D.H. Lawrence's Short Stories Thread

[islandclimber]

Janine, thank you for the great post above.. it helps put this story in context and gives one a better idea of what Lawrence was thinking about at the time... Fascinating... wonderful post

so in rereading this story, I like the husband and the wife less and less.. the husband I find behaves very generously and wonderfully with regards to his wife, if being a bit of a push over, and a trod upon man... which I fully see, though he allows it completely.. his choice I guess.. matrimonial harmony requires sacrifices, and I guess in this case it is all about allowing the wife to commit adultery in the sake of happiness.. why not get a divorce? it appears they have no reason to be together... unless they are waiting for old age and making sure they have a companion, but surely they could find someone they actually want to be with....

I find the husband treats his secretary with little generosity as the wife seems to imply, but the problem is that the secretary and her family seem perfectly content with this, and the wife is thinking of how she herself would feel in the secretary's position, which is absurd, because they are two quite different creatures... still the husband could do more for them... or so I believe....

the wife though,... even if she is narrating the story, and appears in a somewhat favourable and sympathetic light at first glance.. rereading and looking deeper, does she have any redeeming qualities... no... not a single one.. she is lazy, doesn't want to help earn income, doesn't care for being around her husband, however much she claims to esteem him, I don't believe she seriously loves him, maybe in a platonic sense, as one loves someone who appears to be genuinely good and noble for the most part... but not in any other way,.. she takes his money, she sleeps with other people and then comes home and tries to play the part of the home-wrecker herself, and destroy the situation that everyone in the house is quite happy with, except herself, being the jealous woman that she is... in wanting to possess everything of her husband, yet not wanting to give anything in return.. it seems she wants her husband to need her and pine for her while she is away, but she still believes her affairs are necessary and explains it away to being a modern woman.... it is a little ridiculous.. but the only redeeming factor is that the husband is seemingly okay with this and supports her in doing so... I just dislike her quite a bit... she is a woman, who does nothing and is given everything all the same, and shows no gratitude, instead makes up excuses and reasons to create problems in what is a happy situation with the husband and secretary and her family at home... what is sympathetic about her?

[Dark Muse]

Though I perhaps do not per sae like the husband within the story, I would say my feelings upon him are perhaps rather neutral in nature, as I do not truly dislike him either.

And the wife I must admit does amuse me. I appreciate her wit and sarcasm, and quite honestly, I do not feel I can truly judge either of them for how they choose to live their life, as neither one is doing anything behind the back of the other they are open and honest with each other, and thus they are two grown adults choosing to live their life in a way that perhaps is unconventional.

But the wife has no reason to stop living the way she does, because she is given no consequences, and as far as we can see in the story, the husband does not express to her any true wish for her to stop her behavior.

I am not to say that all marriages must follow the same standard. And the secretary does toward the end of the story express how deeply happy and content she is with her current relation to the husband, so I cannot truly say she or her family are suffering at his hands.

Thus he really has no reason to act any differently toward them as they do not seem to desire it.

They may not be all wholly content with their arrangements, but it is they choices they made for themselves. The husband could probably stop the wife by refusing to continue to finically support her if he wished but he does not make any such actions.

[islandclimber]

Oh I agree with you completely.. ANd that is what I said was the only sympathetic and redeemable thing about the wife's behaviour and viewpoints, is that the husband does not care... but I don't believe he could stop her.. I do believe she would go find some other sucker if he tried to... I just find her kind of to be a superfluous person.... she serves no purpose for anyone or anything in life.. even for herself she has not much of a purpose or idea... she just has affairs, spends alot of money, and contributes to putting he husband in debt... and does it with a seemingly complete lack of conscience.. she just doesn't care... and even if the husband allows her to act this way, doesn't she have any sense of responsibility for her own actions, doesn't she feel at all that she should contribute, and not put her husband further in debt, just for the sake of a good time, she is an entirely selfcentred, egotistical, selfish, princess type character... she is entirely useless, however clever her wit is, and however amusingly sarcastic she can be... I do like those things and enjoy the story because of it... I just find her to be useless... the husband I don't like much more, though like you I am for the most part neutral as we don't find out much about him... Though it appears he is quite self centred as well... hard to tell..

[Dark Muse]

The one thing I will say about that though, is it seems to me that they are supposed to be upper class, considering all the trips that she takes, and back in that time period, it would not be expected of an upper class woman to contribute to the household, and women would not have been expected to work, but were typically to be kept by their husbands.

For a woman to work, was generally looked down upon and it was something usually only down within the lower classes's, and there was not really much options available for women to work.

But the ideal typically was for women to find financial security through marriage

[islandclimber]

again I agree.. but she still annoys me.. haha.. oh well... as I said I just find her to be kind of a superfluous person...

[Dark Muse]

LOL you sound like me when we read The Shadow in the Rose Garden

[islandclimber]

well I will have to go back and read that maybe.. see what I think... It seems a lot of Lawrence's stories have main characters that one can completely dislike, though I guess the same can be said of most writers...

[Janine]

Janine, thank you for the great post above.. it helps put this story in context and gives one a better idea of what Lawrence was thinking about at the time... Fascinating... wonderful post

Thanks, islandclimber, your appreciation is well appreciated! It took me awhile to dig up all those facts, not to mention all my slow typing, but I really do love delving below the surface and finding out just how Lawrence might be operating and thinking, during the time he is writing these stories. Plus, in posting some facts about his later biography, you all learn more about Lawrence. He is such a fascinating author and person to study.

Quote by islandclimber

so in rereading this story, I like the husband and the wife less and less.. the husband I find behaves very generously and wonderfully with regards to his wife, if being a bit of a push over, and a trod upon man... which I fully see, though he allows it completely.. his choice I guess.. matrimonial harmony requires sacrifices, and I guess in this case it is all about allowing the wife to commit adultery in the sake of happiness.. why not get a divorce? it appears they have no reason to be together... unless they are waiting for old age and making sure they have a companion, but surely they could find someone they actually want to be with....

From the beginning, I agreed with this idea or image of the wife. I don't personally, like the way the wife is acting towards the husband and the secretary, nor her family. I do feel the wife is very spoiled woman and is accustomed to getting whatever she wants from her husband, who honestly is 'generous' towards her. That line still interests me, when the generosity is mentioned. I don't think this is said straight-forwardly. I somehow view this statement a little differently, than others have:

However, they were awfully kind. He was the soul of generosity, and held her in real tender esteem, no matter how many gallant affairs she had. Her gallant affairs were part of her modern necessity.

Consider, if the wife is saying, or thinking this to herself, and using a much more sarcastic tone..."he was the soul of generosity". I say this, because directly after these observations, the text launches into the wive's idea of turning into a pillar of salt and the husband very quickly comes back with his own biting clever retort.

I think there is another statement that also illustrates this, but I could not locate it presently, in the text. However, I did find a number of interesting parts, I would like to discuss or point out, in my next post.

I do agree with your thinking, islandclimber, the husband is indeed alowing this to happen. I don't know if we could call him a push-over but he likes the way his life is and it seems to be confortable enough for him so that he does not seem to want for anything more. He is in a bit of a rut, maybe inert and just likes the way things remain or can tolerate them. Unlike the husband, the wife is not in anyway occuppied with a career or a job or anything that would provide a feeling of self-worth; the husband is emersed in his work/his writing/his art; he finds self-satisfaction in this; perhaps this focus distracts him daily from dwelling on his wife and her affairs. This may be how he has learned to cope with the situation. I think both the wife and the husband suffer from a kind of stagnation. When the story describes the grain of irritation in the wife's eye and she returns home, she seems to become suddenly aware of her situation and her husband again. I think these new feelings confuse and unravel her and she reacts poorly, but in some ways she is now forced into being more alive/awake than he is....which could question their whole arrangement, with his inert attitude to allowing her to go off with other men. The presense now of the other woman (the secretaray) is just the spark to awaken the deeper feelings in the wife and in her only know way she then lashes out to try and protect her turf. It is sort of a territorial fight that ensues and I think that the two bluebirds fighting at the end symbolises this idea and theme, in the story. Even though the wife has gone from her own home countless times to spend time in warmer places and take lovers she still has this strong connection to her home and her husband. It is hard to explain and certainly not the ideal marriage. One does wonder why the two don't simply part. I guess this part is not explored enough in the course of this short story. We really don't know how they began or how happy they had been prior to their 12 yrs together when they could not reside in the same house for very long. It is a very strange arrangement and a weird sort of marriage, I agree with this.

Quote by islandclimber

I find the husband treats his secretary with little generosity as the wife seems to imply, but the problem is that the secretary and her family seem perfectly content with this, and the wife is thinking of how she herself would feel in the secretary's position, which is absurd, because they are two quite different creatures... still the husband could do more for them... or so I believe....

Several times in the text it does mention the husband has debts and is working 10, 12 hours a day to pay them off, so I don't think he can be any more generous with the secretary and her family and I don't think they expect it of him. Their value system is a whole lot different than the wife's value system. Their rewards are beyond the wife's conprehension.

'He', of course, had debts, and he was working to pay them off. And if he had been a fairy prince who could call the ants to help him, he would not have been more wonderful than in securing this secretary and her family. They took hardly any wages. And they seemed to perform the miracle of loaves and fishes daily.
'She', of course, was the wife who loved her husband, but helped him into debt, and she still was an expensive item.

The wife admits here to herself she was the one who helped him into that debt. No doubt this fact is true. The family seems to be trying to aid him to help him back out of debt. The wife is jealous of this fact.

In this debate between the husband and wife, they discuss this working situation, which she seems to disapprove of, and yet she does reap the benefits from his working that much. In the end it is quite the irony; she ends up agreeing with him.

"Oh, I don't know," she answered indifferently. "Perhaps it's not good for a man's work if he is too comfortable."
"I don't know about that!" he said, taking a dramatic turn round the library and drawing at his pipe. "Considering I work, actually, by the clock, for twelve hours a day, and for ten hours when it's a short day, I don't think you can say I am deteriorating from easy comfort."
"No, I suppose not," she admitted.

Quote by islandclimber

the wife though,... even if she is narrating the story, and appears in a somewhat favourable and sympathetic light at first glance.. rereading and looking deeper, does she have any redeeming qualities... no... not a single one.. she is lazy, doesn't want to help earn income, doesn't care for being around her husband, however much she claims to esteem him, I don't believe she seriously loves him, maybe in a platonic sense, as one loves someone who appears to be genuinely good and noble for the most part... but not in any other way,.. she takes his money, she sleeps with other people and then comes home and tries to play the part of the home-wrecker herself, and destroy the situation that everyone in the house is quite happy with, except herself, being the jealous woman that she is... in wanting to possess everything of her husband, yet not wanting to give anything in return..

I agree with all of this and that she is quite inept at doing anything useful to help her husband or herself. I don't know completely if I feel she truly does not love him. This part is tricky. I don't think she does at this point but she may love him without now being "in-love" any longer with him. It didn't seem that when the started out married that they were madly in-love or passionately in-love. I don't read that in the text, so who knows. I do know that after these past 12 yrs or so married their relationship has become totally distant and stagnant.

Quote by islandclimber

it seems she wants her husband to need her and pine for her while she is away, but she still believes her affairs are necessary and explains it away to being a modern woman.... it is a little ridiculous.. but the only redeeming factor is that the husband is seemingly okay with this and supports her in doing so... I just dislike her quite a bit... she is a woman, who does nothing and is given everything all the same, and shows no gratitude, instead makes up excuses and reasons to create problems in what is a happy situation with the husband and secretary and her family at home... what is sympathetic about her?

It seems that way, but I don't know if it is. She does seem to want attention and goes about trying to get it from him, all the wrong ways. It is very hard to find any sympathy for her, but now looking at the story from a little different angle I do see that she is quite a confused person and rather insecure. I don't think I find much to like or respect in him either, because, as you pointed out, he allows her to be this way. He never tries to change the situation.

I think the idea of the 'modern woman' springs from several direct influences, at this time in history. I will look some references up and post them, so you can see just what the attitude was towards a woman taking lovers outside a marriage.

[Janine]

Hahaha, been reading your little debate on the wife. I was posting and somehow you two snuck in ahead of me. That is funny, DM, because you really did not like the lady in 'Shadow in the Rose Garden'....we debated that one for too many posts!

[Quark]

Yes, us Lawrence geeks would love this stuff; but still there is so much here that points to this one story - "Two Blue Birds", I think all this is quite significant, don't you?

It did shed light on the state of mind Lawrence was in when he wrote the story and who some of this may have been aimed at. What about the "insect-like" need to divide? Do the letters give any more explanation of that than "The Two Blue Birds" does? The story just accepts it without any question, but your commentary might give us some more insight.

Oh, and what was the parallel you were drawing with Lady Chatterley's Love. I haven't read the book, so I wasn't sure where you were going with that.

Fabulous post Janine! I loved it. Of course we Lawrence geeks are into all that. Now do you think that the secretary, Miss Wrexall (Lawrence comes awfully close to calling her Miss Wrecks-all ) was modeled on Dorothy Brett? It's possible, even likely.

A Dickens-like touch from Lawrence, isn't it? I didn't notice the word play with her name, but I did hear the dissonant, jarring sound her names makes. I remember first coming across that and thinking it was the perfect name.

[Dark Muse]

Hahaha, been reading your little debate on the wife. I was posting and somehow you two snuck in ahead of me. That is funny, DM, because you really did not like the lady in 'Shadow in the Rose Garden'....we debated that one for too many posts!

Hehe yes I know and in this story I am defending the wife.

But the way I see it, I really do not think she is truly mistreating, using, taking advantage of, or trodding all over her husband, becasue she is completely open and honest about all that she does and feels and he continues to indulge her, in full awareness of who and what she is, so in this reguard I really do not think that she is acutally doing anything wrong.

[Janine]

It did shed light on the state of mind Lawrence was in when he wrote the story and who some of this may have been aimed at. What about the "insect-like" need to divide? Do the letters give any more explanation of that than "The Two Blue Birds" does? The story just accepts it without any question, but your commentary might give us some more insight.

Quark, no, I think you are mixing up the quotes here; no one said "insect-like" need to divide, unless one of us commented, after the commentary I posted and said that. Here are the quotes again from the book:

The letter that Brett forwarded to L make him sick and his words were bitter and scathing… "make me sick in the pit of my stomach: the cold, cold insect-like ugliness of it. – I shall avoid meeting Murray.” (January 1925)

Basically, I quoted this entry, to show Lawrence's state of mind at the time, that he wrote this story. This (his) disgusted remark was directed at his friend, Middleton Murray's letters, which he had send to Brett, which Brett forwarded to Lawrence. In these letter Murray must have been criticising Lawrence and his work (this I am surmising from other accounts I have read). It was well-known that he and Murray fell out of favor; they had been close friends. Murray was married to Katherine Mansfield, who was very good friends with Lawrence. Murray wrote some very harsh public criticism about Lawrence's work, that I think would indeed give him ample reason to be sickened by it. Also, it was believed that Murray had had a 'one night stand' with Frieda, Lawrence's wife. You see where all this is going, right? Lawrence often referred to insects or insect references in his insults or negative comments. Our Lawrence was pretty creative!

Quote:
This is an excerpt from a letter to Brett a little later:

To Hon, Dorothy Brett, 11 April 1925

You are, you know, a born separator. Even without knowing that you do it, you set people against one another. It is instinctive with you. If you are friendly with one, you make that one unfriendly to the others: no matter who it is. It’s just a natural process with you. – But it usually turns everyone into an enemy, at last…………………Among three people, always two against one.

I think this part is the most significant part: "three people, always two against one". This is interesting because I can site many stories that employ this idea. One is "Lady Chatterly's Lover" - I am not just thinking of the obvious triangle of the husband, wife, lover.....there is a much more complicated one which is the relationship the husband forms with his nurse; also a non-sexual one but one in which the woman is more devoted than the wife, Connie, could ever be - not because she would not be capable of being so but because, in this particular story, the husband prefers the nurse over the wife. This seems to relate to me with the idea of the devoted secretary who gets little in return and yet is needful of being needed. I think both characters are definitely of this same personality althought the nurse in LCL is much stronger in character than the secretary is. In this way and others I think Lawrence went beyond this story and wrote a much more developed story which entails some of the elements or ideas in this short story. Whereas the husband and wife are alien to each other and there is no solution in this story at the end, in LCL Lawrence advances to a solution for the woman/wife.

Oh, and what was the parallel you were drawing with Lady Chatterley's Love. I haven't read the book, so I wasn't sure where you were going with that.

Ok, so basically, what I just wrote above is my explaination of the parellels. Sorry, you did not read "Lady Chatterly's Lover" but I don't think that will prevent you from understanding what I wrote above. I think other stories of Lawrence have these similiar parellels. "Shadow in the Rose Garden" presented a third party(person) that has entered the picture, perhaps only as a memory and a 'shadow', but this third party is what creates the alienation of the husband and wife. So, Lawrence himself is saying that, when three people are involved, there is always a problem that ensues.

A Dickens-like touch from Lawrence, isn't it? I didn't notice the word play with her name, but I did hear the dissonant, jarring sound her names makes. I remember first coming across that and thinking it was the perfect name.

Yes, it is a jarring sound, and harsh, and I do now think Lawrence chose the name purposely....maybe a little Dickens-like; all authors steal ideas, you know. Dicken's didn't have a monopoly on clever name writing. The name indeed makes the story even more cynically humorous, and definitely reflects Lawrence's own harsh, critical mood, at the time the story was written.

[Dark Muse]

"Nothing to aggravate him!" What a position for a man! Fostered by women who would let nothing 'aggravate' him. If anything would aggravate his wounded vanity, this would!

So thought the wife. But what was to be done about it? In the silence of midnight she heard his voice in the distance, dictating away, like the voice of God to Samuel, alone and monotonous, and she imagined the little figure of the secretary busily scribbling shorthand. Then in the sunny hours of morning, while he was still in bed-he never rose till noon-from another distance came the sharp insect noise of the typewriter, like some immense grasshopper chirping and rattling. It was the secretary, poor thing, typing out his notes.

I found this another interesting biblical reference, also I loved the description at the end, about the "insect noise" and the typewriting sounding like a grasshopper. I found it interesting that earlier in the story the secretary and her family were compared to ants, and now grasshoppers are used in discussion of the secretary.

It was spring! What a fool she had been to come up in spring! And she was forty! What an idiot of a woman to go and be forty!

I just love this.

She went down the garden in the warm afternoon, when birds were whistling loudly from the cover, the sky being low and warm, and she had nothing to do. The garden was full of flowers: he loved them for thier theatrical display. Lilac and snowball bushes, and laburnum and red may, tulips and anemones and colored daisies. Lots of flowers! Borders of forget-me-nots! Bachelor's buttons! What abdurd names flowers had! She would have called them blue dots and yellow blobs and white frills. Not so much sentiment after all!

I love this discription of the flowers, and I just loved the last lines:

What abdurd names flowers had! She would have called them blue dots and yellow blobs and white frills. Not so much sentiment after all!

As I have often had the same thoughts, some of the names I hear for flowers I am just like, that is a flower?

There is a certain nonsense, somethign showy and stagey about spring, with its pushing leaves and chorus-girl flowers, unless you have something corresponding inside you. Which she hadn't

I find her views upon spring to be quite interesting. As she does seem to rather dislike the season, considering how much she enjoys spending her time in the sun during the winter months.

[Janine]

I found this another interesting biblical reference, also I loved the description at the end, about the "insect noise" and the typewriting sounding like a grasshopper. I found it interesting that earlier in the story the secretary and her family were compared to ants, and now grasshoppers are used in discussion of the secretary.

Yes, as I said a few posts back, Lawrence often would use insect or references, in his insults or comments. I think it comes out here and is funny, in a more personal sense referring back to Lawrence. I can just see him typing out his stories, hating the typewriter as he did, even fuming at it, as his wife is off somewhere, without him, once again - this all adds up to a very 'creatively' cynical and critical mind, coming up with these 'insect' phrases, born of his own resentful mood. Lawrence hated the typewriter; someone had given him one. He would try and type on it, and eventually he would just abandon it. I think in this phrase, he is actually taking out his own hatred of the device. Yes, he did refer to the family as ants. That too, was a sort of extension of the wife's narrowminded views and how she felt above them all, superior. Also, if you think of it, in nature, 'ants' are very industrious and work within an order and hierarchy, ordered system, very efficently, just like this family and the secretary. The husband is like the queen bee.

I just love this.

Women would appreciate this the most, especially if they have hit that magic age.

I love this discription of the flowers, and I just loved the last lines:

Lawrence was such a master at describing flowers and natural woodlands; here it is as though he was laughing at his own self, about how each flower is so meticulously named. It is quite a funny passage, indeed. I enjoyed it when I read it, even laughed out loud.

As I have often had the same thoughts, some of the names I hear for flowers I am just like, that is a flower?

Yes, it is hard to recall them all. Someone actually did do a study in Lawrence's first novel, "The White Peacock". The study was of all the various flowers and plants L mentioned in that book. This researcher came up with an extraordinary amount - something in the thousands, I think I read recently online. Amazing! Lawrence knew his flowers well; he studied the science for several years. That is what makes this passage even more humorous to me. Says something about the mood of L, too, at the time.
DM, I see you are not a gardener or enthusiast.

I find her views upon spring to be quite interesting. As she does seem to rather dislike the season, considering how much she enjoys spending her time in the sun during the winter months.

Ironic, maybe...but if you look again at the quote:

There is a certain nonsense, something showy and stagey about spring, with its pushing leaves and chorus-girl flowers, unless you have something corresponding inside you. Which she hadn't.

That is the significant part of the quote. She is not connecting to spring and nature. She has nothing inside to connect to it so she sees it as silly.

I view her husband is an enabler. He enables his wife to be as she is and not have reponsibility of any kind and be pampered. By being as she is, actually cut-off from any sense of self-worth or deeper feelings about herself and others, she is actually a very sad person, missing out on many of life's greatest gifts/blessings. If she cannot appreciate spring, I don't know what image I would have of her, except a truly bitter one.

[Dark Muse]

That is the significant part of the quote. She is not connecting to spring and nature. She has nothing inside to connect to it so she sees it as silly.

The other thing I could not help but to think of, even though I know this was not discussed at all within the story, is the idea of fertility of spring vs. the bareness of winter. As they seem to be the only seasons mentioned within the story. She seems to be quite found of winter as such is when she goes off on her grand trips, while she is bitter about spring.

One thing I could not help but to notice, is how long they have been married and yet there is no mention, hint or suggestion of children at all. And though now they seem to be quite rigid with each other. I am sure at one time they must have had, shall we say, intimate relations with each other.

As well, that did not exzaztly have the best means of birthcontrol back than, and yet she is always off on her grand affairs, seemingly without any consequences of the biological sort.

DM, I see you are not a gardener or enthusiast.

LOL, I quite enjoy flowers and have made a few, though unsucessful attempts at growing my own gardens, but that does not change the fact that the names of some flowers are just plain silly.