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Originally Posted by
islandclimber
Janine, thank you for the great post above.. it helps put this story in context and gives one a better idea of what Lawrence was thinking about at the time... Fascinating... wonderful post:)
Thanks, islandclimber, your appreciation is well appreciated!:) It took me awhile to dig up all those facts, not to mention all my slow typing, but I really do love delving below the surface and finding out just how Lawrence might be operating and thinking, during the time he is writing these stories. Plus, in posting some facts about his later biography, you all learn more about Lawrence. He is such a fascinating author and person to study.
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so in rereading this story, I like the husband and the wife less and less.. the husband I find behaves very generously and wonderfully with regards to his wife, if being a bit of a push over, and a trod upon man... which I fully see, though he allows it completely.. his choice I guess.. matrimonial harmony requires sacrifices, and I guess in this case it is all about allowing the wife to commit adultery in the sake of happiness.. why not get a divorce? it appears they have no reason to be together... unless they are waiting for old age and making sure they have a companion, but surely they could find someone they actually want to be with....
From the beginning, I agreed with this idea or image of the wife. I don't personally, like the way the wife is acting towards the husband and the secretary, nor her family. I do feel the wife is very spoiled woman and is accustomed to getting whatever she wants from her husband, who honestly is 'generous' towards her. That line still interests me, when the generosity is mentioned. I don't think this is said straight-forwardly. I somehow view this statement a little differently, than others have:
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However, they were awfully kind. He was the soul of generosity, and held her in real tender esteem, no matter how many gallant affairs she had. Her gallant affairs were part of her modern necessity.
Consider, if the wife is saying, or thinking this to herself, and using a much more sarcastic tone..."he was the soul of generosity". I say this, because directly after these observations, the text launches into the wive's idea of turning into a pillar of salt and the husband very quickly comes back with his own biting clever retort.
I think there is another statement that also illustrates this, but I could not locate it presently, in the text. However, I did find a number of interesting parts, I would like to discuss or point out, in my next post.
I do agree with your thinking, islandclimber, the husband is indeed alowing this to happen. I don't know if we could call him a push-over but he likes the way his life is and it seems to be confortable enough for him so that he does not seem to want for anything more. He is in a bit of a rut, maybe inert and just likes the way things remain or can tolerate them. Unlike the husband, the wife is not in anyway occuppied with a career or a job or anything that would provide a feeling of self-worth; the husband is emersed in his work/his writing/his art; he finds self-satisfaction in this; perhaps this focus distracts him daily from dwelling on his wife and her affairs. This may be how he has learned to cope with the situation. I think both the wife and the husband suffer from a kind of stagnation. When the story describes the grain of irritation in the wife's eye and she returns home, she seems to become suddenly aware of her situation and her husband again. I think these new feelings confuse and unravel her and she reacts poorly, but in some ways she is now forced into being more alive/awake than he is....which could question their whole arrangement, with his inert attitude to allowing her to go off with other men. The presense now of the other woman (the secretaray) is just the spark to awaken the deeper feelings in the wife and in her only know way she then lashes out to try and protect her turf. It is sort of a territorial fight that ensues and I think that the two bluebirds fighting at the end symbolises this idea and theme, in the story. Even though the wife has gone from her own home countless times to spend time in warmer places and take lovers she still has this strong connection to her home and her husband. It is hard to explain and certainly not the ideal marriage. One does wonder why the two don't simply part. I guess this part is not explored enough in the course of this short story. We really don't know how they began or how happy they had been prior to their 12 yrs together when they could not reside in the same house for very long. It is a very strange arrangement and a weird sort of marriage, I agree with this.
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I find the husband treats his secretary with little generosity as the wife seems to imply, but the problem is that the secretary and her family seem perfectly content with this, and the wife is thinking of how she herself would feel in the secretary's position, which is absurd, because they are two quite different creatures... still the husband could do more for them... or so I believe....
Several times in the text it does mention the husband has debts and is working 10, 12 hours a day to pay them off, so I don't think he can be any more generous with the secretary and her family and I don't think they expect it of him. Their value system is a whole lot different than the wife's value system. Their rewards are beyond the wife's conprehension.
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'He', of course, had debts, and he was working to pay them off. And if he had been a fairy prince who could call the ants to help him, he would not have been more wonderful than in securing this secretary and her family. They took hardly any wages. And they seemed to perform the miracle of loaves and fishes daily.
'She', of course, was the wife who loved her husband, but helped him into debt, and she still was an expensive item.
The wife admits here to herself she was the one who helped him into that debt. No doubt this fact is true. The family seems to be trying to aid him to help him back out of debt. The wife is jealous of this fact.
In this debate between the husband and wife, they discuss this working situation, which she seems to disapprove of, and yet she does reap the benefits from his working that much. In the end it is quite the irony; she ends up agreeing with him.
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"Oh, I don't know," she answered indifferently. "Perhaps it's not good for a man's work if he is too comfortable."
"I don't know about that!" he said, taking a dramatic turn round the library and drawing at his pipe. "Considering I work, actually, by the clock, for twelve hours a day, and for ten hours when it's a short day, I don't think you can say I am deteriorating from easy comfort."
"No, I suppose not," she admitted.
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the wife though,... even if she is narrating the story, and appears in a somewhat favourable and sympathetic light at first glance.. rereading and looking deeper, does she have any redeeming qualities... no... not a single one.. she is lazy, doesn't want to help earn income, doesn't care for being around her husband, however much she claims to esteem him, I don't believe she seriously loves him, maybe in a platonic sense, as one loves someone who appears to be genuinely good and noble for the most part... but not in any other way,.. she takes his money, she sleeps with other people and then comes home and tries to play the part of the home-wrecker herself, and destroy the situation that everyone in the house is quite happy with, except herself, being the jealous woman that she is... in wanting to possess everything of her husband, yet not wanting to give anything in return..
I agree with all of this and that she is quite inept at doing anything useful to help her husband or herself. I don't know completely if I feel she truly does not love him. This part is tricky. I don't think she does at this point but she may love him without now being "in-love" any longer with him. It didn't seem that when the started out married that they were madly in-love or passionately in-love. I don't read that in the text, so who knows. I do know that after these past 12 yrs or so married their relationship has become totally distant and stagnant.
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it seems she wants her husband to need her and pine for her while she is away, but she still believes her affairs are necessary and explains it away to being a modern woman.... it is a little ridiculous.. but the only redeeming factor is that the husband is seemingly okay with this and supports her in doing so... I just dislike her quite a bit... she is a woman, who does nothing and is given everything all the same, and shows no gratitude, instead makes up excuses and reasons to create problems in what is a happy situation with the husband and secretary and her family at home... what is sympathetic about her?
It seems that way, but I don't know if it is. She does seem to want attention and goes about trying to get it from him, all the wrong ways. It is very hard to find any sympathy for her, but now looking at the story from a little different angle I do see that she is quite a confused person and rather insecure. I don't think I find much to like or respect in him either, because, as you pointed out, he allows her to be this way. He never tries to change the situation.
I think the idea of the 'modern woman' springs from several direct influences, at this time in history. I will look some references up and post them, so you can see just what the attitude was towards a woman taking lovers outside a marriage.
