D.H. Lawrence's Short Stories Thread

[Dark Muse]

Here is another picture of a Blue-tit that I found that I really like which hopefully will show up for anyone whom cannot view the first photo

[Janine]

Thanks, Dark Muse....good photo...really clear.
I also looked them up and found a few really cool photos of them with wings extended...I was thinking, if they were fighting, they might look like that and they look even bluer with wings out or fluttering. I will try and post those photos later on. The one you posted is a very good one.
I researched them also, and seems male and female birds look alike or so they seemed to me to. Usually the males are brighter in the bird species, so I thought that strange. I think they are cute little birds, don't you?

[Dark Muse]

Yes I read that there was not much difference between the sexes in the birds. I also find that they are quite cute.

So I wonder if the birds in the story really are ment to be the wife and secretary or wife and husband.

Though the two women in the end appear together both wearing blue, we have already discussed the fact that the wife meerely uses the seceratary as a way to attack her husband, and that the secertary herself is not really the issue.

As well there is the ambiguity in the sexes of the birds, that it could likely be either one.

[Virgil]

Here is another picture of a Blue-tit that I found that I really like which hopefully will show up for anyone whom cannot view the first photo

Yes thank you for the pictures Dark Muse. I think you make a good point about the tits (I love writing that ) not being real blue birds. It certainly fits.

Janine, I'll respond to your fine defense either later tonight or tomorrow. We'l see what timeallows.

[Quark]

Yes thank you for the pictures Dark Muse. I think you make a good point about the tits (I love writing that ) not being real blue birds. It certainly fits.

Yeah, I was going to compliment Dark Muse on her tits, but I didn't think that sounded right.

[Dark Muse]

LOL, *grins* well I am flattered

[Janine]

Yeah, I was going to compliment Dark Muse on her tits, but I didn't think that sounded right.

You guys are really sick! Always anatomy on the brain, never zoology!

[Janine]

or it aviology or birdology - what the heck is the name of the study of birds? ...and you guys are all twits!

[Virgil]

Yeah, I was going to compliment Dark Muse on her tits, but I didn't think that sounded right.

Oh Quark. How could you?

[Quark]

Oh Quark. How could you?

Well I said I was "going" to say that. If I had, I'm sure it would have been pretty awkward--good thing I caught myself.

Janine, the study of birds in Ornithology. I'm not clear on why it's not aviology. That would make more sense, since avis is latin for bird. I don't know in what language people go around calling them orniths.

I'll comment on the Lawrence-feminism argument later.

[Dark Muse]

The word ornithology comes from the Greek words ornithikos meaning bird and logia meaning study.

[Janine]

Well I said I was "going" to say that. If I had, I'm sure it would have been pretty awkward--good thing I caught myself.

Janine, the study of birds in Ornithology. I'm not clear on why it's not aviology. That would make more sense, since avis is latin for bird. I don't know in what language people go around calling them orniths.

I'll comment on the Lawrence-feminism argument later.

Thanks to you, Virgil and Dark Muse, for clearing that up. I never had Latin or Greek. It did seem to me that 'aviology' had a certain ring to it. I must innately know Latin and not realise it...my ancient ancestry resurfaceing. Lawrence would like that - the return of the old gods.

Putting all discussion on tits (bird ones) asside, I am glad you will try to address my long post tomorrow, Virgil. Good luck! It is kind of refreshing disagreeing with you.......but I won't take on your 'Mad, Bad, and Dangerous' personal.

[Virgil]

Putting all discussion on tits (bird ones) asside,

Oh darn. One of my favorite subjects. Actually I was thinking that some little pervert was going to be very disappointed one day when he googles tits and finds these posts.

[yassir elamrani]

hello guys.
I have read Lawrance's "tickets ,please"short story,but ,unfortunatly,I still have some ambiguity about it.This ambiguity is that I cannot fish the plot out and analysis it very well,so that I would be so happy to help me ..
thank you

[Virgil]

Well, I have read some of the later work and I still do not totally get that impression. I can see why the feminists got offended. But most of them are extreme in their thinking.

Well, I agree they are extreme in their thinking. But you don't think they have a legitament arguement with Lawrence?

I don't think they considered many things. I don't necessary agree with you about "Sons and Lovers", either. I think the feminists would find much fault in that novel. I think Lawrence, even as a young man believed the man should be lord and master. If you read the very first novel "The White Peacock" you would be shocked at the one character - Anabelle and his attitudes toward women. The seeds of this idea of man being supperior to woman goes waaaay back.

Yes, I'm seeing that myself. That's why I said it was the conventional wisdom and why I moved away from that line of thinking. So you say it was that strong even as a young man. That is interesting.

I think as time passed actually Lawrence modified some of these more extreme ideas, but I could be wrong. I have read nearly all his books but some I don't recall as well now. He is only just presenting and working out his idea of the two lovers being two perfectly balanced stars in harmony. I think later he speaks more extensively about this concept in "The Plumed Serpent". I don't know if the ending of that novel really accomplishes that or if the woman, Kate, truely becomes subservient to her new husband.

Actually she breaks away, doesn't she. I can't quite remember the ending but while she marries Cipriano she does decide to leave Mexico, right?

In "Kangaroo" you see Lawrence stuggling with his 10 yr old marriage - a kind of war of the wills goes on and finally he ends with a kind of realisation that he can't really have it his way. It is all a big question in my mind.

I can't remember much from that novel at all. There is a battle of wills between Sommers (is that the L character?) and his wife.

What I took offensively in your last post was you surety that #1 Lawrence was an anti-feminist

One of these days we need to read a story called "The Woman Who Rode Away."

and #2. his popularity was not diminished.

He may still be popular, but at one time Lawrence was considered the most important English writer of the 20th century. I'm not sure that's true any more.

I just don't buy either as complete truths. I think that Lawrence was much more complex than that and one can not apply a label his work or to the man. I believe for years Lawrence's work was greatly overlooked and it was misunderstood. I will try to find critical references to these exact statements and post them. I was just trying to defend my poor Lawrence, who I have spend countless hours to understand, and feel that in his own time was grossly misunderstood and mistreated.

He was misunderstood. He is complex. He has a very original and defined philosophy, which is really a theosophy.

What sources do you have for this way of splitting his work and categorizing it.

If you look at my thesis I site several who have divided his work into sections, I think one of his biographers. I also go on and divide it to my thinking. I think it's in the first three or four pages of my thesis.

I don't truly agree with this at all. One just cannot make these cut and dry divisions in his work. They all overlap. It is not a black and white issue but one more of subtle shades of gray. If you know the source material let me know it. I have never read this in the books I researched.

Of course, but it's helpful to understand his evolution.

Oh boy, Virgil, now you are asking for it! hahaha ....hope you are laughing, too. First off, in THDD, it did not seem to me that the woman was submitting anything to the man in the story. If anything the man seemed to be the meek one and rather shy; actually they both were. Also they seem to meet on equal ground here, but at first he saves her from her own suicide (drowning)....how is this story about submission, an undermining of female independence?

Oh she was destitute to be a maid to someone, but she finds her savior in the doctor.

Yes, true in that time in life and history, the woman has few options, without the support of men (financial), at first her brothers....this same thing applies to the woman in 'Odour of Chrsanthemums.' Both point back to Hardy's work in that this was usually the case for woman. I don't think Lawrence is saying it is good for the woman to be put down or trapped in loveless marriages or bad situations financially. If anything I see him identifying more with the woman and sympathising with her plight of being trapped in a situation, which offers no realistic alternatives and little hope.

No I don't think he's saying that. He seems to be saying that a good relationship is beneficial to both men and women, but within the relationship women have to submit to the man's will rather than exert her own. And he projects a unhealthy modern world to the fact that women have now exerted their wills in their relationships.

The woman in OOC has two children to think of...she is especially trapped. Yes, she feels sworn to her husband...but I think she realises just how it truly was and how they were not happy, as she dresses his dead body for his funneral. I just saw Lawrence's play on DVD "The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd" and in this play is presented a young man she very much likes and is consoled in, who offers to take her away from her rotten life and situation. The play is very much like the story OOC. The concentration is on the wife and how sad/tragic it is for her and how she is trapped, even when she might find an option to escape her brutish drunken husband. I don't see anti-feminism in this play, more the plight of women and how Lawrence totally sympathised with them.

I have to read that someday.

This is a curious thing, what you say about Hardy. I read Lawrence's essay on Hardy and L' biggest problem with the story of "Jude, the Obscure" was that Sue ultimately returns to her husband and becomes subjected to his will, even though she has lived with Jude in a common law marriage. I can't figure out how Hardy was so unfeminist when in Jude his last novel he accepts this as a truth. Or is it that, by showing this tragedy, Hardy is actually being feminist.

I don't quite remember that in Jude. (The problem with having read so much is that you can't remember it ) But Hardy is definitely feminist in Tess. Very strongly feminist, dont you think?

If you think of Jude the outcome is nearly opposite to LCL in concept. I don't think either that Connie is subjecting herself to Mellors. I think she was subjecting herself to her husband, who became impotent after his injury in the war and rejected her emotionally and physically. I see Mellors and Connie meeting more in the vain of the two balanced stars. I don't see subjection there, unless in the very begining of the story, but then it is Connie who seeks out Mellors and not Mellors who goes after Connie. The awakining that Connie experiences with the gamekeeper is more liberating in the end for her. The old life she leaves is the restricting one.

Well, we'll have to read that together. I don't see two balance stars there. Connie is awakened as you say, so in that respects Lawrence is liberating her, but she is awakened by by her submission to Mellors.

He is on Lit Net!!! Of course I am here and pushing it;

And you've done a great job. Even i would probably not have been looking at Lawrence anywhere this much without you. You're the glue that holds this together.

but look - we have some more advocates now. I have Litnetters bugging me as to when we read the next L novel. There is that online group dedicated to L, and that Cambridge biography series and online display. I think if you ran an L search today on Amazon for books you would be pleasantly surprised at all the fans out there. Read some of the commentary. We are not alone, by far knowing what a genius Lawrence was. His work very much still lives on.

I beleive that in time the greatness of Lawrence's writing will win out. I also think that the quirkiness of his ideas will prevent him from recapturing the greatest English writer of the 20th century. Intellectuals are increasingly secular and Lawrence's ideas rest on a spirituality, a belief that nature holds theological truths (that'sa one of the main reasons why I think Lawrence pushed Romanticism to its conclusion). On one hand it runs counter to both taday's atheists and to established major religions. So neither group of intellectuals embrace it. On the other hand aboriginal religions do still exists, and Lawrence has much in common with them. And there will always be a sense of the occult, which I think can be in sympathy with Lawrence.

The ones I speak of are not that type at all. In fact that type of submissive woman does not seem to like Lawrence's work at all. That is strange or curious, don't you think? I think you are seeing this all from a man's point of view and missing the big picture. Most woman who I have found interested in Lawrence read some and adore the man; they can overlook some of his worst faults. Afterall he was just a man! We woman become tough and tollerant!

Yes, I agree. I'm not saying I see misogyny (sp?) in Lawrence, but he is very male oriented.

That could be it. Yes, he does hit a nerve and he gets right inside a woman's head. I think the feminists would feel he invaded their privacy. In some ways, they feel he undermines their sense of security perhaps. My secure and independent friends see Lawrence differently. They don't feel threatened by him.

I far prefer Lawrence's work over Joyce. I just can't get into some of Joyce's work that requires tons of time to figure out. I like a simplier approach. Joyce is too complex for my feeble little brain. Lawrence is complex but understandable. I can better relate to his work than to Joyce's. I do feel Lawrence was and still living on in his words, is a great author.

Joyce can be cold. Lawrence's work beats with life.