various residents and countries, she did not put up with all his male domineering ways. I don't know how much of the reports are actually true about any domestic violence, but it was certainly not a quiet or sedate marriage, by a long shot. When I read my first biography about Lawrence, I was shocked to find this out, but the more I read of his work it now does not surprise me at all. Hey, the man was flawed as we all are in our own ways. But I certainly would never advocate violence in domestic matters; I don't think Lawrence is doing so either. He is merely acknowledging that it does exist, and also this confusion between the sexes.
Here's the next part of the story underlining keyword/phrases (continuing in this fashion, since I have been presenting it this way this time around):
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Whiston came home tired and depressed. All day the male in him had been uneasy, and this had fatigued him. She was curiously against him, inclined, as she sometimes was nowadays, to make mock of him and jeer at him and cut him off. He did not understand this, and it angered him deeply.
She was uneasy before him.
She knew he was in a state of suppressed irritation. The veins stood out on the backs of his hands, his brow was drawn stiffly. Yet she could not help goading him.
If you note all the words underlined you can clearly see that he comes home in a foul humor and depressed and instead of trying to be supportive as a wife might try to be, Elsie only proceeds to 'make mock of him and jeer' and 'she could not help goading him', which seems to be the case recently as was stated. Their marriage now has lapsed into this stage and they are used to each other perhaps but do not regard each other nicely, at all. This attitude of Elsie's provokes him further and there is so much tension in these few paragraphs that you can see what something is boiling below the surface, that must eventually erupt into the violent act at the end.
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"What did you do wi' that white stocking?" he asked, out of a gloomy silence, his voice strong and brutal.
"I put it in a drawer--why?" she replied flippantly.
"Why didn't you put it on the fire back?" he said harshly. "What are you hoarding it up for?"
"I'm not hoarding it up," she said. "I've got a pair."
He relapsed into gloomy silence. She, unable to move him, ran away upstairs, leaving him smoking by the fire. Again she tried on the earrings. Then another little inspiration came to her. She drew on the white stockings, both of them.
Wow, I did not realise until reading this just now that he is kind of asking for it by mere mention of the stocking. He brings it up out of the blue. There could be no thought of it but apparently he has harbored it in his mind as a grievance so it surfaces. He must know her by now, and how she would goad him and tease him now with the stocking. Why did he even bring up the subject? He is picking a fight with her and obviously he is provoking her, since she has been provoking his anger, up till this point.
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Presently she came down in them. Her husband still sat immovable and glowering by the fire.
"Look!" she said. "They'll do beautifully."
And she picked up her skirts to her knees, and twisted round, looking at her pretty legs in the neat stockings.
He filled with unreasonable rage, and took the pipe from his mouth.
"Don't they look nice?" she said. "One from last year and one from this, they just do. Save you buying a pair."
And she looked over her shoulders at her pretty calves, and the dangling frills of her knickers.
"Put your skirts down and don't make a fool of yourself," he said.
"Why a fool of myself?" she asked.
And she began to dance slowly round the room, kicking up her feet half reckless, half jeering, in a ballet-dancer's fashion. Almost fearfully, yet in defiance, she kicked up her legs at him, singing as she did so. She resented him.
Funny, but she is making mock further by dancing and bringing to mind the whole dancing incident with Sam Adams that started the stocking incident and by doing so she is further provoking him, reallly pushing him now to his limit. She really knows how to get him riled up. She does it 'almost fearfully' but 'in defiance.' So she is asking for it in the end. Almost like she knows what will happen eventually but she can't stop herself from her actions.
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"You little fool, ha' done with it," he said. "And you'll backfire them stockings, I'm telling you." He was angry. His face flushed dark, he kept his head bent.
She ceased to dance.
"I shan't," she said. "They'll come in very useful."
He lifted his head and watched her, with lighted, dangerous eyes.
"You'll put 'em on the fire back, I tell you," he said.
It was a war now. She bent forward, in a ballet-dancer's fashion, and put her tongue between her teeth.
So now to this pont it has become a real 'war' between them....a war of 'wills' so to speak. Sets up the idea of who will have the strongest will in the end.
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"I shan't backfire them stockings," she sang, repeating his words, "I shan't, I shan't, I shan't."
And she danced round the room doing a high kick to the tune of her words.
There was a real biting indifference in her behaviour.
"We'll see whether you will or not," he said, "trollops! You'd like Sam Adams to know you was wearing 'em, wouldn't you? That's what would please you."
"Yes, I'd like him to see how nicely they fit me, he might give me some more then."
And she looked down at her pretty legs.
He knew somehow that she would like Sam Adams to see how pretty her legs looked in the white stockings. It made his anger go deep, almost to hatred.
"Yer nasty trolley," he cried. "Put yer petticoats down, and stop being so foul-minded."
"I'm not foul-minded," she said. "My legs are my own. And why shouldn't Sam Adams think they're nice?"
There was a pause. He watched her with eyes glittering to a point.
So now there is a lot of mud-slinging with nasty words to lash out at her - Whiston is really angered now almost to the point 'of hatred.' Interesting that she states to him 'My legs are my own.' She is saying, in essense I think, my body is my own and you have no right to it.
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"Have you been havin' owt to do with him?" he asked.
"I've just spoken to him when I've seen him," she said. "He's not as bad as you would make out."
"Isn't he?" he cried, a certain wakefulness in his voice. "Them who has anything to do wi' him is too bad for me, I tell you."
"Why, what are you frightened of him for?" she mocked..
Interesting that he seems to come alive and be fully awakened at the statement she makes about Sam Adams being 'not as bad as you would make him out'. Now he also sees how serious it is that she actually did make contact with SA recently and she asked 'what are you frightened of him for?' which of course Whiston cannot clearly answer and she knows it, further adding fuel to the flames to his suspicions and jealousy and the war of will between them. It is as though these words are amunition.
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She was rousing all his uncontrollable anger. He sat glowering. Every one of her sentences stirred him up like a red-hot iron. Soon it would be too much. And she was afraid herself; but she was neither conquered nor convinced.
A curious little grin of hate came on his face. He had a long score against her.
She knows she is pushing him to the boiling point, the big explosion and yet she continues in the same vane. As it states he had a 'long score against her'; this animosity has been building all this time, with many other little annoyances perhaps daily, but this one issue will be the 'straw that broke the camel's back', so to speak. It is the catalyst to cause the final action. His anger is 'red-hot iron' and in another statement 'molten' - extreme anger at this point.
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"What am I frightened of him for?" he repeated automatically. "What am I frightened of him for? Why, for you, you stray-running little *****."
She flushed. The insult went deep into her, right home.
"Well, if you're so dull--" she said, lowering her eyelids, and speaking coldly, haughtily.
"If I'm so dull I'll break your neck the first word you speak to him," he said, tense.
Now the insults are really flying, as they say 'hitting below the belt'. Things are getting really nasty.
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"Pf!" she sneered. "Do you think I'm frightened of you?" She spoke coldly, detached.
She wasfrightened, for all that, white round the mouth.
His heart was getting hotter.
"You will be frightened of me, the next time you have anything to do with him," he said.
"Do you think you'd ever be told--ha!"
Three times the word 'frightened' is used in different contexts, and many times prior to this passage, emphasising the situation and the fear he is threatening Elsie with. There is fear in both Elsie (this passage) and fear in Whiston (fear of his own actions) as well in the following passage:
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Her jeering scorn made him go white-hot, molten. He knew he was incoherent, scarcely responsible for what he might do. Slowly, unseeing, he rose and went out of doors, stifled, moved to kill her.
He stood leaning against the garden fence, unable either to see or hear. Below him, far off, fumed the lights of the town. He stood still, unconscious with a black storm of rage, his face lifted to the night.
By himself he is 'fuming' with anger - the town lights refect his mood. He is in a state of 'unconsciousness' now - does Lawrence feel that he is out of control at this point and 'unconsciously' will act in the final moments of the story? I know that Lawrence does believe in this uncontrollable 'unconscious' state in human beings. The word 'unconscious' is mentioned throughout the story; when Elsie is dancing with Sam Adams and now when Whiston is pushed to his limits' 'he is unconsciously in a 'black storm of rage.' In the following statement the word "unconscious' again appears. Lawrence's use of repetition is well known to us by now and he seems to be emphasising this idea - the idea of the 'unconscious will' of man.
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Presently, still unconscious of what he was doing, he went indoors again. She stood, a small stubborn figure with tight-pressed lips and big, sullen, childish eyes, watching him, white with fear. He went heavily across the floor and dropped into his chair.
Now on returning he still 'unconsciously' sees her as 'stubborn, tight-pressed lips, big sullen, childish eyes, white with fear.'
His impression is a mixture of how he is perceiving her and yet he sees the childish way she is and that she is 'fearing' him. At this point she is revealing her weak/vulnerable part that he can use to throw her 'will' over.
There was a silence.
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"You're not going to tell me everything I shall do, and everything I shan't," she broke out at last.
He lifted his head.
"I tell you this," he said, low and intense. "Have anything to do with Sam Adams, and I'll break your neck."
She laughed, shrill and false.
"How I hate your word 'break your neck'," she said, with a grimace of the mouth. "It sounds so common and beastly. Can't you say something else--"
There was a dead silence.
"And besides," she said, with a queer chirrup of mocking laughter, "what do you know about anything? He sent me an amethyst brooch and a pair of pearl ear-rings."
"He what?" said Whiston, in a suddenly normal voice. His eyes were fixed on her.
"Sent me a pair of pearl ear-rings, and an amethyst brooch," she repeated, mechanically, pale to the lips.
And her big, black, childish eyes watched him, fascinated, held in her spell.
She is really provoking him, now that he has lorded over her his male 'will', by telling him about the earrings and the brooch. She is aware of his threatening words and yet she insists on walking this thin line of danger. She is so defiant with her own will taking over - almost 'unconsiously' unable to stop the provoking she has been doing all along.
