D.H. Lawrence's Short Stories Thread

[Janine]

This is quite interesting, and I have noticed that ide appearing within what of his works I have read thus far. I have also noticed it does seem to often by the woman within his stories whom is the more well off within the mismatched couples.

Yes, true because this was such a common theme of Lawrence and very prominent in his novels; the class differences and the working man verses the well-to-do. I don't see this wife holding the finances, where does it say that? This mismatching of couples is a common thing Lawrence is forever exploring; definitely this came from growing up in a household with entirely different class parents who were very much at odds with each other. Today one would just say it was a very disfunctional family.

Haha it depends on the villian for me, sometimes I am just like, ok would someone just kill him already please.

Well, in "Othello", I would definitely like to strangle, or smother, Iago and I am glad to see him get his just reward in the end; however, I love the play and I find Iago one of the most fascinating of villans. I continually try to figure out just why he acted as the did. I will never find the answer and so it continues to fascinate me. One can be fascinated by bad behavior, as easily as by good; this does not make the reader a bad person. To the contrary - it teaches us to not act or respond in that manner. It acts as a lesson to us. There would be no Shakespeare plays, if it were not for the villans, all of whom are fascinating characters. Without Iago, there would be no plot in "Othello". Iago drives the plot.

[Virgil]

Virgil, glad you are come onboard. We need your help. In the last posts I think I would like your opinions on what I wrote because I was floundering some with the symbols and themes throughout the story (please see my post #920; I took a long time writing that one) - the repetitions I noticed such as the colors of red and white, the use of the word or variations of the word 'shadow', and the contrasts of light and dark.

I will get to your post in a bit Janine. I promise.

I agree with this. I think there is a issue with 'wills' as well in this story, between husband and wife.

Oh you're probably right. The battle of wills is a recurring Lawrence theme. I hadn't picked up on it here, but I'll go back and check.

Funny, I am reading "Kangaroo" and this couple at time with their everyday interaction reminds me of Lawrence and Frieda. I guess one writes best what one know of. I don't think they represent the couple but the 'will' issue is similiar in each of the two works. "Kangaroo" was written shortly after this story I believe, but I could be wrong about that. I know after staying in Cornwall the Lawrence's did proceed to Australia and occuppied a cottage by the sea. I will look in the book for the timeline of when this story was written.

So this is a later story? Kangaroo was written in 1923.

This idea just came to me. In the story two gardens are mentioned. The husband enters a garden by their new cottage/residence. The woman later enters a garden and the garden she enters is a sort of perfect dream-like heavenly garden. The husband's garden is ordinary and grounded in reality.

There is an interesting contrast between gardens. The man's garden has trees, the woman's has roses. My first thought was the Garden of Eden. There is the mention of the Tree of Heaven and the husband eats an apple. It couldn't help feeling that the story was a loss of innocence story. Both characters lose a certain innocence by the end of the story.

The garden in the courtyard is like entering a perfect dreamworld. I believe the woman idealises the man she believes dead - not even the man, himself, but the 'memory' of this man. By dying he has become flawless and perfect, and she can bask in the sunlight and the roses, and have her perfect little dream of him. When people die, we often only view the good points they had, and disregard any flaws they might have exhibited. We forgive them for those, or we just accept them, as if they were perfect now, having passed into death and another world. Heaven and the dreamworld of this woman are similiar in concept and so she looks back and sees only the perfect parts of her time with him. Now when the real flesh and blood man presents himself, indeed he is human and imperfect; thus shattering her perfect dream and memory. This why she quickly departs - she wants to escape this harsh reality. It is interesting that this man, this former lover, loses his memory of her, but by her seeing him, she loses her dream. Eventually, this will bring closure to her 'dream', that she has harboured all this time, deep within herself. It will put an end to her dreaming and living within her past; by the last few lines of the story, one can see it says 'it will work itself out'...both parties seem to believe this. She also refers to herself as having put 'this thing upon herself and that her husband is 'not at fault'. When she mentions a membrane being torn within her, I think this symbolises this perfect dream and remembrance she has had and kept hidden, which now is torn from her. Through a blood cleansing - the word 'blood' is used in that paragraph - she will be healed of old wounds and be able to proceed with her marriage and her life.

Interesting observations. I'll have to look back and see if it's characterized as a dream world.

Good to have you join in

Thank you.

Yes I did notice that, which makes it even more currious why she had married the poor man to start with. As it seems she did not need to in order to support herself being she holds the wealth in the relationship.

He says himself that she never had loved him and alwyas held herself surperior to him and never took him seriously

Yes this marriage is very mysterious. We never get details of how it came about. I'm wondering if Lawrence is basing this on his marriage or another.

It seems as if she married someone whom she knew she could trample all over, as she has the finical power in the relationship, he has nothing he can really hold over her and it seems his feelings for her are genuine, so she can do what she pleases and he inguldges her whims.

You might be right. It is an overturning of the noraml male/female relationship of its time, and Lawrence was very critical of this. This too is a shadow that hangs over the relationship.

[Janine]

Dark Muse, how did you come up with this assumption?

Yes I did notice that, which makes it even more currious why she had married the poor man to start with. As it seems she did not need to in order to support herself being she holds the wealth in the relationship.

Is it stated in the story somewhere? I must have missed it. Can you quote the part that implies she is weathly and he is poor?

As far as Lawrence's own parents are concerned, his mother had come from a well established family, who actually lost much of their money, and she was educated and refined, but not of sound financial means, when she married Lawrence's father, the miner. In fact her family worked at home making lace in order to support themselves. It was not an easy life for them. Lawrence's father married her and supported her. Woman back then did not always have many choices and many did not marry for love. They could not afford to. Women were not liberated, as they are today, and often were stuck in circumstances beyond their control. It was either marry a man you liked but did not love or feel passion for, or go hungry in the streets.

Virgil, I looked up the timelines and they are complicated - first off, L started this story way back 1908, when he was writing his first novel "The White Peacock"; later revised "Shadow in the Rose Garden" as late as 1914 (he was then writing "The Rainbow"). It is possible he did do further revisions after this, although I think at that time he did publish it in a periodical. I will list the exact places and the full timeline later. Going to eat dinner now and go out for awhile. One has to consider when this story was written. It was begun in 1908; Lawrence was only 23 yrs of age. It could actually be about someone in that year or earlier, perhaps in the previous century.

Virgil, Sorry, I just saw your new post. I will answer it later tonight. No, I was wrong - the story didn't originate in the time of Kangaroo. I only felt the same thing about husband and wife throughout both stories - like they are often at odds about normal everyday things like when to have their breakfast...a sort of bickering or tension. Who knows how many times L revised or rewrote the story though. It felt like he was speaking of his time living by the sea in a cottage in England - just the way the story is fashioned but it could be anywhere really. The rose garden might be more suggestive of a garden in Italy, for instance. I will further see where he wrote the story. It was one of his most early stories - begun in 1908, but developed over 6 years time.

[Dark Muse]

Dark Muse, how did you come up with this assumption?

Virgil is the one that first brought up the idea that she was the wealthy on in the relationship.

Also I saw you all had something to say on whether we should be sympathetic to the woman. I don't know. It's mixed. She is tormented by her past (so one feels for her there), but she does treat her husband rather poorly. Also it is she who holds the power in the relationship, she is the wealthy one and her husband is the laborer. There is a sort of class subtheme to the story, although I don't see yet how it fits.

Is it stated in the story somewhere? I must have missed it. Can you quote the part that implies she is weathly and he is poor?.

And I am sorry of I mispoke and confussed you, I did not mean that he was phsycialy poor in my statement, just poor, as in I felt sorry for him becasue of how she treats him.

There is an interesting contrast between gardens. The man's garden has trees, the woman's has roses. My first thought was the Garden of Eden. There is the mention of the Tree of Heaven and the husband eats an apple. It couldn't help feeling that the story was a loss of innocence story. Both characters lose a certain innocence by the end of the story.

Good observation comparing the too gradens, and bringing up the idea of the Garden of Eden, I would agree with innoncence does play a role within this story, particuarly the promoimence of using the color white.

[Virgil]

Virgil is the one that first brought up the idea that she was the wealthy on in the relationship.

Here it's toward the end when she returns home:

It was difficult for her to endure his presence, for he would interfere with her. She could not recover her life. She rose stiffly and went down. She could neither eat nor talk during the meal. She sat absent, torn, without any being of her own. He tried to go on as if nothing were the matter. But at last he became silent with fury. As soon as it was possible, she went upstairs again, and locked the bedroom door. She must be alone. He went with his pipe into the garden. All his suppressed anger against her who held herself superior to him filled and blackened his heart. Though he had not know it, yet he had never really won her, she had never loved him. She had taken him on sufference. This had foiled him. He was only a labouring electrician in the mine, she was superior to him. He had always given way to her. But all the while, the injury and ignominy had been working in his soul because she did not hold him seriously. And now all his rage came up against her.

She was superior, and apparently she acted it. Also at the beginning he is described as a smallish man, and I picture her as larger: she had a "fine carriage" which I take as busty and larger. She's also described as "very proud."

[Dark Muse]

There is also a scene in which Mrs. Coates coments, that they are close in hieght, but he is not her equal otherwise

[Janine]

I edited this out because I don't know how it happened but I posted this twice as I was revising and adding to it....sorry to confuse everyone.

[Dark Muse]

What do you suppose she was about to say when he cut her off? A least she is being honest with him at this point. She is asking he doesn't attack her with his questioning. She probably her privacy is greatly invaded by her husband. Even married couples need some privacy from time to time. When she was lovers she was not married to her husband.

The way I see it, by her brigning her husband to this place of her past, she was making it bussiness, making him a part of it. She came home in a huff, and he meerely asked her at first if something was wrong, at first she tried to act as if nothing was wrong, and denyed anythign happen instead of telling him rationally that she needed some time she storms off and locks herself in her room it is only natural he would wonder what is going on and it also seems at this point he is at his last straw with her bad treatment of him and cannot take it anymore.

I have done a re-reading of the story and highlighted a few other lines and phrases that caught my eye, that shortly I shall post.

[Dark Muse]

She seemed to be avioding her surroundings, as if she remamined safe in the little obscurity of her parasol.

This line came to really jump out at me for some reason. I feel that it must mean something, perhaps it relates to the idea of anomomity, and the fact that she did not wish anyone to know her, or perhaps, in a way she is trying to block out, or protect herself from reality. Maybe she did not want to be confronted with ways things might have changed sense she has been away, becasue she wants to keep things as they were in her memory when she first lived there.

Under this she went slowly, stopping at length by an open doorway which shone like a picture of light in the dark wall.

I found the imagery of the picture of lingt in the dark wall to be particuarly interesting here. It goes alone with the idea of frames that Janine has spoken off, also I found intresting the contrasting of light and dark here.

The house had a sterile apperance, as if it were still used, but not inhabited.

I found this a rather intresting image, perhaps another use of foreshadow for what she is about to encounter?

There beyond lay the soft blue sea with the bay, misty with morning, and the farthest headland of black rock jutting dimily out between blue and blue of the sky and water. Her face began to shine, transfigured with pain and joy. At her feet the garden fell steeply, all a confusion of flowers, and away below was the darkness of tree-tops covering the beck.

With Janine's talking of the meaning and use of colors in this story, upon further reading of this story, this passage leaped out at me. As well earlier it was mentioned how the flowers in the garden were like a strange crowd, and here they are called a confusion of flowers.

[Janine]

Geez, I might have to read this story a 4th time. You two sure are reading a lot into the story. like now Virgil is seeing the woman 'busty' ...I am dying laughing..

I wish we could contact Lawrence himself, and ask him to give us better descriptions of the husband and wife, and just what he meant by their behavior to each other. Also could Lawrence please provide us with more background information on the couple. Well, maybe Lawrence will appear as a 'shadow' to explain this story to us. It certainly becomes very psychological, the interplay between this man and woman.

My take on the ending is so much different. She apparently did not like him asking her directly about things from her past. She mentions that emphatically - about not liking his direct questioning. I don't feel that just because you are married, you must tell your spouse every single thing from your past personal life that happened prior to the marriage; so I really cannot condemn the woman for behaving this way. I think she just needs her privacy and space at this crucial time. She has been through a shock, a trauma. I don't see where her husband is being so understanding, in asking her about her past. If you notice he uses some harsh words and trigger words to set her off. I will underline them in the passage below, first paragraph, I will underline key phrases that lead me to think she is very upset:

"I hate your not-straightforward questions," she cried, beside herself with his baiting. "We loved each other, and we WERE lovers - we were. I don't care what YOU think: what have you got to do with it? We were lovers before ever I knew you - "

What do you suppose she was about to say when he cut her off? A least she is being honest with him at this point. She is asking he doesn't attack her with his questioning. She probably her privacy is greatly invaded by her husband. Even married couples need some privacy from time to time. When she was lovers she was not married to her husband.

Now the key 'trigger' words.

"Lovers - lovers," he said, white with fury. "You mean you had your fling with an army man, and then came to me to marry you when you'd done - "

With the "lovers -lovers" he is chiding her and his manner is furious, angry. Then he proceeds to use the word "fling' which, would set off anyone - it seems to imply she was a slut or loose woman, and is obviously intended to demean her and wound her at the same time. Finally, he acts like she came to him to be saved from disgrace. Like he was so pure. How do we know he didn't have a few flings of his own when he was single?

She sat swallowing her bitterness. There was a long pause.
"Do you mean to say you used to go - the whole hogger?" he asked, still incredulous.

This really angered me - it sounded so crude. Tell me this is not a direct arrow into the woman's heart and open wound. She is hurting and he flings this insult at her. This is being understanding?

"Why, what else do you think I mean?" she cried brutally.

Now I think she simply strikes back, because he has fully attacked her.

Ok, this is just my opinion. I was hoping Quark would pop in again, since he might have some light to shed on this whole debate. I wish we could proceed eventually past this debate, and talk about the symbolic elements in the story.

Virgil,I looked up the timeline and here is what I discovered:

1908 At Lynn Croft, Eastwood (except for holiday in Flamboro, Yorkshire, 8-22August) until 12 October, then to 12 Colworth Road, Croydon where Lawrence was now schoolteaching, until the Christmas holiday spend back in Eastwood.

SUMMARY Lawrence completed the second version of The White Peacock, and began the third. He continued with his poems and paintings, wrote 'Art and the Individual' [B34 and Phoenix2], probaby an early version of 'The Shadow in the Rose Garden [C32 A6], 'A lesson on a Tortoise' and 'Lessford's Rabbits' [both Phoenix 2]. and possibly an early version of 'Love Among the Haystacks' [A56].

Early 1908 'The Vicar's Garden', a mere sketch for 'The Shadow in the Rose Garden, was apparently not written in time to be considered for the Nottingham Guardian Christmas competition, but is on identical paper to 'Legend' [Tedlock32]. See Delavenay 2, 192.

Lawrence would have been 23 in 1908, but if this was early in the year he would have been a mere 22 yrs old.

Then I found these later references in 1913, 6 yrs later, Lawrence would now be 27 in July, turn 28 in September:

JULY 1913 Ar Cearne until 9 then to 28 Percy Avenue, Kingsgate. Broadstairs, Kent, until 30, then to London.

SUMMARY I have been grubbing away among the short stories. God, I shall be glad when it is done. I shall begin my novel again in Germany. We bathe and I write among the babies of the foreshore: it is an innocent life and a dull one [Moore 215].

14 JULY I am drudging away revising the Stories. How glad I shall be when I have cleared that mess up! [Moore 213]


20 JULY ....'The Shadow in the Rose Garden', which appeared in The Smart Set, March 1914....Lawrence's rewriting had been particularly heavy for 'The Shadow in the Rose Garden' for which 'The Vicar's Garden' had been a mere seven-page sketch [see Cushman, ; Finney2]

Around this same time, I noted that he also submitted manuscripts for two of the stories we presently discussed:
'The White Stocking' and 'The Shades of Spring'

Then I found this entry:

JULY 1914 At 9 Selwood Terrace, South Kensignton, London, with a visit to Ripley 18-22.

SUMMARY......Lawrence and Frieda were married at Kensington Registry Office on 13 of July, 1914.

9 JULY Lawrence asked Clayton for the MS of 'The Shadow in the Rose Garden' so that he cold revise it before it was typed. On this date Lawrence sent the first batch of stories to Duckworth [Huxley 202]

14 JULY To Edward Garnett: I send you herewith another batch of the short stories........
I have gone over the stories very carefully. I wish you would go through the selection I have sent in, and see if there is any you would leave out, and any your would like putting in. I think all the stories have been already printed, except "Daughters of the Vicar'. I would like them arranging so.

Then he lists them...
these are the ones we already have discussed:

5. Odour of Chrysanthemums
8. The Shadow in the Rose Garden
9. The Dead Rose - became The Shades of Spring
10. The White Stocking

[Janine]

The way I see it, by her brigning her husband to this place of her past, she was making it bussiness, making him a part of it. She came home in a huff, and he meerely asked her at first if something was wrong, at first she tried to act as if nothing was wrong, and denyed anythign happen instead of telling him rationally that she needed some time she storms off and locks herself in her room it is only natural he would wonder what is going on and it also seems at this point he is at his last straw with her bad treatment of him and cannot take it anymore.

Dark Muse,Yes, I agree this part is very true. I wonder if the woman did not subconsciously want her husband to find out about her past so that she could finally rid herself of it. It seemed the past was something keeping her from her present life and moving on, as you pointed out before. As Virgil pointed out the idea of the garden with the trees and the apple is reminescent of 'The Garden of Eden' and this story could be about losing one's innocence. The dream in the garden of the roses was innocent and something the woman had to come to terms with and leave behind her. I think the story actually ends on a positive note when all is out in the open and now healing can take place and perhaps the husband and wife can start afresh and make their marriage work. I am an optimist so I really believe this could happen. Some marriages have to work themselves out.

I have done a re-reading of the story and highlighted a few other lines and phrases that caught my eye, that shortly I shall post.

Excellent. This always helps.

I read your ideas in your next post and agree. The parasol part stood out to me, also. I think it was a symbol of the woman wanting her privacy and her private moment of reminescent in the rose garden. She really did not want interaction with others. The roses are interesting being referred to as 'a strange crowd, and here they are called a confusion of flowers'....interesting, isnt' it when you consider she wanted to be totally alone. Even the invasion of the past lover is not at all welcomed at first or even when she finds out who he is and his state of being. It is like the roses are an invasion as well, adding to her own confusion of thought and mind. Perhaps they are also symbols of forshadowing.
The glowing window or opening in the dark stone wall I felt was wonderfully described and one felt it was heaven/enlightenment beyond that opening. I had underlined that passage earlier.

The house had a sterile apperance, as if it were still used, but not inhabited.

Yes, forshadowing and also I felt the house personified the soldier - he is souless and uninhabited. His mind is vacant like the house. Now he is sterile.

The discussion is quite interesting!

[Dark Muse]

I think the story actually ends on a positive note when all is out in the open and now healing can take place and perhaps the husband and wife can start afresh and make their marriage work. I am an optimist so I really believe this could happen. Some marriages have to work themselves out.

The problem with that idea though, is both the woman and the husband state point blank, that she does not love him and never has loved him. I do not think that it is entierly becasue of her past, and I do not see her now suddnely having feelings for him, as the husband had put it.

"She had taken him on sufference"

[Janine]

The problem with that idea though, is both the woman and the husband state point blank, that she does not love him and never has loved him. I do not think that it is entierly becasue of her past, and I do not see her now suddnely having feelings for him, as the husband had put it.

"She had taken him on sufference"

I did think of that, but they may just be feeling this way now, in their state of anger, resentment and shock. I don't say they will gain a complete love of each other, but sometimes our concepts of what love is changes, as time goes by. They may be able to stay with the marriage and make it work. Who knows? It is not ours to know. We can only stop here and wonder. I think with the closing lines in the story Lawrence is leaving us with the idea that there is some hope, even though slim, for this couple, now that this obstacle is out of their way.

He stood and looked at her. At last he had learned the width of the breach between them. She still squatted on the bed. He could not go near her. It would be violation to each of them to be brought into contact with the other. The thing must work itself out. They were both shocked so much, they were impersonal, and no longer hated each other. After some minutes he left her and went out.

I know that 'no longer hated each other' is a far-cry from 'love', but it is start and a possibility that they will come to a better understanding of each other now that this great burden of the past falls away from them both.

In the Thomas Hardy story, "Tess of the D'Urbervilles", this double standard is quite evident. The man has a past and so does the woman, but when she confesses her past to him, he condemns her, even though he has admitted to his past. This story reminds me of that. Who is to say this man doesn't have a secret past of his own he has never told his wife? Who is to say he is being totally honest with her? 'Let those without guilt cast the first stone' - doesn't the Biblical quote go something like that?

[Dark Muse]

I know that 'no longer hated each other' is a far-cry from 'love', but it is start and a possibility that they will come to a better understanding of each other now that this great burden of the past falls away from them both.

Funny I thought the last line was a bit ominous in a way. As if they have grown completely indifferent to each other, particuarly it says:

After some minitues he left her and went out

Though in the story it only means he walked out of the room, we know how Lawrence does use foreshadow to hint at events to come.

[Janine]

Funny I thought the last line was a bit ominous in a way. As if they have grown completely indifferent to each other, particuarly it says:



Though in the story it only means he walked out of the room, we know how Lawrence does use foreshadow to hint at events to come.

True, first reading I did feel it was ominous and probably hopeless, but knowing how Lawrence himself, thought and what tiffs he had with his wife, I felt they might end up making a go of it afterall. I guess I am being influenced by the interaction evident in the current Lawrence book I am reading, "Kangaroo", which is based on he and his wife as the main characters. Oddly enough, the two resemble the couple in this story physically and in some other respects, but not entirely, of course. I am sure his wife had some influence on his characterization of the woman character, possibly his mother, as well.

I think the ending is ambivalent and we must take it that way. Really we will never know what transpires past the ending of the story. I like the story very much. I am impressed with the maturity of it since it is an early writing of Lawrence, although as I have quoted the timeline book passages one can see that over a 6 yr period the story was reworked and refined into a more mature work, no doubt. Like all of the Lawrence short stories I have read so far I find it an interesting story. I haven't disliked any of them. The writing is so beautifully portrayed, like a painting (interesting to note was that when Lawrence began this story, he was doing more painting than writing). Also, the structure is so well layed out and the story flows easily from start to finish, at times almost like a poem. I think the tone in the rose garden when she is alone is intentionally poetic to set it appart from the 'reality' of the other parts of the story.

I think I am going to bed now - goodnight, DM!