D.H. Lawrence's Short Stories Thread

[Quark]

Quark, do you think in either story there was any real reconciliation at the end... I mean, the last story, only the main character Maurice, is content.. his wife is perplexed, and Bertie is destroyed... this story, The wife has done her ill work, and is satisfied with herself, but the secretary is distraught, and the husband I think is for the most part somewhat annoyed...

Contentment is a little different than just reconciliation. I wasn't saying that the stories ended happily, just that they ended with characters connecting.

I don't want to jump to that yet...ok?

Alright, I'll wait.

but back to the beginning... I love how Lawrence starts this almost as a fairytale... when the story is so far from a fairytale... "There was a woman who loved her husband---"... just add, "Once upon a time" before that and we have a fairytale... .. You don't often see stories beginning with the words, "there was" at least outside of fantasy... And Lawrence uses this kind of fantasy beginning, this simple statement, to great effect in introducing the story... I do find it interesting how he tells the story as though it almost were a fairytale... Does anyone else see that or am I off my rocker (it has been getting kind of rickety recently so I wouldn't be surprised )???

That's a good observation. Do you think Lawrence uses that fairy-tale tone sarcastically, or is he in earnest here?

[Janine]

Hi Everyone, I am back and now awake finally....wait until you see just how awake and alert I am...this post is gigantic...I wrote it offline and it took me forever, so I do hope someone reads it. Sorry I was so out of it yesterday; apparently I just needed sleep.
Ok, the only way to stay focused for me, was to go back to the posts and review them and recap somethings that already have been said. I felt much had gotten skipped over. I have requoted some; some of my own quotes with highlights in bold, also…please forgive these repeats, but mostly I have commended on them after re-thinking the story and reviewing some text..

Pg. 87 #1296 Posted Introduction; discussion officially began

#1299
Quote by Janine

One thing I noticed about this Lawrence story, that seems so much different in form from other stories we read so far, is that even though there is a first person narrator, I feel that the things being thought and said, come directly from the wife's viewpoint. I also get the sense, throughout the story, that this is from the wife's point of view, entirely. I guess that would make sense since, in fact, Faith Mackenzie, who the story was fashioned after, was the one narrating her personal business, about her marriage to Lawrence, directly confiding in him, over a casual lunch. In this way, the story almost, but not quite, feels like a frame story.

#1302
Quote by islandclimber in answer

I also saw the story as basically told by the wife and from her own viewpoint entirely... I think this was necessary to make the wife have some redeeming features... for if we did not have her thoughts to accompany the story, I would see her as pretty awful... but her thoughts put her actions and words into a more positive light... which is why I assume Lawrence wrote from the wife's perspective, so we all don't hate her...

#1304
My request
Quote by Janine

The discussions, where we 'refrained from' charging head-first to the very end of the story in the initial 24 hours, were the best in the long-run, so let's all take it s l o w l y and post segments, as the story progresses: highlight certain phrases and talk about them, as they develop. This worked well in the previous (successful discussions) so stay in the same frame of mind...chronological. We will get more out of it that way. There is a lot here to discuss and many of the lines are just so witty and great to think about in different contexts. This should be great fun!

Quote by Janine

Lawrence knew first-hand how to dish out creative insults, he being constantly attacked and rejected, by former friends, publishers and the public. I think this comes out in this story. Lawrence could get so angry and say something when lashing out it, was actually funny to hear. He used the word 'swine' liberally. I laugh when I read his letters - they're so entertaining!

I will have to dig up some of Lawrence’s best insults and share them with you all. They are so laughable. Leave it to Lawrence and his endless sense of creativity, even in insults.

#1305
Quote by Dark Muse

I rather enjoyed the way the story was written from her point of view, and though I cannot say I entirely agree with her, in someways I can understand/relate to her feelings…… I did not dislike her, I also would not say I completely sympathized with her, than I do not think she was seeking any sympathy…….
One of the things that really struck me about her, and perhaps contributed to my feelings toward her, is the fact that she came off as being both a very strong woman as well as independent. And in many ways, she does admit her own faults…….
I must admit that I also do enjoy her sardonic cynicism

These are 3 interesting points to bring up and something we might want to talk about further. Was the wife really ‘independent’, if she had to live/rely on her husband’s income? Also, how strong was she, if she gravitated back to her husband, a person she did not truly feel emotionally connected to or did she? I am not sure at all that she was strong or independent in truth. I am also in question as to whether the husband and wife are indeed on equal footing. I don’t see that they are, financially, not if the wife depends on the husband’s money for her countless trips abroad.

Pg 88

#1307
Quote by Janine

True - a more modern thinking woman perhaps and one has to consider the time this is set in. Women were not known to work, if they were married, unless they were established authors/artists. I felt she was somewhat like Lawrence's own wife, who was known to have a some casual affairs, from time to time during their marriage, but felt it was nothing that affected their marriage or love for each other. That is questionable on Lawrence's end for I think it did bother him to an extend; but it seemed her attitude was more liberated, although I don't personally subscribe to infidelity.

So, in this story, I think Lawrence is merely exploring that idea and the fact, that eventually, the wife returns home and does have some feelings of resentment and being left out of her husband's life. It sets up an interesting case to look at. True she can see her own faults. She later says that she could not do the things that his secretary does for him. I don't think the wife is practical minded at all or does any bit of work. She's much like a 'kept woman', enjoying the benefits of her husband's income, but that always does have it's downside.

#1310
Quote by DarkMuse in answer

Yes I agree with this, and in fact she herself says how incompetent she really is, and this seems to be a source of some of her resentment, the fact that she knows she could never do the things for her husband that the secretly can and the fact that perhaps in some ways she feels a burden because she knows she is not good for any sort of work.

…. similar aspects to the last story…. As it seems in some ways the wife does leave and get away from her husband to escape the fact that there is an aspect of her husband’s life she can never truly be a part of and she does not want to have to live with that every day. So she goes away to distract herself.

Quote by Janine in answer

It seems to me they both are somewhat in a state of 'inertia' in the marriage, although she takes the step to try and escape it. Apparently, when she does so, she can't really leave her life behind; it trails along with her, even if she tries to shut out thoughts of him. We will get to those passages, later on.

….. the story following this one, is similar in that the wife leaves the gray existence, which is restrictive and stagnant, with her husband in the states, and then gravitates to warmer, sunnier climates. It seems that in the next story, Lawrence advances the characters to find the 'sun' and the healing powers, it can provide. In this story we see only the bitter conflict.

So in answer to your post, Quark, about this being a much different story for Lawrence; I don’t think it is at all. I find the ending in ‘Sun’ just a bit ambivalent in the end too, but maybe a little more resolved, than this one, at least hinting at some ‘hope’ in the future. This story, ‘Two Bluebirds’. is much more cynical and bitter (at the end), in it’s tone; but, Lawrence has left us hanging like this, in other stories we read, where the bitterness is more apparent at the end and leaves us with a sort of endless questioning.


Quote by Janine in answer (husband being caddy):

I do notice this is entirely from the wife's opinion, but I do like that she is saying this. Then she turns it to whimsy and to her husband as being adorable when whimsical.. .In one paragraph, she is criticizing him, and then by the end, she is admiring him. In fact, she is defending him by the last statement. She is basically saying it is not his fault for being vain; women made him that way. This paragraph is quite intricate and 'telling' of the wife's truer impressions of her husdband.

Quote by DarkMuse

Imagine a wife writing down anything her husband said to her!

Quote by Janine in answer

Exactly! Lawrence even complained about having to retype "David" which his wife, Frieda, had typed for him, filling in for his usual typist. He was grumbling and annoyed, just about the time he was also writing this story. I think that comes through in this story. What wife could take on the secretary job realistically???

Some wives say ‘I won’t be your mother or your secretary!
Quote by DarkMuse

I liked the part where it said: “They had the most sincere regard for one another, and felt, in some odd way, eternally married to one another.”

If we read the whole first two paragraphs, and other paragraphs early in the story from which this quote was extracted, it will tell us more I think. For one, we do see the word ‘love’, but only on the part of the woman, but not of the man. Here is the complete quote:

There was a woman who loved her husband, but she could not live with him. The /b]husband, on his side, was sincerely attached to his wife,[/b] yet he could not live with her. They were both under forty, both handsome and both attractive. They had the most sincere regard for one another, and felt, in some odd way, eternally married to one another. They knew one another more intimately than they knew anybody else, they felt more known to one another than to any other person.

Dark Muse, I only bolded up what I was trying to stress – there are other facts you stressed before. I did not bold the fact, that neither could not live with each other. We discussed that part.
Quote from story

Yet they could not live together. Usually, they kept a thousand miles apart, geographically. But when he sat in the greyness of England, at the back of his mind, with a certain grim fidelity, he was aware of his wife, her strange yearning to be loyal and faithful, having her gallant affairs away in the sun, in the south. And she, as she drank her cocktail on the terrace over the sea, and turned her grey, sardonic eyes on the heavy dark face of her admirer, whom she really liked quite a lot, she was actually preoccupied with the clear-cut features of her handsome young husband,…. thinking of how he would be asking his secretary to do something for him, asking in that good-natured, confident voice of a man who knows that his request will be only too gladly fulfilled.

Right away, the narrator, is telling us just what the score is between the husband and wife, and yet it is such a potpourri and complexity of feelings underlying the whole arrangement, don’t you think? The wife is neither happy living away from the husband, or with him. It is a rather impossible situation. Again, England is depicted as grey; whereas, the wife is seeking the sun. Maybe it is not entirely the husband she is fleeing from, but the whole environment in which the husband has determined to live and center his life and be a part of. If you take a look at the next story ‘Sun’, the husband was very ‘rooted’ in his northern residence in NYC. Only after a time, does he follow after the wife to her new found sunny environment, where she intices him to stay for a time. This husband, in “Two Bluebirds”, also seems very rooted and unwilling to budge from his ‘inert’ existence. Also, he appears to be a chronic workaholic. Somewhere in the text it told just how many countless hours this man worked….all the time or most, of course, with the secretary. I think the existence of the secretary, just added fuel to the fire. I don’t think the secretary, per ce, is the problem, nor true jealousy. Those are just symptoms of a much deeper/broader problem. Perhaps the wife truly does love and admire her husband, but he will not connect with her, on that deeper physical level she desires. I can see this more clearly now; maybe the ‘blood consciousness’ idea does indeed exist, just below the surface, in this story. The wife seeks the more ‘sensual’ life in the warmer climates, trying to make up for the loss of her love life with her husband, and in the end it does not really work for her. The husband is rooted, not only in his physical environment in the north, but in his cold ‘intellectual’ world and this closed environment he has established around himself. In a sense, the husband is in his own little shell/world and will not venture out of it. The secretary comes to him and is always readily available, at his ‘beck and call’. How different is this from the the way Lawrence thinks in other stories, especially in ‘Sun’, when the wife discovers her own ‘blood-consciousness’ and sensuality? Except in that story, by the ending, there some shred of hope that the husband might be able to break out of his inertia and routine, and eventually join the wife entirely.

In this story, the next line changes focus abruptly focusing on the man’s secretary:

The secretary, of course, adored him. She was very competent, quite young, and quite good-looking. She adored him.

I don’t believe it says the husband adores the secretary, (but I will check the text). Basically, the wife is right. The husband uses the secretary, but the secretary adores him, so she puts up with anything from him. “He dictated to her, she slaved for him and adored him, and the whole thing went on wheels.”

Ok, I did find some text indicating the man’s feeling towards his secretary:

He didn't 'adore'her. A man doesn't need to adore his secretary. But he depended on her. "I simply rely on Miss Wrexall." Whereas he could never rely on his wife. The one thing he knew finally about her was that she didn't intend to be relied on .

As I said before, Lawrence was retyping his wife, Frieda’s terrible typing, around the time he was wrting this story. This amuses me. I can see where all the animosity comes from. Like this man, Lawrence ‘could not rely on his wife’…why should he really? Frieda was not his secretary, it is not the definition of wife – ‘must type 1000 words per minute!’ This is exactly how Lawrence would feel about Frieda, I believe ‘that she didn't intend to be relied on’…I can see how Lawrence could relate/connect easily to this story. Sometimes, Lawrence, himself was quite unreasonable. Haha.


Quote by DarkMuse

Though they cannot stand to actually be together, they are still forever bonded to each other. They can never completely escape one another.

Does everyone think this is true? I am not sure why they feel this way. I can now see it from the wife’s point of view that maybe truly she does deep down love him; I don’t see the same sentiment for the husband, but then again his may translate to a deep need for her and not truly a love.

Quote by DarkMuse

…. that it does mention within the story, how much the husband and wife had gotten along so well before they were married, but now that they are married they only seem to serve to irritate each other.

Quote from story

So they remained friends, in the awful unspoken intimacy of the once-married. Usually each year they went away together for a holiday, and if they had not been man and wife they would have found a great deal of fun and stimulation in one another. The fact that they were married, had been married for the last dozen years, and couldn't live together for the last three or four, spoilt them for one another. Each had a private feeling of bitterness about the other.

Quote by DarkMuse

Though they are still married, this brought to mind the sentiment, and relationship that sometimes seem to exist between divorced couples whom seem to still get along and care for each and yet can never manage to live with each other.

I agree, DMit is as though they are half-divorced or separated at least. However, I think they are too inert to actually divorce and move on and so they try the vacation together each year. Obviously it does not work for them and they are right back where they started. It seems they are so used to each other there is no stimulation or fun left in their relationship. It does not actually say here that they ever were truly in-love. The last line clearly states that they both are ‘bitter’. I think that is an important factor here. They obviously resent each other.

Quote by Quark

It seems odd that Lawrence would use the caustic banter of the wife to heal their relationship. Isn't that un-Lawrencelike?

I don’t think that the ‘caustic banter’ of the wife heals anything at all, let alone the relationship. I personally think the relationship is beyond hope but I could be wrong. I think that these two people are too set in their ways by now. I actually met this couple once who could not live with each other and yet professed to be in-love; they had houses right next to each other – isn’t that a strange one? Hey, maybe it works for some people, who knows. Years ago it was not that uncommon for men to be away for long periods of time from their wives, many sailed ships and were away most of the time, many explorers didn’t see their wives for years. I don’t say it is the ideal way – hardly, but I don’t think it was that uncommon in England or Scotland for this to be the case. Perhaps, in writing this story, Lawrence is showing just how poorly, this separate way of life works for everyone.

…When she sees the bluebirds in the garden….

Quark, let’s hold off to discuss this scene until later. I think we can say much about it and the significance of the two bluebirds. It was an interesting scene, wasn’t it. But I must tell you – get used to Lawrence surprising us. It happens more than you would think. You really can’t ever second guess Lawrence, but that makes his writing more interesting, I think.

Quote by islandclimber

....wives knowing there is an aspect of their husbands they do not have access to, and seemingly cannot.. but in the last one it was on a deep level, that blood-conscious level... this one it is more of a vanity, an external thing, an illusion, that they put between themselves I think.... she can't be part of it, partly because she thinks it is beneath her,, and she doesn't want to be.. I don't think she is overly interested in her husband outside of the fact he is her husband...

Islandclimber, I might have agreed with this last night, but now after reviewing all the posts and some of text, I see that it does state that the wife did love her husband. I can see now how she would feel left out/shut out of his life. I don’t think it is all vanity and illusion, and even when she makes a later statement that maybe she will buy something and spend his money (which seems like a vain gesture), I think she is doing that to get attention from him, or get back at him the only way she knows how to. If she did not care about him at all, she would be bothered.

During this period of Lawrence’s writing there was a number of stories that followed the more fairytale format. If you go online and look up ‘Rocking Horse Winner’, you will come up with some commentary that expresses this idea and talks about this period in Lawrence’s writing; when his stories are not quite realistic, but more fantasy-like and fable-like and meant to convey a deeper meaning. ‘The Man Who Loved Islands’ is another good example of this. There is much symbolism and irony in that story.


Quote by islandclimber

And these lines as well from the start impressed me, and gave me a feel for the essence of the relationship

"So they remained friends, in the awful unspoken intimacy of the once-married."
it is quite the cynical statement about the wonders of marriage... as though a friend is the best one could hope for, never a lover, definitely never a passionate lover.. he almost puts an exclamation point on that with this line... they have this conscious intimacy that needs no words, but it is more of a trouble than a good thing coming out of a great love... they love each other at a distance, but as he states later in that same paragraph, they both have private feelings of bitterness towards the other... so it seems they love an idealized version of the other they have in their minds, and can't handle the real, living version when they are together... the wife's idle thoughts about the nature of her husband kind of seem idealistic, idyllic, in a sense... and she only thinks that at a distance... but I think that proximity, and nearness, physical intimacy sour this for her with him, she finds he doesn't live up to that idyllic perfection she builds up in her mind while apart....

I agree – those are interesting thoughts and you expressed them well here. Seems the distance enhances their feelings, and then in ‘close proximity’ they can’t handle any bit of intimacy. I wonder though, if that cannot be somehow resolved. I don’t know if their relationship is totally based on idealism, but it might be so. Maybe they each went into the marriage, with the wrong impressions and expectations. Whatever; the marriage,the way it stands, is not working for them. “I think that proximity, and nearness, physical intimacy sour this for her with him” – do you think they truly have any nearness or physical intimacy between them? I don’t see that they do but that might be unwritten here.

Quote from story

…Nothing you could call adultery, to come down to brass tacks. No, no! They were just the young master and his secretary….

so it is okay for her to be adulterous, but not for him??? that is an interesting idea and definitely a very one sided morality...

I thought so too. It seemed like the old double standard in reverse. The woman having the affairs of no consequence or importance and the husband remaining faithful sexually towards his wife. It therefore seems, symbolically, like the wife sees the devotion of the secretary and her adoration of her husband even more threatening than if he was having casual affairs with other women. Interesting….and I can sort of understand that.

Quote by DarkMuse

Yes, that is true, but than she does have those couple of moments where she seems almost annoyed with her husband that he does not actually give more intimacy to his secretary for all she does for him……….

Some of the wife’s agitation seems to be over the devotion that the women give to her husband, without seeming to get any real benefit in return from him. Though in part this could be, because she knows she herself would never be so selflessly devoted to him in such a way. And that she would be incapable of working for him.

Yes, and these two statements of yours, Dark Muse, support my last statement. I think the wife is now in a ‘no win’ situation. She can’t be devoted to her husband as the secretary is and yet she resents that in the secretary as a woman who she now feels threatened by.

[Dark Muse]

These are 3 interesting points to bring up and something we might want to talk about further. Was the wife really ‘independent’, if she had to live/rely on her husband’s income? Also, how strong was she, if she gravitated back to her husband, a person she did not truly feel emotionally connected to or did she? I am not sure at all that she was strong or independent in truth. I am also in question as to whether the husband and wife are indeed on equal footing. I don’t see that they are, financially, not if the wife depends on the husband’s money for her countless trips abroad.

Well when I refered to as being independent, I was not finically speaking, I think there are other ways to be independent than just for one to be able to provide for themselves. She is independent in the way in which she lives very much her own life seperate from her husband. She is also very much of her own mind

In other Lawrence stories it seems in varrious different ways the women are more dependent upon thier husbands, emotionally. For example in the story Sun, the woman romanticies about having an affair with the peasent man, but in the end she would not acutally do it.

While the woman in this story, would not think twice about it.

And thought she still remains conntected to her husband, and peridoically returns back to him, I think she is still a strong personality and when I said they were on equal footing, I did not mean so much, finiance wise, but more in the fact that to me the husband in this story did not seem as downtrodden by his wife as the one in The Shadow in the Rose Garden. They meet on equal terms with each other. I do not think she is truly taking advantage of her, becasue he knows her just for what she is, and he allows it.

Right away, the narrator, is telling us just what the score is between the husband and wife, and yet it is such a potpourri and complexity of feelings underlying the whole arrangement, don’t you think? The wife is neither happy living away from the husband, or with him. It is a rather impossible situation.

Yes I agree, though it seems that most of the struggle is with the wife, perhaps just becasue it is told from her point of view, but the husband seems in his own way content with whatever happens, though he does implore his wife to stay at one point:

"You have got your secretary and your work" she said, "There is no room for me."

"There is a bedroom, and a sitting-room exclussively for you" he replied. "And a garden and half a motor-car. But please yourself entirely. Do what gives you most pleasure"

But he seems to suffer no anxeity from her commings and goings.

Again, England is depicted as grey; whereas, the wife is seeking the sun. Maybe it is not entirely the husband she is fleeing from, but the whole environment in which the husband has determined to live and center his life and be a part of. If you take a look at the next story ‘Sun’, the husband was very ‘rooted’ in his northern residence in NYC. Only after a time, does he follow after the wife to her new found sunny environment, where she intices him to stay for a time. This husband, in “Two Bluebirds”, also seems very rooted and unwilling to budge from his ‘inert’ existence. Also, he appears to be a chronic workaholic. Somewhere in the text it told just how many countless hours this man worked….all the time or most, of course, with the secretary.

Yes, everything seems to just revolve around the husband, even within the story he is not seen as being very physcialy active, he is always lounging somewhere, while everyone else is moving around him, attending to his chores

I think the existence of the secretary, just added fuel to the fire. I don’t think the secretary, per ce, is the problem, nor true jealousy. Those are just symptoms of a much deeper/broader problem. Perhaps the wife truly does love and admire her husband, but he will not connect with her, on that deeper physical level she desires. I can see this more clearly now; maybe the ‘blood consciousness’ idea does indeed exist, just below the surface, in this story. The wife seeks the more ‘sensual’ life in the warmer climates, trying to make up for the loss of her love life with her husband, and in the end it does not really work for her. The husband is rooted, not only in his physical environment in the north, but in his cold ‘intellectual’ world and this closed environment he has established around himself. In a sense, the husband is in his own little shell/world and will not venture out of it. The secretary comes to him and is always readily available, at his ‘beck and call’. How different is this from the the way Lawrence thinks in other stories, especially in ‘Sun’, when the wife discovers her own ‘blood-consciousness’ and sensuality? Except in that story, by the ending, there some shred of hope that the husband might be able to break out of his inertia and routine, and eventually join the wife entirely.

Yes this is very true. In this story, there does not seem to be any change by the end of the story, but only that everything appears it will remain just the same as it has always been.

I agree that the secretary is not truly the problem, and I do not think that the wife acutally does feel any true jealously for the woman, but seems more annoyed with her husbands own actions, and how content he is to just be served upon by this women and to have all his own needs provided for, without giving much thought to others.

It could be that one of the problems the wife has with her husband is the fact that he does not give her the attention which she seeks, as she says at one point

He never kissed anybody

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 reptuation as a writer, ruining his life. Ruining him with thier slavish service.

Here she seems to express her desire to try and break her husband free from his rut and routine.

[Virgil]

Wow, I haven't read these posts yet, but they are awfully long. You guys must really be into this story.

[Janine]

Wow, I haven't read these posts yet, but they are awfully long. You guys must really be into this story.

We are into all the stories - has there been a bad one yet??? I feel the same way in the Chekhov thread - awfully long and I am totally lost in there, and lost my footing and am behind now. I finally copied everything out and trimmed the posts and will print out to read, later tonight; I also have to reread the story. I hope that helps me organise my feeble little brain waves. Virgil, I did the same in here today; put everyone's former posts into my Word program and recapped a lot of it in my new post...see my very long post - Today 7:16 PM. You might be able to catch up just reading that for now - it is like a review; I copied the most important parts of each person's posts. I was getting totally lost and confused myself. I think soon I will post some passages directly from the story, more of the beginning parts to start with. Then we can talk about them. Because we seem to be jumping around a little for now.

[Quark]

Okay, you win for longest post. #1322 is truly an epic. It's difficult to respond to all that at once, so I'll break it down into a few separate responses. First, this idea:

These are 3 interesting points to bring up and something we might want to talk about further. Was the wife really ‘independent’, if she had to live/rely on her husband’s income? Also, how strong was she, if she gravitated back to her husband, a person she did not truly feel emotionally connected to or did she? I am not sure at all that she was strong or independent in truth. I am also in question as to whether the husband and wife are indeed on equal footing. I don’t see that they are, financially, not if the wife depends on the husband’s money for her countless trips abroad.

I agree with Dark Muse on this one. While the wife is financially dependent on the husband, I think she does maintain an independent lifestyle and attitude. Her affairs and just her general manner speak to that. Lawrence tells us that she always has her back half-turned to everything which creates this image of a reserved, independent, and somewhat haughty woman. Even though her affection for her husband makes her return, she still projects this kind of strength.

[Janine]

Well when I refered to as being independent, I was not finically speaking, I think there are other ways to be independent than just for one to be able to provide for themselves. She is independent in the way in which she lives very much her own life seperate from her husband. She is also very much of her own mind

Dark Muse, I hope you laugh at this but when I put your quotes (really applies to all of us) in my Word program it corrected the typos and the spelling. At least that has spell-check! So your quotes might look a little altered to you.

Well, considering the word 'independent' what definition can you give to it, if indeed this person, the wife, is not finanically 'independent'? I am trying to say this: if that be the case, and the woman must rely solely on her husband's support how can you say she is actually 'independent'? She might think 'independenly', but she is not in reality 'independent', she is 'dependent' on her husband who is providing for her. How does she truly live her own life, separate from her husband? He is all the time footing the bill. I don't agree at all. She is not truly independent and I think she probably is quite aware of that fact, which would only lead to added resentment towards him. If she was independent, she would take off and leave him far behind. She would have the means and funds to do so.

In other Lawrence stories it seems in varrious different ways the women are more dependent upon thier husbands, emotionally. For example in the story Sun, the woman romanticies about having an affair with the peasent man, but in the end she would not acutally do it.

But in Sun is the woman really romantic at all about her own husband? I don't think she has such an emotional connection to him at the point that story takes place. They seem more distant with each other. I don't see that this woman in TBB's is any more independent. They both live in a time when the husband paid their way, in return they raised the children perhaps. It seems not to be the case in TBB's. This wife seems to me to be more spoiled and not needful in anything she wishes for. Her husband may be distant towards her and in a world of his own but he doesn't seem to deny her anything material. She could not be independent if she did not have the means from him to be so. She would then be at his mercy and stuck at home.

While the woman in this story, would not think twice about it.

That is true, but I still don't believe, that having extra-martial affairs liberates a person or makes them independent. The only way I would agree with you, anyway close, would be to say she is not inert, like her husband but takes the inititive to go places/travel and see other people and socialise and even take on lovers; but I still don't feel that is being independent. In spirit, maybe but not truly so. She is getting a free pass for her independence.

And thought she still remains conntected to her husband, and peridoically returns back to him, I think she is still a strong personality and when I said they were on equal footing, I did not mean so much, finiance wise, but more in the fact that to me the husband in this story did not seem as downtrodden by his wife as the one in The Shadow in the Rose Garden. They meet on equal terms with each other. I do not think she is truly taking advantage of her, becasue he knows her just for what she is, and he allows it.

Well, who is to say what his true feelings really are. Maybe he is just good at hiding them. Some men are. He seems self-centered with his work, but under his veneer there actually might be a feeling human-being, and he could feel hurt without showing it. I will have to review the text and see if there is even a hint of that about him.

Yes I agree, though it seems that most of the struggle is with the wife, perhaps just becasue it is told from her point of view, but the husband seems in his own way content with whatever happens, though he does implore his wife to stay at one point:

Yes, he does request her to stay home, but then he seems to know he will not be able to win in the end, so he is very resigned. I don't know how much struggle there is going on within the husband. He may act accepting of his wife's activities but actually be very disturbed beneath about them. Who knows? Like I said, we don't know what is going on inside him, because basically we are being given the story from the woman's point of view, which of course is tainted to suit her and colored with her sarcasm.

But he seems to suffer no anxeity from her commings and goings.

How do we know that?

Yes, everything seems to just revolve around the husband, even within the story he is not seen as being very physcialy active, he is always lounging somewhere, while everyone else is moving around him, attending to his chores

Yes, interesting that he is lounging about. I found that image of him that Lawrence paints quite revealing of his state and his personality. It adds to this inert and inactive idea. His body language tells much....again it seems to me to mirror his resigned state with his wife.

Yes this is very true. In this story, there does not seem to be any change by the end of the story, but only that everything appears it will remain just the same as it has always been.

Still not entirely sure of that but a second reading should make up my mind. I tend to think there will be no change but I don't really know.

I agree that the secretary is not truly the problem, and I do not think that the wife acutally does feel any true jealously for the woman, but seems more annoyed with her husbands own actions, and how content he is to just be served upon by this women and to have all his own needs provided for, without giving much thought to others.

Oh, good we do agree on something. I like the way you put that last part. Of course, this again is how the wife is perceiving it. Lawrence should have re-written this story from the husband's point of view - might have been much different take....

It could be that one of the problems the wife has with her husband is the fact that he does not give her the attention which she seeks, as she says at one point

I think that is part of the problem. I think that there are direct things in the story that point to that fact. Being a writer it would make sense that he is absorbed in his own world of literature and sort of has blinders on most of the time as to what is going on with his wife and the outside world. I think the wife does grave attention from her husband. I think this is why she is so resentful towards the secretary being so much in his sphere. She isn't jealous of her in a sexual way, but she is in an 'attentive' way. Let's face it this man, who gives no one much attention is focused on the secretary all the time. Sure he is working and dictating to her but the focus it there and the wife reads this as a place that she is shut out of. So, in some rudimentary way she is jealous of the secretary because she has commanded his attention. I think the wive's anger is basically directed towards the husband but by attaching the secretary she know it will bounce off and hit her husband at his weakest part.

Here she seems to express her desire to try and break her husband free from his rut and routine.

[Janine]

Okay, you win for longest post. #1322 is truly an epic. It's difficult to respond to all that at once, so I'll break it down into a few separate responses. First, this idea:

Most of this emorously long post #1322, was recapping/reviewing/ extracting the good parts/then adding some new comments. Basically, now it is all the important/key things we said, and not the others that were tending to distract me. If you could take that post piece by piece, I would greatly appreciate it, Quark, since it took me so long to write...hours really.

I agree with Dark Muse on this one. While the wife is financially dependent on the husband, I think she does maintain an independent lifestyle and attitude. Her affairs and just her general manner speak to that. Lawrence tells us that she always has her back half-turned to everything which creates this image of a reserved, independent, and somewhat haughty woman. Even though her affection for her husband makes her return, she still projects this kind of strength.

I still don't agree and I gave my reasons in the post above. You said the word - 'image' - she may have acquired/created this image of an 'independent woman', but I don't consider her truly one. If she were self-sufficient and an author/artist/professional woman, then I might agree, even a working class woman who is supporting herself. We might be mixing up the term 'modern thinking' woman with 'independent'.

[Dark Muse]

Well, considering the word 'independent' what definition can you give to it, if indeed this person, the wife, is not finanically 'independent'? I am trying to say this: if that be the case, and the woman must rely solely on her husband's support how can you say she is actually 'independent'? She might think 'independenly', but she is not in reality 'independent', she is 'dependent' on her husband who is providing for her. How does she truly live her own life, separate from her husband? He is all the time footing the bill. I don't agree at all. She is not truly independent and I think she probably is quite aware of that fact, which would only lead to added resentment towards him. If she was independent, she would take off and leave him far behind. She would have the means and funds to do so.

I still personally believe that there are different types of indecency, and dependency, and the finance is not the only possible definition for the word. The husband and the wife live independently from each other. And it is the wife that takes the initiative. While the husband remains at home, she is the one that ventures out into the world.

Just as you can say that her husband is dependent. Though he might be financially secure, he relies and depends upon his secretary, as well as her family to do everything for him. In this way, he is not independent.

How do we know that?

Well I said "seems" to be, becasue there is nothing within the text in which to tell us that he does feel any anexity over his wife's behavior.

I think that is part of the problem. I think that there are direct things in the story that point to that fact. Being a writer it would make sense that he is absorbed in his own world of literature and sort of has blinders on most of the time as to what is going on with his wife and the outside world. I think the wife does grave attention from her husband. I think this is why she is so resentful towards the secretary being so much in his sphere. She isn't jealous of her in a sexual way, but she is in an 'attentive' way. Let's face it this man, who gives no one much attention is focused on the secretary all the time. Sure he is working and dictating to her but the focus it there and the wife reads this as a place that she is shut out of. So, in some rudimentary way she is jealous of the secretary because she has commanded his attention. I think the wive's anger is basically directed towards the husband but by attaching the secretary she know it will bounce off and hit her husband at his weakest part.

Yes this is true, though I think some of her frustration is directed at herself as well, she is angry with the fact that the secretary is a part of her husband's world that she is not, and at the fact that he relies upon her, but I think part of that comes from her knowledge that she could never replace the secretary, that she could not be relied upon by her husband. She projects her anger upon her husband, and the secretary, but I think that is in part her projecting her anger at herself upon them, because she feels so incompetent.

Though she would never actually want to do what the secretary does, I think she is jealous of the fact that the woman can do one thing of which she knows she never could.

[Janine]

Quote by Dark Muse

Yes this is true, though I think some of her frustration is directed at herself as well, she is angry with the fact that the secretary is a part of her husband's world that she is not, and at the fact that he relies upon her, but I think part of that comes from her knowledge that she could never replace the secretary, that she could not be relied upon by her husband. She projects her anger upon her husband, and the secretary, but I think that is in part her projecting her anger at herself upon them, because she feels so incompetent.

DM, Wow, you are quick posting tonight. haha.
This first part is an interesting thought, and I believe I agree with you on the fact, that in reality, she is angry with herself as much, as she is with her husband and the secretary. I do also, think she feels 'incompetent'...but see this is my point, woman who are 'incompentent', do depend on others, so I can't envision her totally independent. I had a 'so called' friend like this. She thought she was the most modern progressive independent woman in the world and she always ended up being dependent on her husbands (married twice) and they both indulged her. All she need do, was ask for something and she got it. Like this woman she was never truly happy or satisfied. I just have to stick to my own opinion here on true independence. Maybe we should look the definition up and see exactly what is says. Ok here is what my dictionary says:

independent (-dant) adj.1. free from the influence or control of others; specif., a) self-governing b) self-determined, self reliant, etc. c) not adhering to any political party d) not connected with others (ex: an independent grocer). 2. not depending on another for financial support --n. one who is indedpendent in thinking, action, etc.

Obviously, 1. c and 1. d. don't apply here. Ok, 1.free from the influence or control of others....if she was that, she would be totally free of her husband's influence - how can she be entirely? The very fact that she is married to him influences her life. 1. b) self-determined - this might be be true, but this could apply to a happily married woman, as well. 'self reliant' in my opinion does not fit her because she is reliant on her husband for her very existence. Even if far from home in another country she can't be self-reliant' if she is living on his money.
If you refer to the word 'independent' as a noun, then you can say it is one who is independent in thinking, action, etc.
Therefore, you might say that she was an independent 'thinking' and 'acting' woman, but to me she is not truly independent.

[Dark Muse]

She might not be independent in all ways, I just do not think fiance is everything. And I think comparatively she is more independent than the previous women we have read about in other stories. She might still rely upon her husband finically but in other ways she is over her own mind, and makes her own decisions. She has control over her own actions.

I guess for me she just really had a presence that I did not notice in women of previous stories. Perhaps progressive, or modern would be a better word for her than independent. In many ways I think she is her own woman. Another thing which I noticed about her, is that she seems to have more witty discourse with her husband, and talk to him on more of an equal level than previous women we have discussed.

There is one description of her I really love, but I do not want to jump too far ahead so I will save it for later.

But there is one passage I really loved, that is towards the beginning I wanted to share.

So the winter wore away, and it was spring, when the swallows homeward fly, or northward, in this case. This winter, one of a series similar, had been rather hard to get through. The bit of grit in the gallant lady's eye had worked deeper in the more she blinked. Dark faces might be dark, and icy cocktails might lend a glow; she blinked her hardest to blink that bit of grit away, without success. Under the spicy balls of the mimosa she thought of that husband of hers in the library, and that neat, competent, but common little secretary of his, for ever taking down what he said.

For one thing I loved the bird symbolism which held throughout the story. And the fact that she herself would fly south for the winter, and than come back again to her roost in the spring. In fact her connection to her husband can be seen as being very bird like in nature. The way in which many birds always return back to the exact same nesting sites time and time again. And even the hatchlings, when they grow will return to their parents nesting site. In this way she is always drawn back to her husband, as if by some instinct within her.

I also loved the descriptions of the "grit" within her eye, and her struggles to free herself of it. I think this is quite a humorous view of it. As her husband in someway's is a constant irritation to her she can never be completely free from.

And if he had been a fairy prince who could call all the ants to help him, he would not have been more wonderful than securing this secretary and her family. They took hardly any wages. And they seemed to perform this miracle of loaves and fishes daily.

I love the description of the fairy prince here. And it goes along with the fairy tale idea which others have discussed.

[islandclimber]

Oh my!!! I go to the opera tonight.. and 10 new long posts spring up!!!!!!! ahhhh... so I am going to have to review these and post tomorrow, when with my luck, there will be 10 more, undoubtedly... and then the Chekhov thread.. I dread to look!!!!

[Janine]

She might not be independent in all ways, I just do not think fiance is everything. And I think comparatively she is more independent than the previous women we have read about in other stories. She might still rely upon her husband finically but in other ways she is over her own mind, and makes her own decisions. She has control over her own actions.

Well, let me just say this - remove the financial security and see just how long she would be independent. I don't think, we will ever fully agree on this idea, of her being independent. I think, to be as she is, is a false sense of independence. If she were to leave her husband, or he her, and be poor would she then be independent? When I do think of independent, I think of someone like Clara in "Sons and Lovers', who left her husband and worked for a living, and had progressive ideas on woman's rights, etc. I think that this woman in TBB's, is independent, as long as she doesn't have to be bothered, worrying about where her next meal comes from or where she will sleep or how she will travel to such exotic sunny locations. Take the means for all that away and I don't think she would be too independent or modern or liberated. Her type independence, to me is a false sense of independence, that could easily dissolve away.

I guess for me she just really had a presence that I did not notice in women of previous stories. Perhaps progressive, or modern would be a better word for her than independent. In many ways I think she is her own woman. Another thing which I noticed about her, is that she seems to have more witty discourse with her husband, and talk to him on more of an equal level than previous women we have discussed.

Actually, she is much like Frieda this way, Lawrence's wife; she was a strong independent woman, also. She was a 'force to be reckoned with' and Lawrence and she fought it out often, but they seemed to really love and repect each other. Their relationship was complicated. I can't help but feel, that Lawrence is projecting some of that friction between them, into this story. I read that, when he wrote this story, he and Frieda were not getting along well, at all. One would have to be affected. The only thing about Frieda, that is different in independence and strength, is that she did come from family that had some source of money. However, following her husband faithfully around the world, did not insure her any bit of financial independence. I prefer to think of the difference, in that these two women, were more modern thinking and progressive. In Frieda's case she did take an active role at times in Lawrence's work, so she definitely earned her way and she did housework and did not depend on servants as this woman in 'Two Blue Birds' does. This woman strikes me more as a pampered type, who doesn't have to lift a finger, if she chooses not to. She has no source of income of her own, and does not help her husband with his. She admits she would be inept at that. I get the sense she has no interest at all in his writing or his work and does not lend him support in that way.

There is one description of her I really love, but I do not want to jump too far ahead so I will save it for later.

Ok, thanks for that. I know, sometimes it is so hard to hold back, when a though just comes to you.

But there is one passage I really loved, that is towards the beginning I wanted to share.

Good quote indeed!

For one thing I loved the bird symbolism which held throughout the story. And the fact that she herself would fly south for the winter, and than come back again to her roost in the spring. In fact her connection to her husband can be seen as being very bird like in nature. The way in which many birds always return back to the exact same nesting sites time and time again. And even the hatchlings, when they grow will return to their parents nesting site. In this way she is always drawn back to her husband, as if by some instinct within her.

Lawrence very often refers to birds; bird references and symbolism is found widely throughout his literature. I just love that one aspect of his writing. I have even heard him refer to a baby tortoise, in his poetry, as having a 'beak like a bird'. I am so interested in the significance of the two blue birds at the end of the story and why 'blue' - the bluebird of happiness? We should wait to discuss that part; but, you are right I believe; this earlier reference is very representative of the woman flying south for the winter, just like the birds and then flying back home in the summer. Everything you say here is right-on and accurate, I think. Good interpretation, DM. Although, I know some birds mate for life; this set did not, apparently; but then again, their dedication to staying married seems to be for life, I suppose. Yes, instinct does bring her back to him, and to their home (nest), and perhaps that annoying bit of 'grit' lodged in her eye!

I also loved the descriptions of the "grit" within her eye, and her struggles to free herself of it. I think this is quite a humorous view of it. As her husband in someway's is a constant irritation to her she can never be completely free from.

Yes, I thought, symbolically, that was just great. It was, as if the 'irritation' she felt towards her husband was manifest within her eye. Also, since earlier on, it said that when she looked at her lover, she only could see the handsome face of her husband, back in the north. This passage combined humor, with an underlying serious element and was very cleverly written.

I love the description of the fairy prince here. And it goes along with the fairy tale idea which others have discussed.

I love that passage too, and I love the witty way Lawrence wrote the last couple words, referring to the bible - the "loaves and fishes"...when I first read this line, I actually laughed out loud, thinking how clever this whole paragraph was. God, I love reading Lawrence!....and there is always something new to marvel at, in his prose.

[Dark Muse]

Well, let me just say this - remove the financial security and see just how long she would be independent. I don't think, we will ever fully agree on this idea, of her being independent. I think, to be as she is, is a false sense of independence. If she were to leave her husband, or he her, and be poor would she then be independent? When I do think of independent, I think of someone like Clara in "Sons and Lovers', who left her husband and worked for a living, and had progressive ideas on woman's rights, etc. I think that this woman in TBB's, is independent, as long as she doesn't have to be bothered, worrying about where her next meal comes from or where she will sleep or how she will travel to such exotic sunny locations. Take the means for all that away and I don't think she would be too independent or modern or liberated. Her type independence, to me is a false sense of independence, that could easily dissolve away.

LoL yes I think we are going to have to put this issue to rest, and just agree to disagree, as I still beleive there are different types of independnce

Actually, she is much like Frieda this way, Lawrence's wife; she was a strong independent woman, also. She was a 'force to be reckoned with' and Lawrence and she fought it out often, but they seemed to really love and repect each other. Their relationship was complicated. I can't help but feel, that Lawrence is projecting some of that friction between them, into this story. I read that, when he wrote this story, he and Frieda were not getting along well, at all. One would have to be affected. The only thing about Frieda, that is different in independence and strength, is that she did come from family that had some source of money. However, following her husband faithfully around the world, did not insure her any bit of financial independence. I prefer to think of the difference, in that these two women, were more modern thinking and progressive. In Frieda's case she did take an active role at times in Lawrence's work, so she definitely earned her way and she did housework and did not depend on servants as this woman in 'Two Blue Birds' does. This woman strikes me more as a pampered type, who doesn't have to lift a finger, if she chooses not to. She has no source of income of her own, and does not help her husband with his. She admits she would be inept at that. I get the sense she has no interest at all in his writing or his work and does not lend him support in that way.

Acutally, in one of my classess, we are going to be discussing Lawrence, and the first day Tuesday we watched a video about his life, and it talked a lot about his relationship to Fredia within the movie.

Lawrence very often refers to birds; bird references and symbolism is found widely throughout his literature. I just love that one aspect of his writing. I have even heard him refer to a baby tortoise, in his poetry, as having a 'beak like a bird'. I am so interested in the significance of the two blue birds at the end of the story and why 'blue' - the bluebird of happiness? We should wait to discuss that part;

Yes I found that part tword the end interesting as well, and look forward to dicussing it.

but, you are right I believe; this earlier reference is very representative of the woman flying south for the winter, just like the birds and then flying back home in the summer. Everything you say here is right-on and accurate, I think. Good interpretation, DM. Although, I know some birds mate for life; this set did not, apparently; but then again, their dedication to staying married seems to be for life, I suppose. Yes, instinct does bring her back to him, and to their home (nest), and perhaps that annoying bit of 'grit' lodged in her eye!

Yes in a way they do seem to be mated for life, for the fact that they always end up coming back to each other, or her to him. And perhaps sense it did mention they have been married for a significant amount of time, it has just become almost habtitial for them. Maybe they just do not know how to live any other way anymore, they fell into this pattern together.

Yes, I thought, symbolically, that was just great. It was, as if the 'irritation' she felt towards her husband was manifest within her eye. Also, since earlier on, it said that when she looked at her lover, she only could see the handsome face of her husband, back in the north. This passage combined humor, with an underlying serious element and was very cleverly written.!

Eyes do seem to be imporant to this story. There was also the fact that when she was "looking" back toward England, her eyes were descirbed as being grey, as the greyness of England was, where she left her husband behind.

[Janine]

LoL yes I think we are going to have to put this issue to rest, and just agree to disagree, as I still beleive there are different types of independnce

Dark Muse, I don't think we need to say a thing more. We simply disagree and that's all there is to it. It really does not matter at all. Just petty to keep talking about it, don't you think? Let's go onto more interesting topics in the story.

Acutally, in one of my classess, we are going to be discussing Lawrence, and the first day Tuesday we watched a video about his life, and it talked a lot about his relationship to Fredia within the movie.

Oh, that is so great! DM, I wish I could attend you class. Now I am truly jealous; I want to see that video...do you know what it was called? Yes, Frieda was a huge part of Lawrence's life and I think, a definite influence on his writing, past a certain time. Will you be reading some Lawrence works - book, stories, etc? You must keep me informed as you go along. I hope this class does not make you more Lawrence informed than me ...just kidding with you. You might be 'setting me straight', on things I post about his background/concepts/life.

Yes I found that part tword the end interesting as well, and look forward to dicussing it.

So do I; we will get there eventually. Just have to be patient. I think I will once again re-read this story. I already read it twice. I don't mind though - Lawrence's stories are so good, that repeat readings always seem to reveal more to me, and I enjoy them even more.

Yes in a way they do seem to be mated for life, for the fact that they always end up coming back to each other, or her to him. And perhaps sense it did mention they have been married for a significant amount of time, it has just become almost habtitial for them. Maybe they just do not know how to live any other way anymore, they fell into this pattern together.

So, maybe the way they gravitate back to each other, is more 'instinctive' and a pattern they have fallen into? They sound like ducks! But seriously, I agree with that idea.

Eyes do seem to be imporant to this story. There was also the fact that when she was "looking" back toward England, her eyes were descirbed as being grey, as the greyness of England was, where she left her husband behind.

Always, the mention of eyes with Lawrence. It is interesting, isn't it? Yes, and 'grey' would definitely be the color Lawrence would view for the Bristish Isles and also anywhere cold in the North. Remember the 'greyness' and 'whiteness' in "The Man Who Loved Islands"....I am sure eyes were also mentioned in that story, with color significance.