Here is the next section of text to be discussed:
Quote:
When I awoke, the morning after this episode, I found the house darkened with deep, soft snow, which had blown against the large west windows, covering them with a screen. I went outside, and saw the valley all white and ghastly below me, the trees beneath black and thin looking like wire, the rock-faces dark between the glistening shroud, and the sky above sombre, heavy, yellowish-dark, much too heavy for this world below of hollow bluey whiteness figured with black. I felt I was in a valley of the dead.
Same passage, with my added highlighting and comments below:
Quote:
When I awoke, the morning after this episode, I found the house darkened with deep, soft snow, which had blown against the large west windows, covering them with a screen. I went outside, and saw the valley all white and ghastly below me, the trees beneath black and thin looking like wire, the rock-faces dark between the glistening shroud, and the sky above sombre, heavy, yellowish-dark, much too heavy for this world below of hollow bluey whiteness figured with black. I felt I was in a valley of the dead.
Are these war references or what? This passage even reminds me of the trenches, such a well known symbol of WWI. This is surely a ‘wasteland’ , as Virgil pointed out. It’s a cold valley of death. The narrator (Lawence) is seeing this as a ghastly landscape and frightening image, not one of awesome winter beauty, with deep snow and peace. He is noticing instead “the trees beneath black and thin looking like wire.” This line struck me particularly and I thought immediately of barbed wire. Brilliant writing and symbolism in this section of descriptive prose; poetically beautiful and evoking a feeling of death and ghostly whiteness and cold all at the same time. The “rock-faces dark” and “sky above somber, heavy, yellowish-dark” could represent death masks themselves, fallen soldiers scattered on a battlefield, and the putrid air (sky) that lingers above a field of death. Note the stark and specific words he uses such as “shroud” and the “valley of the dead”. Also, I am sure that Lawrence’s recent close encounter with death, himself, has influenced his thinking and he is very much seeing this scene in the light of something much worse - death of the battlefield, the wasteland of war and death.
Same paragraph continued…
Quote:
And I sensed I was a prisoner, for the snow was everywhere deep, and drifted in places.
Note how the narrator goes on to say "I sensed I was a prisoner," in that statement last statement. Wow, that is amazing writing; so meaningful. The timing is perfect for such a statement.
Same paragraph continued….
Quote:
So all the morning I remained indoors, looking up the drive at the shrubs so heavily plumed with snow, at the gateposts raised high with a foot or more of extra whiteness. Or I looked down into the white-and-black valley that was utterly motionless and beyond life, a hollow sarcophagus. Nothing stirred the whole day--no plume fell off the shrubs, the valley was as abstracted as a grove of death. I looked over at the tiny, half-buried farms away on the bare uplands beyond the valley hollow, and I thought of Tible in the snow, of the black witch-like little Mrs. Goyte. And [b]the snow seemed to lay me bare to influences I wanted to escape.
Same passage, with my added highlighting and comments below:
Quote:
So all the morning I remained indoors, looking up the drive at the shrubs so heavily plumed with snow, at the gateposts raised high with a foot or more of extra whiteness. Or I looked down into the white-and-black valley that was utterly motionless and beyond life, a hollow sarcophagus. Nothing stirred the whole day--no plume fell off the shrubs, the valley was as abstracted as a grove of death. I looked over at the tiny, half-buried farms away on the bare uplands beyond the valley hollow, and I thought of Tible in the snow, of the black witch-like little Mrs. Goyte. And [b]the snow seemed to lay me bare to influences I wanted to escape.
And this death/war description continues. I wonder what significance there is to the line “heavily plumed with snow”. It reminds me of a plumed military helmet and also a bird, or the plumes on the peacock’s tail, when he fans it, in his showy manner, to attract a female; although in winter the males lose much of that plumage; which could also be significant in terms of lost masculinity, virility…see how nice I stated that Virgil…
Remember how the wind threw the peacocks off balance..this too could indicate the loss of their control and masculinity, because their tail is diminished...see again how gentily I stated that but I am sure you get my meaning, V. *wink*
The contrast of “white-and-black” in the valley is specifically stated here; interesting. This line especially got to me: “utterly motionless and beyond life, a hollow sarcophagus.” Additionally, this line is pretty incredible: “abstracted as a grove of death”. Even the farms are referred to has "half-buried."
Then the narrator thinks of Tible and the “black witch-like little Mrs. Goyte"….he directly links her witch-like aspect to death, which is rather strange; yet that makes sense somehow. I found the last line beautifully stated. Hadn’t the peacock also escaped from the pursuit of Alfred?
