T H E S I S

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previous chapter, R.E. Pritchard argues:
"It is doubtful if, for most readers, Lawrence has succeeded
in 'cleansing1 the four-letter words from obscene associations;
in fact, they soon become little more than another
motif in the book, little better than Mellors' switching of
speech-styles«" (BOD 188)
Since I am not concerned with the "cleansing” of these
words, the first part of Pritchard's statement is beside the
point, because I do not see anything to cleanse in the novel,’But
surely the treatment of these "tabooed" v/ords becomes "another
motif in the book".
Hr«' Gerald Gardiner, opening address for the defence in the
London trial said;
"•,• and this author in a book in which there is no kind of
perversion(?) ' at all evidently thought that in using
some words to describe physical union, words which have
been part of our spoken speech for 500 or 600 years, he
would purify them from the shame which was placed upon them,"
(TTL 3*f)
In fact, before D,H,Lawrence, Joyce(1882-19^1), Lawrence Sterne
(1713-1768), Fletcher(1579-1625), Shakespeare(156H-1616), and
Chaucer (ISMD-lMDO) used these words, as good old saxon terms
In LCL there is nothing of the euphemistic style of The
White Peacock: but perhaps Lawrence's residual puritanism is evident
in his intention to "purify4' the words which describe everything
that comes from sex and is considered dirty. His treatment
of sex is completely uninhibited rather than brutal, but he refuses
to idealize the physical parts. While in The White Peacock
there are only kisses, touching, and gazing, and the description
of physical parts is avoided, in LCL the lesser the emotions the
greater the direct descriptions of thighs, buttocks, loins, bel-