Ok, I've reread the story quite carefully and I want to jump in. I want to outline the structure of the story and then focus in on the symbol of the two blue birds, because that i think is the key to the story. But I find it interesting how Lawrence builds to that and then the climax.
I see the structure of the story as dividing into five parts. The divisions may be arbitrary, but it helps me see how it progresses.
The first part is almost all exposition. From the beginning Lawrence recaps the relationship between husband and wife, how they could not live together, how she has "gallant affairs," how he works long hours dictating to his secretary, how the relationship with the secretary is platonic, and how he supports his wife. We get the impression of a very "modern," chic marriage.
The second part we have the wife disaffected and asks for the first time, "What's to be done?" Notice how this question keeps cropping up. But here she is asking about herself, and the answer is to head south for the winter to her gallant affairs. She's off like a bird and returns in the spring.
The third part she returns to find matters grown worse.
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What was to be done? Matters, instead of improving, had grown worse. The little secretary had brought her mother and sister into the establishment. The mother was a sort of cook-housekeeper, the sister was a sort of upper maid--she did the fine laundry, and looked after 'his' clothes, and valeted him beautifully. It was really an excellent arrangement. The old mother was a splendid plain cook, the sister was all that could be desired as a valet de chambre, a fine laundress, an upper parlour-maid, and a table-waiter. And all economical to a degree. They knew his affairs by heart. His secretary flew to town when a creditor became dangerous, and she always smoothed over the financial crisis.
What exactly is the wife's problem? It seems that the husband is too comfortable. We get a dialogue between husband and wife over his comfort and his work:
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"Don't you think the family manage very well?" he asked her tentatively.
"Awfully well! Almost romantically well!" she replied. "But I suppose you're perfectly happy?"
"I'm perfectly comfortable," he replied.
"I can see you are," she replied. "Amazingly so! I never knew such comfort! Are you sure it isn't bad for you?"
She eyed him stealthily. He looked very well, and extremely handsome, in his histrionic way. He was shockingly well-dressed and valeted. And he had that air of easy aplomb and good humour which is so becoming to a man, and which he only acquires when he is c**k of his own little walk, made much of by his own hens.
She focuses on the discrepency between beiing happy and being comfortable. Obviously her greater value rests on happiness. We get some more bird analogy of him being a c**k with hens. And the wife concludes that she must do something:
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"Nothing to aggravate him!" What a position for a man! Fostered by women who would let nothing 'aggravate' him. If anything would aggravate his wounded vanity, this would!
So thought the wife. But what was to be done about it?
And she wonders about what the secretary gets out of the relationship:
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"What on earth she gets out of it," thought the wife, "I don't know. She's simply worn to the bone, for a very poor salary, and he's never kissed her, and never will, if I know anything about him."
Part IV consists of what I call cognitive development, meaning we see the wife working out the issues in her mind. First she wonders what she herself wants of her husband:
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What on earth did she want then? She was his wife. What on earth did she want of him?
She certainly didn't want to take him down in shorthand, and type out again all those words. And she didn't really want him to kiss her; she knew him too well. Yes, she knew him too well. If you know a man too well, you don't want him to kiss you.
What then? What did she want? Why had she such an extraordinary hang-over about him? Just because she was his wife? Why did she rather 'enjoy' other men--and she was relentless about enjoyment--without ever taking them seriously? And why must she take him so damn seriously, when she never really 'enjoyed' him?
Then she wonders what the secretary and her family (mother and sister) get out their adorning the husband:
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She came back once more, and there she was, in her own house, a sort of super-guest, even to him. And the secretarial family devoting their lives to him.
Devoting their lives to him! But actually! Three women pouring out their lives for him day and night! And what did they get in return? Not one kiss! Very little money, because they knew all about his debts, and had made it their life business to get them paid off! No expectations! Twelve hours' work a day! Comparative isolation, for he saw nobody!
Her mind gravitates to how his work has been damaged by these adorning women:
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But it was bad for him. No doubt about it. His work was getting diffuse and poor in quality--and what wonder! His whole tone was going down--becoming commoner. Of course it was bad for him.
And finally this fourth section culminates in her decision to save him:
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Being his wife, she felt she ought to do something to save him. But how could she? That perfectly devoted, marvellous secretarial family, how could she make an attack on them? Yet she'd love to sweep them into oblivion. Of course they were bad for him: ruining his work, ruining his reputation as a writer, ruining his life. Ruining him with their slavish service.
Of course she ought to make an onslaught on them! But how could she? Such devotion! And what had she herself to offer in their place? Certainly not slavish devotion to him, nor to his flow of words! Certainly not!
and
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Something more drastic, or perhaps more gentle. She wavered between the two. And wavering, she first did nothing, came to no decision, dragged vacantly on from day to day, waiting for sufficient energy to take her departure once more.
The fifth and final section is completely narrative, reaching the story's climax at a confrontation between wife and secretary. The wife steps outside into the spring day. Blooming flowers are described. She finds the husband outside dictating to the secretary. Two blue birds fly at the feet of the writer and secretary and engage into a bird fight. A dialogue between the three ensues, and the wife ultimately turns to the secretary to say, "Why don't you make him think about you?" This shocks everyone to silence. She asks him about his work and how it's declined. They have tea, and the women, the secretary now indignant, tries to be silent but the wife baits her into a fight. The wife has hit upon what is to be done, strike at the secretary:
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"How'd the work go--all right?" asked the wife, as they drank tea, and the two women looked at each other's blue dresses.
"Oh!" he said. "As well as you can expect. It was a piece of pure flummery. But it's what they want. Awful rot, wasn't it, Miss Wrexall?"
Miss Wrexall moved uneasily on her chair.
"It interested me," she said, "though not so much as the novel."
"The novel? Which novel?" said the wife. "Is there another new one?"
Miss Wrexall looked at him. Not for words would she give away any of his literary activities.
"Oh, I was just sketching out an idea to Miss Wrexall," he said.
"Tell us about it!" said the wife. "Miss Wrexall, you tell us what it's about."
She turned on her chair, and fixed the little secretary.
"I'm afraid"--Miss Wrexall squirmed--"I haven't got it very clearly myself, yet."
"Oh, go along! Tell us what you have got then!"
Miss Wrexall sat dumb and very vexed. She felt she was being baited. She looked at the blue pleatings of her skirt.
"I'm afraid I can't," she said.
"Why are you afraid you can't? You're so very competent. I'm sure you've got it all at your finger-ends. I expect you write a good deal of Mr. Gee's books for him, really. He gives you the hint, and you fill it all in. Isn't that how you do it?" She spoke ironically, and as if she were teasing a child. And then she glanced down at the fine pleatings of her own blue skirt, very fine and expensive.
"Of course you're not speaking seriously?" said Miss Wrexall, rising on her mettle.
"Of course I am! I've suspected for a long time--at least, for some time--that you write a good deal of Mr. Gee's books for him, from his hints."
It was said in a tone of raillery, but it was cruel.
And the secretary defends herself:
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It was broken by Miss Wrexall, who was nervously twisting her fingers.
"You want to spoil what there is between me and him, I can see that," she said bitterly.
"My dear, but what is there between you and him?" asked the wife.
"I was happy working with him, working for him! I was happy working for him!" cried Miss Wrexall, tears of indignant anger and chagrin in her eyes.
and
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"But he gives me everything, everything!" cried Miss Wrexall. "He gives me everything!"
"What do you mean by everything?" said the wife, turning on her sternly.
Miss Wrexall pulled up short. There was a snap in the air, and a change of currents.
"I mean nothing that you need begrudge me," said the little secretary rather haughtily. "I've never made myself cheap."
And finally the climax:
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There was a blank pause.
"My God!" said the wife. "You don't call that being cheap? Why, I should say you got nothing out of him at all, you only give! And if you don't call that making yourself cheap--my God!"
"You see, we see things different," said the secretary.
"I should say we do!--thank God!" rejoined the wife.
"On whose behalf are you thanking God?" he asked sarcastically.
"Everybody's, I suppose! Yours, because you get everything for nothing, and Miss Wrexall's, because she seems to like it, and mine because I'm well out of it all."
"You needn't be out of it all," cried Miss Wrexall magnanimously, "if you didn't put yourself out of it all."
"Thank you, my dear, for your offer," said the wife, rising, "but I'm afraid no man can expect two blue birds of happiness to flutter round his feet, tearing out their little feathers!"
With which she walked away.
So everything through questions running through the mind of the wife builds to the confrontation. But what's that climax all about? As I see it, the two women fighting parallel the two birds fighting, and they (both dressed in blue) are fighting over the husband. But the parallel is also a contrast. The two blue birds are male, while the fighting humans are female. It's an inversion of nature. The women are fighting over a man, while presumably the birds are fighting over a female, or fighting in their normal natures. I think the story is a caustic satire on modern marriage and values. The people are not natural, but lead a sterile life. The wife's gallant affairs (men are supposed to be polygamous, not women), the husband's not having any passion, not even writing a novel but an essay on novels, and the secretary working herself passionless to the bone for someone. The birds serve as a contrasting image, ironically being referred to as tits:
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And as she was being blest, appeared another blue bird--that is, another blue-tit--and began to wrestle with the first blue-tit. A couple of blue birds of happiness, having a fight over it! Well, I'm blest!
She was more or less out of sight of the human preoccupied pair. But 'he' was disturbed by the fighting blue birds, whose little feathers began to float loose.
"Get out!" he said to them mildly, waving a dark-yellow handkerchief at them. "Fight your little fight, and settle your private affairs elsewhere, my dear little gentlemen."
The bird's gender is emphasized here, and the fighting tits are going to be the wife and the secretary. :p :lol:
