ANIMAL IMAGERY %N D,H. LAWRENCE s - Pondicherry University ...
ANIMAL IMAGERY %N D,H. LAWRENCE s - Pondicherry University ...
ANIMAL IMAGERY %N D,H. LAWRENCE s - Pondicherry University ...
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<strong>ANIMAL</strong> <strong>IMAGERY</strong> <strong>%N</strong> D,H. <strong>LAWRENCE</strong> sGOSPELS OF HORIZONTAL LIFEA ThES1S SUBMITTED TO THE PISKDiGHERRY UiUlVERSlTY ENPARTIAL FULF6rMEQIT OF THE REQLIIREMENIS FOR+HE 4h1WRD OF THE DEGREE OFDOCTOR Of; PHfLOSOPH'r"IN ENGLISHDEPARTMENT OF ENGLISHPBNDICHERRk" UNIVERSBTYPONBICHERRY-605 014
P. MAIlUDANAYAGAP?, M.A. , Plr. I). ,ProLessor and IIeaJ.CERTIFICATEThis is to certify that the thesis entitlei! "Anim;il Iniaqeryin D. 11. Lawrer~ue: Gospe1.s ol' 1101-i.zor1tn l. 1,i ic" i .i n rr~sc3~irr:li wor-lcdone by Mr .' iLi. Poova!.iqam, during ti.),? pel-i.0~1 1987-92 at ?:hcDepartment of Encjl.iski, Poncli.chel-1-y i vci-si I:.;, P~t:
M. POOVALINGAMPh.D. Research Schola~Department of English<strong>Pondicherry</strong> <strong>University</strong><strong>Pondicherry</strong> 605 014DECLARATIONThis is to certify that the thesis entitled "Animal Imageryin D.H. Lawrence: Gospels of Horizontal Life" is a research workdone by me under the supervision of Dr. P. Warudanayagam, Professorand Head of the Department of English, during the period1987-92 at the Department of English, <strong>Pondicherry</strong> <strong>University</strong>,<strong>Pondicherry</strong> 605 014, and that the thesis has not previouslyformed the basis for the award of any degree, diploma,associateship, fellowship or any other similar titles.r\i . ~y b hi;Lq+---N . POOVAL INGAMAugust 1992
CONTENTSCertificateDzclarationAcknowledgementsNoteAbstractIntroductionChapter I The Feline Animals: The Flesh and the WordChapter I1 The Canine Animals: Tame and WildChapter 111The Equine Animals: Superannuated Men andMasterless HorsesChapter IV Kangaroo and the Allegorical PouchChapter V The Evanqelistic Beasts and the Animals.(:oncl us i on
I would like to express my gratitude for the support andassistance I received for writing this thesis from a JuniorResearch Fellowship granted by the <strong>University</strong> Grants Commissionof India.I specially thank Dr. Pa21 L. Love, Director of Development,Stody Centre for Indian Literature in English and Translation,The American College, Madurai, for initiating me in this study ofanimal imagery in D.H. Lawrence.In fact, the study is anextension of a short paper chat I presented during mypostgraduation, in the semester-long course on D.H. Lawrencetaught by Dr. Love. I feel grateful for his constant supportwhich I have received ever since I first undertook this study.And I express my deep gratitute to Dr. P. Marudanayagam,Professor and Head, Department of English, <strong>Pondicherry</strong> Universi-ty, who as my supervisor exercised abundant patience in the proc-ess of lay writing this thesis. T spoc~ally think now c~f h~!,ofreadiness, in spite hls various other responsibilities, to)rdiscuss with me the problems I ran into while writing the thesisand other related papers that I presented at the Research Club,Department of English, <strong>Pondicherry</strong> <strong>University</strong>.I am indebted to all the faculty members of the Departmentof English, <strong>Pondicherry</strong> <strong>University</strong>, for being receptive to thepapers S presented, and for their encouraging participation in
My thanks are due to Professor R.F. Nair, Head of the De-partment of English, The Americac Collecje, >l.!3r3urai, for his kiridpermission to use the Department Library, where Tfound thelargest collection of primary and secondary sources on D.H.Lawrence.I would like to place on record the help provided by theLibrarisn .and the library staff of the Central Library, Pondizherry<strong>University</strong>.I am thankful for the precious collection of books and,particularly, the volumes of The D.H. Lawrence Review that I waspermitted to use at the library of the Central Institute ofEnglish and Foreign Languages, Hyderabad.I do remember here and feel grateful for the facilities thatwere extended to me at the American Studies Research Centre,Hyderabad.It was a privilege to refer to the rare bmks onLawrence that are there.I should also express thanks to the many friends and consultants,too numerous to mention here, who gave substantial helpduring the course of this study.
AbstractThat the writings of D.H. Lawrence exhibit a strong inciinaiontowards the earthly and physical aspects of life has longbecome R literary commonplace. Lawrence's profusivc statementsin affirmation of his belief in the flesh and the physical, foundin his essays and other nonfictional prose works, have been taken3.5 substantial evidences to support certain motives dciectcd inhis narratives. At other times, these statements seem to underr:ii:r:r.ri iiin ii:;pr.cSs of his fictional. works. 1'11at I:;, tht7 in!
ncvsls of D.H. Lawrence becoxe the primary texts for analysingrhs use of animal imagery.Of a!lthe animals that appear in i,awrer.ce, the cat, wildand tame alike, seems to be the mosr idealized. The cat approxi-I I I , I ~ 1.:; i,i.r.;t: t-.lic~ i,,iwrc~iti~ln itlcal way c9i 1 i vl nq. iittni-t!, 1,,1w1 t.r:\.r'i:;c,r-;thi-2 cat as a symbol for that part Ccuiar 1 i Fc styli..In so far as it retains elements of its wildness even afterdomestication, the cat, in Lawrence, also represents wild aninlalsin general. The feline animal is an epitome of sensuousness.Itis sensuous to the extent of selfishness.It gratifies its ownsensuous needs.Since the senses hzve their life rooted in theconcrete, the cat stands for the Flesh, which is the antonym ofthe Biblical Word according to Lawrence.The feline animals, hence, in turn, are uncompromising. Thecat preserves its intrinsic nature.Therefore, it becomes forLawrence a symbol for the irreducible essence of things.The catr(.l~r(~p;(~nt s t ii(> [)henomenon.Whilc 1,awrcnce does not maintain a sharp distinction betweenthe wlld cats and the domestic cat, when one turns to his canlnelillJijery the differentiation of the tame clog from the wild isquite evident.
Thc common dog or the domeszic cariine is a symbol of lowli-n~ss. The clog !.acks pri~~acy and hence incites conteapt. Law-rence uses the dog as a symbol for the "social being'hwhc alsolacks privacy. The dog that mates on the pavement, in public,and the social being who sacrifices his innate being for tnssuccess in public life are essentially alike, according to iaw-rence.The personal self of a being is sacred. And for Lawrenc?,compromising the personal thus means anti-life. However, it isdiscovered that the symbolic dog and the actual dog, in Lawrence,are not the same. His treatment of the actual dog is ambiguouswhereas Lawrence's symbolic or fictional dog embodies an unmixedcontempt.Contrarily, Lawrence's foxes and wolves appear to be repre-sentatives of the unslackening will. The wild canines are upheldfor heir doggedness. They are relentless in their doggedness.'I'li~.\f ,lri\ ullw~~vt~rinyt1ic:ir pursuits.The last animal from the short novels of Lawrence is thehorse. The equine beast is a feminine sexual symbol. The horserepresents the feminine principle of inertia and submissiveness,as opposed to the masculine principle of motion and mastery whichis represented by the horse's rider. In spite of Lawrence's ownavowal in his expository prose that the horse is a masculinesyrnhol, thr~ animal is empl.oyed in his narratives to mean the
opposite. Apart from his short novels, Lawrence's other narra-tive forms also seem to picture the horse as a symbol of fcninlesexuai power.Unlike the animals discussed above, the kangaroo does notfind a place in any of Lawrence's short novels, but emerges as asignificant animal through his novel of that title. Kanqaroo,one of Lawrence's Australian narratives, allegorically presentsthe marsupial in the person of Ben Cooley, the titular characterof the novel, who is nicknamed "Kangaroo". Ben Cooley representsa generalized feeling of love--the unobjectified feeling of lovatowards mankind--like Christ's own. The allegory is that BenCoolr:y, 1 ikc the kangaroo, nurtures in his paunch (a para1 l+lofthe marsupial's pouch) an idealized love for humanintyIn addition to the inartistic nature of its allegory as such,Lawrence fails here to maintain a sufficient tonal distinctionbetween the title-character and the protagonist, Richard Somers,who is an obvious Lawrence-figure, Consequently, the contemptthat the narrator displays towards the marsupial is revealed tobe unconvincing.
;;:: ~~p;,i~-..t~-,y tc :yht?se ~~~p~~~ k>a: .fi#2~:t: irL ~ , ~ ; ~ j5r 3 ~ ~narra~ivc vririnqs, the a:-.ir.a:s"is poc%trl. are 3lso stsdicd. . 'p>Lp Ev-;r:q;:;isti~ E~.asts, and ";he irzizimals, bath of xildii-h!,;irts ol :,;.,wr~ricc.'shook of soctry e:ltitlt.c?--Birds, UtiL-:srsznd Flowers, becone the p ~ i c t ~f ~ $ 3 ~ ~ in 5 this part of the,.~, . tii
INTRODUCTIONriir>i-;t cldmacjing ail:! powerful criticisii?~, or'rc by T. S. El iot .?:i,ithe other by John Middleton Murry, F.R. Leavls makes certalnprc;nouncen:ents about Lawrence in his book The Great'Iradltson that are unreserved in heir praise of Lawrencsand are, hence, not without room for debate.However,Lcav~s's assertion that the tradition of English Fict~on 1sr..ore than kepc alive by Lawrence is attested by the veryfact that Lawrence stiil interests readers even sixtl yearsafter his death.Following the publication of Leavis's writings in theScrutiny, there has been a considerably steady pouriny in of;lrt.~cles and full-f leclyed studies on Lawrence. And th~,books that appeared before the beginning of the last decadewere invariably on the novels of Lawrence. The whole bodyof Lawrence criticism can be divided into two categorieswhile excepting books like D.H. Lawrence edited by A.H.Gomme, D.R. Lawrence in the Modern World, D.H. Lawrence atwork and D.H. Lawrence: The Early Fiction-II~hese four books are excepted because they are differentfrom the others in that the first-mentioned two arecollections of essays by a variety of writers like theCasebooks on ~awrence's Sons and Lovers and The Rainbow orWomen in Love; the latter cited two titles self-explanatorilyundertake to study a group of writings that belong to aparticular phase of Lawrence's writing career.
: c;c:ncraLized stody of Lat>rpnce, thosc that farm t h sc,---, ~ L\,..(i. -;!re morc formal i?. attempting to :>xi-sue a singLC thri:.-~~: illargucent, lilustrati~g a particular aspect of Lawrence. Intliis firsz eatcgory, Graham i ~cug~'s 'i'!~e Dark Sui:2nd FrankKernode's Lawrcnce are insightful though they are introduc-tory in nature as those eponynolJs ones by R.P.Draper, TonySlade, Philip Xobsbaum and Gamini Salgado. These books[~rovidcd thc sufflc~ert impetEs for tn;s present stud)by givinq the necessary, fundamental ~~derstandlng ofLawrence 's ldeology .The foremost among the second category of books onLawrcnce are R.C. Pritchard's R.H. Lawrence: Body of Darkness,Kingsley Wldmer's The Art of Perversity, Aidan Burns's11,it ilrf ir~ti Cul turc in D.H. Lawrence, fi.Fi. Daleski's 'TIIL-Forkcd Flame and Keith Sagar's D.M.Lawrence: Llfe into Art.'i'hr,srworks onnl.,lc an undcrstandlng of the. mlnd that cl-r?~trdRS much as the man who suffered.Of these last five books mentioned, the first two showan unmincing and pitiless picture of Lawrence who intendedto shed his sickness in his books.2 And unlike Leavis who2~ee Lawrence's letter to A. W. McLeod, 2 1 October 1 9 13,reprinted in Gamini Salgado ed., "Sons and Lover": A Casebook(London: The Macmillan Press Ltd., 1975), p. 26.
was forced oy hls very cocte~,l;oraneit>~ 1<h iawrsnce towilicii wii:;cc,i?r;idcred till then as i..i\cuiiar to L~awrence to bea comrr.on ma?2aise of the modern era.I !1 - i i t i i sdrawnPr i ?cil,:,rd it-or;! T,;~wi-t>nct' 't;writi!~gs curiously secrri to hint t!?c crux of l,,2wrcnc~:'sproblem, namely his inability to "love" a woman. kccordlngto Pritchard, hence, in Lawrenceop;;osi.ng elcments could not bc reconci l ~d, SOthat it seemed that the condition of life waseternal painful conflict, while 'true' lifewas harmonious and restful in the womb ortomb. The sexual conElict within himself wasan acjony, a crucifixion of the spirit by t1-1~flesh--and vice versa --and he saw himselfas Christ, Dionysus and Osiris, all fertilitygods torn apart, wept over by women, and inthe last case, restored by an adoring w0rnan.jSimilarly, Kingsley Widner traces Lawrence through ato focus upon the resultant satanic or demonic extrernicy inLawrence.Obsession, violence, misogyny, rebellion,inversion, alienation, and heresy are sopervasive and powerful in Lawrence's work,and so intimately related to his person, roleand qualities of being, that the onus ofmisreading lies upon those who fail to reckonfully with the perversity. Lawrence'snegations ... provide the affirmations andprotect them. Thus his basic nihilism shows3n.T:. P,-itchal-ci, D.il. r,nwrc~nc~-: i-iotly of 13i~rkr~c~:;r;(London: Hutchinson & CO. Ltd., 1971), pp. 23-24.
fortn as ore of his core fortunzte charac~er:stlcsIt takes a deep nini:~st to oe so ~xcr~clatlnc:yaltar? of, an6 resista~; to, sgrrounding ordinarynlhillsrn, which is sc n;ch pore Eascy becaasecounterfcited and unackcowledge6. And forLawrence, as for the angry Jewlsh God, the art ofheinq 1s to create a world oct of n~thin~ness.~It 1:scvldent froln the above quotation that Widiner attemprslc'iil -]~i:, ciy to gloss over the parqfwl truths he has deducedfro:n i,;~wrcncc so as to save his bo~kfrom bccom~ng ,is dcvas-tatinq as that of ~urry's.~ Hence the authenticity of hisanaiysis belies statements like those found in tke latterhalf of the above-quotation.*~lngsle~ Widmer, The Art of ?erverslty: D.11. Lawrence'sShorter fictions (Seartle: Qniversity of WashingtonPress, 19621, p. 216.5~eviewing John Middleton Murry ,s Son of Woman, abiographical criticism on Lawrence, T.S. Eliot writes thefollowing:It is so well done that it gives me the creeps:probably these matters matter no longer toLawrence himself; but any author still livln~might shudder to think of the possibility ofsuch a book of destruct ivc crlt ic~smbt~lnqwrltten about him after he is dead. But noone but Mr. Murry couicl hnvr donc I t.. . . Thrvictlrn and the sacrificial knlfe are perfectlyadaptrd to each other.Sr,e I{. Coombes cd., D.11. Lawrence: A Crltical Antholog>*(Aarmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd., 1973), pp. 241-247.
!L'!)ropouncis li? his Studies in C1;issic Pin;i.ric;~r:1, i L (:r
. .mosz othzr writc,rs. And, is it rot thc awa:-i.r,r~ss o,F t t ~ i ~i ' I::, .I t,j i,:j~[-:.!ici.n;ost i:n:otional1.jl;it m;lki..s 19.. ;..j .;.:rt.z c,i 1 i 1. .-.-:I,Srealist of the. cenr~.-~~"?i-a'{ itt.> :-LI?.,T-gories, the pursuit of an organic b;holer:ess and an achieve-irv~nt of !i;trmc;ny with the univi,~-sic, were r-e-i.mlj!~aslzt?ci8 LI\?Iark Spiika to be r;:rie religiocs intenx that underlie allwritings of Lawrence. And those instances in Lawrence thatreveal the s~cccss or the failure in attaining thls whole-ness or harwony by his characters are rendered through"fourth dimensional" prose. Spilka's The Love Ethic of D.H.Lawrence in this way reasserts the avowed beliefs of Law-rence.The revlval of the flesh and tne non-rational advocatedby Lawrence become the focal point In David Cavitch's book,--- i>.ii. 1,awrence -- and the New World. In addition, CavltchI ! 1 L I I W ~ jvurncy I ~ ~ of Lawrcncc tllL+L 1s t'c'vcL~li\~i lilhis writings.7 ~ Alvarez, . Stewards of Excellence: Studies in ModernEnglish and American Poets (New York: Gordian Press, 1971 ),p. 141.e~awrence 's non-1-lctional works especlal l y Apocc3 1 ypst),overtly advocate this. See, for example, Apocalypse ([jarmondsworth:Penguin Books Ltd., 1980), pp. 48-49 & 125-126and also Lawrence's essay "Morality and rhe Novel", Phoenix:The Posthumous Papcrs (Ilarmondsworth: Pcncjuin Books Ltd.,1978), pp. 527-532.
George ii.Ford uncovers the "double rhythm" thac under-lie Lawrence's work~.~ He says that a large body of Law-rence's writing demonstrates either the positive aspects ofloving and being loved or the opposite, desrroc~ive effectsof the lack of love. This preoccupation of Lawrence withlove has nevertheless enabled him to replace the defuncr andexhausted love-urge with a non-merging and polarized love.Lawrence believed that only a polarized relationship facili-tates the preservation of the intrinsically isolate self ofa human being.The central law of all organic life is thateach organism is intrinsically isolate andsinyle in itself.But the secondary law of all organiclife is that each organism onlylives through contact with other matter.. . . loFord sets out in his book to illustrate how L awre~~ce'swritings fictionally reinforce this dichotomy.9~eorge H. Ford, Double Measure: A Study of the Novels andStories of D.H. Lawrence (New York: Norton, 1969), p. 24.IOD.H. Lawrence, Studies in Classic American Literature(Harmondsworth:Penguin Books Ltd., 1981 ), p. 71.
Eugene Goodheart's The Utopian Vision of D.H. Lawrencestudies Lawrence in lines parallel with those of Nietzsche'sphilosophy. The author ventures, hence, to present theLawrence behind his art. That works of art, like dreams,embody the author's urge for wishfulfilment seems to be theunacknowledged pivotal belief of the book. This belief anda sympathetic awareness of Lawrence's life combined togethermakes Goodheart's study a poignantly perceptive one.The Deed of life: The Novels and Tales of D.H. Lnwrenceby Julian Moynahan offers to show how Lawrence's worksenable an understanding'of the human mind and behavior aswell as the workings of the society. Moynahan deliberatelyavoids indulging in the polemical and controversial views onLawrence. Very much like Mark Spilka in his above-mentionedbook, Moynahan's is also a restrained and balanced reassessingof Lawrence's writings.Roger Sale's Modern Heroism: Essays on D.H. Lawrence,William Empson and J.R.R. Tolkien re-defines the word"heroism" which has taken on a meaning diametrically opposedto that of its original associations with chivalrousness andcourtly love in the modern era. And especially in Lawrenceit is seen that the deteriorated values and the decadencethat followed the First World War produced, eventually, a
hero, who is self-mocking and yet, a courageous adventurerin spite of the prevailing decadence. However, the bookholds that Lawrentian heroism culminates with Birkin ofWomcn in Love and the novels that Eollowed do not developany further the pursuits of the self-confronting hero;instead, they repeat wearily the Birkin-Lawrence with nodynamic variations. Hence the essay contains close analysisand perceptive points with textual evidences on the threesignificant and early novels of Lawrence - Sons and Lovers,The Rainbow and Women in Love.Kenneth Inniss's D.H. Lawrence's Bestiary is the singlefull-length study on the use of animals in D.H. Lawrence.The study undertakes to find the place of the various animalsas well as birds and reptiles in the Weltanschauungof Lawrence.Lnriisv observes thd t except Tor the w1li~.ltl,11ol-st!,dragon and singing bird,ll most of the animals can be clas-ll~enneth Inniss, D.H. ~awrence's Bestiary: Study ofHis Use of Animal Trope and Symbol (The Hague: Mouton & Co.,19711, p. 46.
sified to form two different groups that correspond to theduality of light-darkness or mind-body in Lawrence.However, trying to bring every creature in Lawrenceunder scrutiny, this ambitious book falls short of a de-tailed and considerable analysis of any single animal. Andthe chapters focusing on particular groups of Lawrence'sworks provide an inadequate and dissipated study of individ-!ual animals. Other than the book by Kenneth Inniss, thereseems to be only a handful of articles and stray-essays thatdiscuss the aspect of imagery in Lawrence. For example,Judith Ruderman discloses the phallic dimensions of theemblematic fox in the short novel of that title, in a lonechapter of her book. l 2Her references to the canine beastas a symbol of fertility as well as a creature of aggressionpunished during the harvest festival (as described in Frazer'sThe Golden Bough) reveal the complexity involved inLawrence's usage. The two articles, "Bittersweet Dreaming inLawrence's The Fox: A Freudian Perspective"13 and "Physiog-2~udith Ruderman, "Sanctions from the Animal World:The Fox", Chapter four of D.H. Lawrence and-Mother: The Search for a Patriarchal Ideal of Leaders312(Durham [North Carolina]: Duke <strong>University</strong> Press, 19841, pp.13~ouis K. Greiff, "Bittersweet Dreaming in Lawrence'sThe Fox: A Freudian Perspective", Studies in Short Fiction,Val-XX, No.1, Winter 1983, pp. 7-16.
nomy and the Sensual Will in The Ladybird and The ~ox"14study the short novel The Fox in the light of Lawrence'sFantasia of the Unconscious. The former studies the twodreams that March has in the short novel and attempts toshow that they contradict the dream theories outlined in17;intax ia OF thc Unconscious. And thc latter-mci~t ionclarticle studies The Ladybird and The Fox to illustrate thespecific mode of physiognomical description employcd byLawrence to signal the evolving relationship between thecentral characters.Otherwise, there are helpful essays on ~awrence'simagery, but these do not involve his use of animals. "A'Very ~unny' Story: Figural Play in D.H. Lawrence'sTheCaptain's Doll" focuses upon the parodic way in which theshort novel is written. Gerald Dohewty holds that though itis generally agreed that The ~aptaln's Doll is written in anironic vein of humour, this particular aspect of the shortnovel has been considerably neglected for thematicconcerns. 1514~;iwrcnce Jones, "Physiognomy and the Sensual Will it1'The. Ladybird and The FOX" ,-T~~-D.H, Lawrence Review, Vol. 13,No.1, Spring 1980, pp. 1-29.I5~erald Doherty, "A 'Very Funny' Story: Figural Playin D.H. Lawrence's The Captain's Doll", The D.H. LawrenceReview, Vol.18, No.1, Spring 1985-86, pp. 5-17.
Jack F. Stewart's "The Vital Art of Lawrence and VanGogh"discloses the parallel between their techniques.This 'inter-art' study draws a comparison between Van Goghand Lawrence, the former a painter and latter a writer, onthe basis of their intrinsic beliefs that governed theirmode of expression to be strong and intense. While Van Goghuses dark colours and thick, glaring strokes for his paintings,Lawrence provides tableau-like images often thatinhere his belief in the flesh. Stewart reveals the expressionisticand picturesque mode of Lawrence's writings."D.H. Lawrence and F.M. Dostoevsky: Mirror Images ofMurderous Aggression" by Gary D. Cox detects a similarity int orit or V C I ~ c(' bf>trwcrn Lawrcncc? and Ilostot-vsky . R. B1.I;'bro,tr.r 'c,grouping of these two writers as "prophets" inhis Aspects of the Novel seems to have generated this essay.The present study while it aims to study the animalimages in Lawrence, finds even the handful of articles thatexist on Lawrence's imagery and animal tropes to be6~he D.H. Lawrence Review, Vol. 19, No. 2, Summer 1987,pp. 123-148.7~odern Fiction Studies, Vol .XXIX, No. 2, Summer 1983,pp. 175-182.
fragmentary. For example, the image of the "herd of horses"ttlat appear towards the end of The Rainbow docs not getcunvinclngly Zocused upon in ~ h e "Special Section: Thc Endof The Rainbow", which appeared in an issue of The D.H.Lawrence Review, consisting of three separate articles eachby a different writer. l 8On the other hand, ~eith Brown 'sassay on Lawrence's short novel St Mawr, a well-rescarcht~lone, l 9is a background study that discloses the roots andWelsh bearings of the names used for the central charactersin the narrative.Since a unified study with a concentrated focus uponany single animal in Lawrence has largely been ignored sofar, and since Kenneth ~nniss's book on this subject ofanimals in Lawrence also sets out only to fit the beastsinto a preordained framework of Lawrentian metaphysic(rather than to assimilate the instances where a particularanimal appears, and to assess its place in the ideologyI8~his particular section contains Paul Rosenzweig's "ADefense of the Second Half of The Rainbow: Its Structure andChnractcrization", pp. 150-160; Ronald Schlcifcr's "1,awrcnce'sRhetoric of Vision: The Ending of The Rainbow", pp.161-178; and Ann L. ~c~auqhlin's "The Clenched and KnottedHorses in The Rainbow", pp. 179-181. See The D.H. LawrenceReview, Vo1.13, No.2, Summer 1980.g~eith Brown, "Welsh Red Indians: D.H. Lawrence and StMawr", Essays in Criticism, Vol.XXXI1, April 1982, pp. 158-179.
of the author), this study attempts to fill these gaps. Andapparently, ~awrence's own pronouncements that the readershould "Never trust the artist.[but should] Trust the taleU2Oand that his novels and poems came first, "unwatched" out of hispen, whereas his theories or "pollyanalytics"came later, havznot been given, by Kenneth Inniss, the consideration theyactually demand.As for the definition of an "image" which this presentstudy proposes to use in approaching Lawrence's animalimages, it can be said that the same definition which Caro-line Spurgeon advances in her pioneering book22 is foundthe most useful and appropriate. She attempts touse the term 'image' ... as the only availableword to cover every kind of simile, as well*OD. El. Lawrence, Studies in Classic AmericanLiterature, p. 8.21~. N. Lawrence, "Foreword" to Fantasia22~aroline Spurgeon, Shakespeare's Imagery: And What ItTells Us. (London: Cambridge <strong>University</strong> Press, 1965).
as every kind of what is really compressedsimile--metaphor. [And she suggests] thatwe divest our minds of the hint the termcarries with it of visual image only, andthink of it ... as connoting any and everyimaginative picture or other experience, drawnin every kind of way, which may have cometo the poet, not only through any of his senses,but. through his mind and emotions as well,and which he uses, in the forms of simileand metaphor in their widest sense, forpurposes of analogy.23C. Day Lewis's simple and succinc~ definition of animage as a "picture made out of words",24 though it comesclose to Spurgeon's in its tentacular encompassing of everykind of figurative language, does not suggest the forceful-ness of an image. For this forcefulness of the image alonemakes it evocative and also distinguishes it from a meredescription.Lewis, however, through the whole of his bookventures to show the factors that go into the creating ofsuch an evocative image.23~aroline Spurgeon, Shakesneare's Imagery: And Whar ItTells Us, p. 5.24~. Day Lewis, The Poetic Irnaqe (London: JonathanCape, 1 968), p. 18.
In addition to these points about The Poetic Image, itcan be said that C. Day Lewis shows a complete awareness ofthe lack of a common and scientific standard to use inidentifying a good--i.e. powerful--image.And because it isrequired of a reader to have had the corresponding or similarexperiences as the writer's own that created such aforceful imaqe, a widely acceptable scale for weighing anirriacje i.s bound to be elusive. The Poetic Image underliesthis awareness and emphasizes a non-verbal sensitivity forperceiving the merits or drawbacks of an image.Perhaps Ezra Pound also had these inherent problems inmind in analysing an image, when he said that an imaqe "isthat which presents an intellectual and emotional complex inan instant of time. "25M.H. Abrams observes that there are three differentusages of the word "imagery" .26According to the first,imagery is to "signify all the objects and qualities ofsense perception referred to in a poem or other work of2512~1-a Pound, as quoted in Stanley K. Coffman Jr.,Imagism: f+ Chapter for the History of Modern Poetry (Norman<strong>University</strong> of Oklahoma Press, 1951), p. 141.2 6 ~ ~ ~ . Abrams, A Glossary of Literary Terms (New Delhi:Macmillan India Ltd., 1981), pp. 76-77.
literature, whether by literal description, by allusion, orin the analogues (the vehiclesused in its similes andmetaphors."The second type of usage tends to "signify onlydescriptions of visible objects and scenes, especially ifthe description is vivid...". And.the third type signifies"figurative language, especially the vehicles of metaphorsand similes," Imagery is "images taken collectively"and hence the distinguishing of the visual images fromauditory, tactile, olfactory, gustatory and kinestheticimages becomes needless.Wolfgang Clemen feels that a good image is that whichis inseparably interwoven into a context. And, according tohim, an image culled out for study is not a whole image.An isolated image, an image viewed outsideof its context, is only half the irnagee2'But this thesis attempts to show that even a study of animage with a total awareness of its context cannot be adequate,especially In the case of a writer like Lawrence,slnct> an image may rerl cct the most personal expc~-icnccs27~alf~an~ Clemen, The Development of Shakespeare'sImagery (London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 19771, p. 3.
of a writer's life. For example, the picture of Ursula andGudrun witnessing Gerald Crich who violently subjugates hishorse that is frightened by a passing locomotive in Women inLove can be an image.28 But the fact that the locomotive isa product of man's scientific advancement, and hence asymbol of mechanization for Lawrence, is more obvious for areader than the biographical information which Keith Sagar: ; ~ i , , l ~ i l :; ;~t>o\rir thi 5; same picture. 29Keith Sagar notes that Lawrence had seen, when he was achild, the cruel incident of Major Thomas Philip Barber"making his horse's mouth bleed as he forced it to stand atMoorgreen crossing while a colliery engine clanked past",30and that this incident made an indelible impression on themind of Lawrence. This revealing piece of information byKeith Sagar combined with the symbolic meaning that thehorse is invested with in Lawrence, helps to elevate thepicture into an image. The fact that the horse is, more28~. H. Lawrence, Women in Love (Harmondsworth: PenguinBooks Ltd., 1986), pp. 168-170;29~ee Keith Sagar's "Introduction" in D.H. Lawrence, TheComplete Short Novels (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books L,td., 19841,[J. 28.3 0 idem.
oftcn than not, used as a female sexual symbol by i,awrt?ncetransforms the image into a tableau suggestive of Lawrence'sabhorrence for will-perverted love or sex. Thus GeraldCrich, the fictional counterpart of Major Thomas PhilipBarber, in Woiiien in Love, stands for the wicked exertion ofthe will in love or sex.Yet an image is not always invested with a synibolicmeaning. For instance, when Lawrence writes the following,his intention in using the metaphor seems to be to make itimmediately functional, if not decorative:Only the Holy Ghost within you can scentthe new tracks of the Great God across theCosmos of Creation. The Holy Ghost is thedark hound of heaven whose baying we oughtto listen to.. . - 31Though Lawrence uses the image of the hound in a piousreligious context as Francis Thompson had earlier done, theimage does not give away his personal stance towards thedog. 32~'D.H. Lawrence, "On Being Religious", Phoenix, p. 72832~(7c t h section ~ "The Doq" in Chapter TT, pp. 84-115.
i't con?; idcrably good number of animals that appear inLawrencz's fictional writings tend to be, like the horsefor instance, what one might call "obsessive images".33 Thechoice of animals for this study is made primarily fromthose that appear in Lawrence's short novels34 and thosernat Lawrence himself categorizes as "Animals" within hissection of poems entitled Birds, Beasts and Flowers.Notably, Lawrence does not include the reptiles and sea-livrng33~ohn bn~erecker, A Reader's Gulde to W.B. Yeats (London'l'llrini~\:; & EIucisor-i, lO8L ) , [!. 37. LJnr~~r~~ckr~rI I n(lr, :;u(-housesslve lmagery as that oi the blrds In Yeats to llnk tneshort and apparently unrelated works ot hls wlth largertorms that are slgnlflcant In themselves. That IS,obsesslve lmages help to unliy all he works of a wrlter andhelps the crltlc or the reader to percelve the ldeologlcalj)(~r~;I,r~c-t I vrb ol t hc> author. And till i, t nt>sl s 011 i,,lwrtyl'icc ::,~c~lrridl lmaycry can be seen to sllow the car and llorsc InLawrence to be such obsesslve lmages.34~lnce thpr~ 1s no tlxed, silarp line to mark ttlr st~ortr~ovc~l ', f ro~li t :,llorL !->-,tor L~S, 1 Or 1 1 1 0 i)LlT&)O:i
crc_~~turi:s under the headlny "Animals". 'rile narrow use 01the word "anlmal" to mean only the four-legged c rea~ures~~apparently has determlnea the lncluslon of certaln anlmalsoy Lawrence wlthln hls "Animals" and not others.However, an anlmai like the rabblt, much less discussedtnan the horse In Lawrence, 1s omltted trom thls study. 'i'nernobit being a creature of tlmldlty appears less dlgnirleaIn LawreP1ce than tne predatory anlmals. It 1s an animalthat is preyed upon and hence an analogue tor the vlctlm.That IS, the "bunny" vlrtuaiiy become a stock lmage forportraying ~ h vlctim e or the "hunted", and thus appears tobe a ml,re passlve presence26 And tile near absence of tne'~r!i~[idl Lri Lawrence s snort novels only lustifles the o111i.s-sion oi lt here.351.Iana F. Kellerman, st. a1. eds., New Webster's Dsctlonaryot tne Lnglrsh Language ([place not known]: The~elair~ubllshlng Co., Inc., IY711.36~enneth lnnlss dlScUSSeS the image ot the rabbliz thati ~ijurc?:; 11-1 sc?vt~~-;ll0 1 Lawt once's work!; and concluut.~ ti^^ ttllc beast is a. strnnye cmblcm Lor the ctcmonic victim wtroWishes to be destroyed. See U.H. ~awrence*~ ~estiary, pp. 63& 144-151.
'I'hat: the short nove1.s ot Lawrence exhlblt a tlnercrattmanshlp than do hls novels 1s a wldely accepted tact.Eugene Goodheart volces the reason ror the marked superlorltyof the short ones over hls ionger ones as tollows:'Yhe novel ... 1s not an ideal oppor~unity tor1,awrcnce. Hls ~maglnatlon, like the poets ,tends toward the maklng ot swlft symbollccondensations ot tacts and experiences, whlchthe novellst 1s generally at palns to presentln caretul detali. For thls reason, Lawrence s?llarter works, 'rhe P'ox, St. Mawr, "'i'he Woman WnoIV*l*lr Away", The Man Wno Died, etc., offer nlssjlnboilc and mythlc lmaglnatly a greater opportunltyto perform lts prophetlc~visionary role.37And Julian Moynahan writes that "THE COMMON JUDGMENT that1,;iwrrncc's short storles and novel las contain a h I qhcrproportlon oi artlst~c success than do nis novels 1s substantlailycorrect. "3837~ugene Goodheart, The Utopian Vision of D. M. Lawrence(Chicago: Unlverslty of Chicago Press, 1963}, p. 62.j8julian Moynahan, Tne Deed of life: The Novels andTAles of D.H. Lawrence (Prlnceton: Prsnceton UnlversltyPress, IYILI, p. 175.
Similarly, Graham Hough in his book on Lawrence statesthat the short novels of Lawrence reveal a more sophisti-cated and finer artist than do his longer ones.maintains thatHoughbecause it is not.in these shorter tales thatthe original exploration is done, they areoften superior in artistic organisation to thelong exploratory novels. In a restrictedform, preaching and repetition are boundto be kept to a minimum: and those who say,as many do, that Lawrence's best work isin his shorter pieces have much reason ontheir side. In sustained realisation, informal completeness there is certainly nothingto better the best of his shorter tales.39Although thc "original cxploration" is done in thcnovels, the emergence of the animal images into decisivesymbols, or emblems as Monroe Enqel calls them,40 is unrnistakablyin the short novels. And again, as Gamini Salqadopoints out, "Lawrence does not use symbols in an39~ral~am Hough, The Dark Sun (New York: Octagon Books,1983), p. 168.40~onroe Engel, "The Continuity of Lawrence's ShortNovels" in Mark Spilka ed. D.H. Lawrence: A Collection ofCritical Essays (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, Inc.,19631, pp. 93-100.
~r,rl;iii~rjlnq onr-to-one relationship with their refermen~s,!-,o tlidt dl1 we need do 1s 'decode' a symbol once and lorall. "411,~iwrr:ncc: Iii!ns~.:li writes that a sy~nbol is a "co111~)1i~x oiszotlonal e~perience".~~ And he was, hence, aware that themeanlng of a symbol cannot be fixed.Fix the meaning of a symbol, and you havefa1 1 en into the commonplace of allegory .43In the study that follows, the first four chaptersjudge the major animals that figure in Lawrence's writings~1~1t1i ti~t)se sainc standorcis thiit he hils sct for employingsyabols. The fifth chapter on the animals in Lawrence'spoems is intended as a supplement to the preceding chapters,since a good number of animals that appear in the poems arenew and rarely encountered elsewhere.41~am~ni Salgado, A Preface to D.H. Lawrence (London:Lonqnian Grour, l,td., 1982), p. 117.4 2 ~ . ~ Lawrence, ."The Dragon of the Apocalypse, byFrederick Carter", Phoenix, p. 296.j ~ H. . Lawrence, Apocalypse, p. 60.
Chapter I, "Feline Animals: The Word and the Flesh",deals with those feline images that recur in Lawrence.Since: Lawrence himself does not distinguish sharply betweenthe wild feline and the domestic cat, a ~a~egorizntion ofI / 1 , I I I I I ~ d ~ r j i I ~ ;; ~ wi ~ ' I ~ 1 !;OLIII~ ~J~:C?~.L+IIL LC>LI:;.OII~ y Llit, ~ L . ~ ~ L L ~ L 'of ferocity between the wild and tame cats varies accordingto Lawrence; their essential nature is the same.The three short novels The Captain's Doll, The Virginand the Gipsy and The Ladybird become the primary texts forfeline image analysis. And in addition, Lawrence's poem"Mountain Lion" also is studied in relation to the otherfeline images that appear in Lawrence.It is deduced from the study of these works of Lawrenccthat the feline animal symbolizes the realm of meaning chatthe Blblical Flesh, as against the Word, connotes for Lawrencc.The cat, hence, often stands for the indefinable andpre-verbal. And as opposed to the Word, the cat, as asymbol, implips the essential and irreducible aspect of a.rhing or nelng.That is, unlike the Word which tends toreach and cover mankind all alike, the Flesh allows for thedistinctness of one being from the other.
In The Captain's Doll, Captain Hepburn represents theFlesh. He has a feline graciousness in his physical movenicntsand he is curiously inarticulate or, more exactlyspeaking, non-verbal. The isolated parallels or analoguesthat Lawrence had been drawing between his chaxacter(s1 andi.iic C:~IL tiiroucjh :scattered instances thus far in his writings,attain a fruition in the Captain of The Captain'srml 1 .The Virqin and the Gipsy is again an appreciation ofthe Flesh and its epitome, the cat, through indirection.Exposing the perverse consequences that an unswerving fidelityto the fixed and static Word can cause, Lawrence upholdssubtly the dynamic and ever-changing qualities of the Fleshor the cat.Count Dionys and Lady Daphne are the two characters inThe Ladybird who become the cat-like Lawrentian beings aspolar-opposites of Lady Daphne's husband, Basil.However,Lawrence seems to sacrifice his art for his didactic ends inthat. t-he protagonist, Count Dionys, leads the reader intobelieving, though unsuccessfully, his "pseudophilosophy".4444~.~. Lawrence, "Foreword" to Fantasia of the Unconscious,p. 15.
W I I ! ~ ~ his ' narrative writings that are discussed hereseem to advocate the 'fluid' actuality of the Flesh and thenon-lingual, Lawrence's poem "Mountain Lion" seems to be anelegy, in free-verse, on the death of a "slim cat". 45 Thepoem mourns the death of a yellow lioness and implies thegrowing decadence of mankind and man's encroachment upon thejungle, to be the cause of its death.Chapter 11, "Canine Animals: Tame and Wild", focusesupon the dog, the fox and the wolf which figure in Lawrence'sThe Virqin and the Gipsy and The Fox and in two ofhis poems, "The Red Wolf" and "Bibbles".Lawrence singles out the dog and makes it a symbol forthe social being. His essay on Galswosthy is the point ofreference here, since Lawrence seems to voice only in thisessay the basis for paralleling the dog and a social being,in the process of analysinq Galsworthy's works.45~. H. Lawrence, "Mountain Lion", The Complete Poems(Warmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd., 1977), p. 401.
i\rt.hur Saywc? I ,the rector, in The Virgin and the Gipsyis a 'social being' in that hs has lost his individuality.His complete adherence to the demands of public life hasdrained him hollow of his personal self. Arthur Saywell, byforsaking his inmost personal likes and dislikes, has enslavedand prostituted his body to the unwritten tenets ofrhe society.Lawrence perceives the lack of a personal self on thepart of Arthur Sajwell and hence uses the dog-image topsrzray hlrn since the dog similarly lacks a private self.The 'personality' who is keen on success in public life evenat the expense of his intrinsic being is as contemptible for1,awrencr: as the public copulatim of the dog cln the pavernenc.Nonetheless, Lawrence's treatment of the actual dog isambiguous. The tone of his essay "Rex" and the poem "Bibbles"towards the two respective dogs therein is of fondremonstrance. While he is thrilled by the ferocious animalquality of the dog, he resents its lack of loyalty andobedience.Apart fron the dog, the fox and the wolf are the otherewo canine animals that appear in Lawrence. The fox is used
as a symbol or emblem in his short novel The Fox. And thewolf appears in The Virgin and the Gipsy and the poem "TheRed Wolf". But Lawrence scarcely maintains a sharp distinc-tion between these two wild canines. They are b~th upheldalike for their doggedness or relentlessness.The fox-like Henry in The Fox is relentless andtarget-bound as a hunter, in obtaining March. Likewise, thepersona of "The Red Wolf" is also uncompromising and stubbornin his pursuit.But the fox in the short novel of that title is also asymbol for healthy sensuousness. It is, more narrowly, aphallic symbol. This particular aspect or usage of the foxnecessitates dealing with this animal in a separate section.Chapter 111, "Equine Animals: Superannuated Men andMasterless Horses", studies the horse images in Lawrence.This chapter uses Lawrence's "The Rocking-horseWinner", a short story, St Mawr, a short novel and - TheRainbow, a novel. Rereading these works of Lawrence has led
to a.reversal of the conclusions made so far regarding thesymbolic meaning of the horse. Contrary to the widelycirculated belief that the horse in Lawrence suggests malesexual power, this chapter reveals that Lawrence has beenusing the equine beast as a symbol for female sexuality inhis narrative writings. And the well-known passage in hisFantasia of the Unconscious, about the dream of a threateningand oppressive group of horses, that has been referredto as evidence in support of the argument for the horse asa male sexual symbol has been re-examined here.46Snodgrass's essay on "The Rocking-horse Winner1' andespecially his insight, that since 'riding' is "the commonsexual verb", ~aul's riding the wooden horse is symbolic ofa masturbatory act,47 has generated this study. From Snodgrass'sobservations it is logically derived that the horsetakes here the place of the woman in a sex-act. But thisdoes not mean, obviously, that the horse is to be replacedby a woman wherever the horse appears in Lawrence.171.46~.~. Lawrence, Fantasia of the Unconscious, pp. 170-47~. D. Snodgrass, "A Rocking-Horse: The Symbol, thePattern the Way to Live" in Mark Spilka ed. D.H. Lawrence:A Collection of critical Essays, p. 122.
Lawrence uses the horse to connote a specific sexualdrive.And the drive or urge is to submit rather than toconquer, a desire suspected by Lawrence to be a particularlyfeminine one. It was a misconception on the part of Lawrencewhich made him fear the detection of such an urge inhimself. And this fear, in turn, made him distort the dreamof the horses to be suggestive of male sexual power. Lawrencebelieved that to master is masculine while to submitis feminine. And this also explains, partly, why he oftencreated his male protagonists as aggressive or preda~ory.The horse, thus, becomes a symbol for female sexuality.And the horse has become masterless in the modern world,according to Lawrence, since man has invented motor-cars.Again, man's discarding of the horse for the automobilesymbolically connotes the modern man's resorting to autoeroticismand introversion, recoiling away from healthysensuality. Lou Witt becomes, in St Mawr, the victim of theperverse mechanization of the modern era.Chapter IV, "Kangaroo and the Allegorical Pouch", attemptsan analysis of Lawrence's novel Kangaroo. Kangaroois an animal that occupies an odd place in the animal kingdomof Lawrence. As in the case of the dog, Lawrence
expresses a divided attitude towards the kangaroo also; theanimal is portrayed allegorically in the novel to evokecontempt; and in his poem, "Kangaroo", he considers theanimal to be sensitive and down-to-earth. However, as thereare no expository essays in the case of the marsupial, thisgap is found insurmountable.This chapter, moreover, shows how Lawrence has failedto realize a convincing symbol to connote the all-embracinglove of Ben Cooley, the Kangaroo of the novel's title.Lawrence expresses contempt for the animal by allegoricallyportraying the beast to carry in its pouch an indiscriminatinglove for mankind; the animal here becomes a symbol forthe presumptuousness involved in a generalized emotion.But the animal proves to be an inadequate and unsuitablesymbol to nurture the meaning that Lawrence wants itto. Like Ben Cooley who resembles the kangaroo in nurturingan ideal, young Australia in his "paternal womb", the Lawrence-figure,Somers, in the novel, is also pictured to beara devilish rage in the pit of his stomach. These conflictingallegorical means do not make the ends of the novel anyclearer.
Chapter V, "The Evangelistic Beasts and Animals",examines the animal-poems of Lawrence that appear in hisBirds, Beasts and Flowers. The two particular sub-sectionsthat are cited in the title of this chapter express Lawrence'sessential theme: the positive aspect of "Be[ing] agood animal" and being down-to-earth. 48The Evangelistic Beasts contains four poems. The namesof the yospel writers--St. Matthew, St. Mark, St. Luke andSt. John--are used for the four titles of these poems. Thefour apocalyptic beasts, traditional emblems of the gospelwriters, are used by Lawrence to personify and eventually tosatirize them. Except for St.Matthew, who is in the imageof a man, Lawrence's ridicule of the other three is scathing.And the point of ridicule becomes the possession ofwings on the part of the lion and the bull--St. Mark and St.Luke--whereas, in the case of St. John, the eagle, Lawrence'scondemnation is that the bird is unnaturally in aneternal uplift. Although wings are a metaphor for spiritualflight or elevation, Lawrence believes nevertheless that St.Matthew alone, being a man, is capable of spiritual48~. H. Lawrence, The White Peacock (Harmondsworth: PenguinBooks Ltd., 1984), p. 208. .
transcendence far more than the others. Yet, Lawrenceasserts that being a man, St. Matthew also is essentiallyterrestrial and earth-bound and, as a result, he can enjoy atemporary spiritual uplift and no more.And much like The Evangelistic Beasts, the poems thatappear in the Animals also emphasize the need to be physicaland earthly. Of the eight poems that appear here,"Kangaroo" is the most subtle. Lawrence's efforts todescribe the marsupial in vivid images save the poem fromthe didactic excesses that the other poems in the samesection suffer from.
CHAPTER IFELINE ANIMILS: THE WORD AND THE FLESHThe animals that belong to the cat family, i.e., thefeline animals, are the most Lawrentian in general. Thefeline beast is an epitome of the Lawrentian metaphysic.For the aloofness and predatoriness that are essential for aLawrentian hero are qualities derived from the feline ani-mil 1 .The cat for Lawrence has a "predatory selfishness" andit is, hence, dispassionate. It has a natural existence ofseparateness. Because of its aggressiveness and selfishnessthe cat never relents to satisfy anyone other than itself.Its being is thus unintersected and distinct. A cat is"aloof". The two apparently contrary characteristics of thecat--its aloofness and predatoriness--are not, ironically,mutually exclusive.The animal kingdom of Lawrence maintains the cat andthe dog as diametrically opposed. However, Lawrence tran-scends the conventional association that the epithet
'cat-and-dog' would evoke, while he attributes specificcauses for these two domestic animals' being the oppositesthey are. And further, Lawrence is hardly concerned with anactual encounter between a cat and a dog in his writings.In Lawrence, the dog stands for a social being in thatit lacks privacy while the cat represents nearly everythingthat a social being is not. The dog is a self-conscious anddependent animal while the cat is aloof, pitiless and aggressive.In two of his works Lawrence pictures the dog wrigglingwith self-consciousness. Corasmin in Mornings in Mexico andBibbles in the poem of that name suffer moments of selfconsciousnessand Lawrence describes the respective instanceswith utmost realism.In the travel literature, Corasmin is portrayed ashelplessly self-conscious because of the sardonic andteasing cries of the parrots that mimic its nage "Perro".With a grin on my face I look down at Corasmin.And with a silent, abashed resignation in hisyellow eyes, Corasmin looks up at me, with atouch of reproach ....
Poor old Corasmin: he is 2nly about six, butresigned, unspeakably resigned. Only not ilurnblc.He doas not kiss the rod. He risss in spiritabove it, lettinq - his body lie.'Perro! Oh, Perr-rro! Perr-rro! Perr-rr-rro! !'shriek the parrots, with that strange penetrating,malevolence that seeins to make even thetrees prick their ears. It is a soundthat penetrates one straight at the diaphragm,belonging to the ages before brainswere invsnted. And Corasmin pushes his sharplittle nose into his bushy tail, closes hiseyes because I am grinning, feigns to sleep andthen, in an orgasm of self-eonsciousness,starts up to bite in the region of his fleas.And, as in the passage above, in the poem "BibSles" alsoLawrence uses the c,zimpound "self-conscious" while describingthe dog, Bibbles. Lawrence writes of Bibbles in the followingmanner:How you hate being brushed with the boot-brush,to brush all that dust oilt of your wrinkledface,Don 't you?~D.H. Lawrence, "Mornings in Mexico" and "EtruscanPlaces" (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd,, 19811, p. 11,
How you hate being made to look undignified,~a 'am;How you hate being laughed at, Miss Superb!Plenty of conceit in you.Unblemished belief in your - own perfection-And utter lovableness, you ugly-mug;Self-conscious little bitch,Aiming . . . at being loved.The cat, on the other hand, exemplifies a blissfulstate of self-oblivion for Lawrence. It is not even aware,.of its voluptuousness and its thirst to kill. The cat isincapable of knowing or feeling the throes of its prey.Itsworld is supreme and secluded. And Lawrence voices thisaspect of the cat emphatically in his novel The Rainbow.Tom Brangwen, the step-father of Anna, is irritated byWill Brangwen since he started courting Anna. Tom's loveand affection for his daughter are intense enough to makehim possessive of her. And unable to bear the reality that2 ~ H. . Lawrence, The Complete Poems, pp. 397-398.
p-Will and Anna ace both in love with each other, Tomunconsciously attributes the cause for'his anger andirriation to be Will's callousness. Tom's discomfort isaccounted for by Will's cat-like nature.Tom Brangwen was irritated. His nephewirritated him. The lad seemed to him toospecial, self-contained His nature was fierceenoush, but too much abstracted, like asepa;ate thing, like a cat's nature. A catcould lie perfectly peacefully on the hearthruqwhilst its master or mistress writhed in agonya yard away. It had nothing to do withother people's - - affairs. What did the ladreally care about anytcing save his owninstinctjve affairs [$be]. 5The cat has "nothing to do with other people's affair's"and it is separate. Its exclusiveness preserves or retaiqsthe otherness of the other. The cat's distinctness does notviolate the inner life of the other. This may sound para-d~xical, as the cat is known for its aggressiveness. Yetthe cat, according to Lawrence, does not reckon the inwardlife of its prey even as it pounces with an intent aim on its3 ~ . H. Lawrence, The Rainbow (Harmondsworth: Penguin BooksLtd., 19831, p. 152.
prey.Irs kill is outside and totally objectified. An ac-knowledgement of its preyviz its feelings, implies auto-matically a sympathetic merging with the other. And such amerging, intuitive or otherwise, alters the individuality ofboth the hunter and the hunted to an irreparable extent. Isit not for advocating such a disastrous mingling that EdgarAllan Poe and Walt Whitman4 are condemned by Lawrence?Lawrence suggests the callousness of a cat through Mr.Nickie Ben, a cat, in The White Peacock. The situation isthat a female cat is rescued fr3m the trap set £0 gamecreatures. This is Mr. Nickie en's mate, Mrs. NickieBen. Cyril, the Lawrence-figure and the narrator in thenovel, brings thc hurt animal to the Saxton household to4 ~ . ~ . Lawrence, Studies in Classic American Literature.Lawrence maintains - his essay on Poe that hisstories serve as warnings against the merging of any twobeings into one through knowledge - ospecially Poe's "Lige.ia" is a case in p~int. And similarly, Lawrence observesWhitman also to be assuming one-identity with other humanbeings. See pp. 70-88 & 171-187.
which it belongs. At the sight of the pitiable condition ofthe cat,Mollie full of anger, fetched Mr. Nickie Ben ... tosurvey his crippled mate. Mr. Nickie Benlooked, shrugged his sleek shoulders, andwalked away with high steps.5A cat's aloofness and predatory selfishness are stronglyrooted in the sensuous life it leads. For the cat, it isas if everything outside of itself is at its disposal. Thatis, it is unimaginable of a cat to be yearning for or es-pecting someone to do something for its well-being.It isself-contained, thus. It never depends upon anything forits life. The cat exists supremely. Since all livingcreatures and inanimate things as well are subordinate toit, the feline animal never stoops to sacrifice or evencompromise its innate being.Far more than any other animal, the cat lives extremelysensuously and, as a result, oblivious of everything otherthan its own well-being: it is selfish. Hence Lawrence isseen to highlight, more often than not, this aspect of thecat as a corrective for the human being who is increasinglymind-oriented and compromises his deep personal self for thesake of the public.Bccausc the cat stubbornly remains what it intrinsical-ly is, Lawrence uses the cat as a symbol for that which5 ~ . ~ Lawrence, . The White Peacock, p. 53
is irreducibly itself. Lawrence employs a cat-imagewhile describing a mountainscape or, for instance, a heartheven. 6The cat happens to be one of the obsessive images inLawrence in that it figures in extremely varied contexts inhis writings, and the most repeated of his animal images.For instance, while he explains the nature of a symbolLawrence says that a symbol does not have one meaning: itsmeaning is impossible to pin-point. Here he writes: "Youcan't give a great symbol a 'meaning,' any more than you cangive a cat a 'meaning'."7In a similar fashion, ~awrence uses a cat-analogy whilediscussing the form of the novel. The novel being hisfavourite genre, Lawrence praises it on the grounds that nowriter can ever 'fool' the novel. The novel, according toLawrence, never fails to lay bare the faults of the novelist.He refers to this quality of the novel as the cat:6 ~ H. . Lawrence, Aaron *s Rod (Harmondsworth: penguinBooks Ltd., 19851, pp. 183-185.'D. H. Lawrence, "The Dragon of the Apocalypse, byFrederick Carter", Phoenix, p. 295.
... in a novel there's always a tom-cat, a blacktom-cat that pounces on the white dove of theWord.. .It can be derived here that Lawrence uses the cat to representthe Flesh as opposed to the white dove of the Word.Through this image, and the one cited before, it becomesclear that the cat for Lawrence connotes that which defiesthe Logos--that which is cerebral. The cat is "quick" andunpredictable.On another level, wild animalsen .bloc seem toepitomize aloofness and predatoriness for Lawrence. Theseinstances, mostly to be found in some short stories and afew early novels of Lawrence, reveal that the cat came torepresent in the later writings of Lawrence, the preyinganimals in general. The early animalized character like theorderly in "The Prussian Officer" can be an example here.9~or further evidence of this point, the qamekeeper ,Annable, in The White Peacock, ~axter Dawes in-sons and Loversand, in a less explicit way, George Saxton and Walter Morelrespectively from-the same-novels-can be referred to. Theseanimal-like characters, by virtue of Lawrence's sympatheticportrayal of them, are not very far from the cat-like heroes ofLawrence.
Aloofness and predatoriness, being the two dominantaspects of the wild animals, which are retained by the catin spite of its domestication, are exploited by Lawrence tothe utmost degree in his portraying of certain characterswho appear in his short novels. More often than not, aLawrentian character is fixed with a cat image or analogy soas to emphasize these two qualities. And this chapter willdiscuss, in the main, Lawrence's three short novels: - TheVirgin and the Gipsy, The Captain's Doll and The Ladybird.The feline imagery is used in The Virgin and the Gipsyfor the two title-characters, Yvette and the gipsy, JoeBoswell, in addition to Yvette's mother who is not named butreferred to as "She-who-was-Cynthia". To understand theprofundity of the feline imagery used in this narrative, itwill be necessary'to sketch its background here in somedetail.This short novel presents a young girl, Yvette, at thepar~icular phase of her life in which her intrinsic andpersonal beliefs are evolving. The process of this ispresented by Lawrence through her bewilderment at findingthe elder generation's antagonism towards spontaneous physicalliving. The young girl is confused and at a certain
point almost succumbs to the conscious imposition ofthe abstracted sociai values upheld by her father, herGranny (or the Mater) and her Aunt.However, Yvette is rescued from her predicament and sheis sexually renewed towards the end of rhe novella when adeluge washes away Granny along with a portion of the houseand the green dog-kennel. The climax is the author's assertionof the life of the instincts against the fixity of therectory and the grundyism enforced by the Mater. The collapseof the rectory by the flood implies a fatal blow forthe adamant and inflexible Granny; it also heralds a new andhealthy life.Yvette's father, Arthur Saywell, is a rector. He is a'social being' and Lawrence portrays his contemptuous charactersignificantly with a dog-image.10 The rector is doglikein that he lacks the privacy and dignity that is essentialfor a human being, according to Lawrence. He has noreservations and everything about him is in conformity tothe world outside. His life is lived out with an utmost'Osee the chapter on canine animals, especially the sectionentitled "The Dog", pp. 84-115.
adherence to the societal norms and conventions.That is, he hasabsolved his individuality and violated the pride of hispersonal-self. As a result, he is an average human beingT1 whois society-made and mechanical.of the dog.His Commonness is akin to thatArthur Saywell is deserted by his wife, She-who-was-Cynthia,and Lawrence subtly justifies her elopement.The pretentiousrector, with his hypocritical lust, has necessitated her elope-ment. The rigidity and the false decorum that prevail in therector's household is suffocative, unbearably oppressive.Law-rence states that there exists a "complete stability, in whichone could perish safely. " I2The coldness and unliveliness of the rectory make Yvettehelplessly disgusted and exasperated. And Lawrence's effectiveportrayal of her condition enables the reader to see the shrewdncssin hcr mother's elopement. For the novel allows i t to Llcelicited that She-who-was-Cynthia also had the same oppressivenessin its extremity to put up with and, hence, rebelled finallythe way she did.~'D,H. Lawrence, "Democracy", Phoenix, p. 699.1 2 ~ . ~ . Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 474.
Yvette has, apparently, a strong urge to revolt like hermother. And Lawrence's account of a particular instance at therectory reproduced below is suggestive of this.The instance is~vette's opening a window and Granny's resultant alarm.... in nervous exasperation Yvette would open thewindow. The room was never fresh, she imaginedit smelt: smelt of Granny. And Granny, who washard of hearing, heard like a weasel when shewasn 't wanted to.'Did you open the window, Yvette? I think youmight remember there are older people than yourselfin the room,' she said.'1t's stifling! It's unbearable! No wonderwe've all of us always got colds.''1'm sure the room is large enough, and a goodfire burning.' The old lady gave a littleshudder. 'A draught to give us all our death.''Not a draught at all, ' roared Yvette.of fresh air. '' A breathThe old lady shuddered again, and said, '~ndeed!'The rector, in silence, marched to the window andfirmly closed it. He did not look at hisdaughter meanwhile. He hated thwarting her. Butshe must know what's what! l 31 3 ~ . ~ . Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 480,
This passage implies that the incident does not take placefor the first time at the Saywell household. "Yvette would openthe window" releases the event from a particularized time. Theimplication is that this is a sample issue elaborated to bringout the constant clash between the young and the aged at therectory.This symbolic inciden-c also has an added significance.Yvette's words "stifling" and "unbearable" connote the closing ofthe window to be an act of oppression. Figuratively, it impliesthe stunting of her growth, especially in terms of the floralimngary Lawrence uses elsewhere for Yvette. Undcr assi~ults ofhumiliation her face becomes pale like a snowflower,deflowered.The plant image well expresses the greenhouse-likestaleness of the rectory. The elderly Granny and Aunt Cissieimpose a dead morality on the sisters, Yvette and Lucille, whichimprisons them from the sun of freedom or more pointedly, fromlife itself.Yvette stands for the non-conformist spirit of youth andhence the threshing-floor for everything that is new, fresh anduntried. Her receptivity to that which is the opposite of thedead old custom is the clue that Lawrence provides about herinnate spontaneous being.Hence her fight can be seen to be anact of self-preservation.4 ~ . ~ Lawrence, .The Complete Short Novels, pp. 496-497.
Yvette's struggle for self-assertion inevitably becomes afight unto life-or-death because of the forces she has to confront.And her opponents--her father, Arthur Saywell, thc klateror Granny and Aunt Cissie--are obsessed with the image of themselveswhlch they want to project on the world outside. Nwdlessto say, they want to project themselves as good citizens, whichimplies an infallible conforming to the standards set by thesociety.Being a member of the Saywell family, Yvette is incessantlyforced to conform like the others--to become one among therun-of-the-mill.Any form of deviation by Yvette would, understandably,damage the comfortable and cunning projection made by the elders.The older people of the Saywell family being the representativesof the society, Yvette is indirectly against a legion.Yvette's condition here is probably the same as her mo~her-sbefore her elopement. For it can be derived without much difficultythat She-who-was-Cynthia also had the same hypocritical andoppressive atmosphere to put up with. As it has already beenstated, Yvette's mother was compelled to flight by the selfobliteratinglife-style that prevailed at the rectory. UnlikeYvette, who is ultimately saved from making a reactionary
and scandalizing outbreak by the deluge, her mother was notliberated by nature herself. Her "dangerous selfishness" perhapsinstinctively directed her to elopement rather than to toleranceor perennial postponement. She-who-was-Cynthia, thus, exemplifiesthe importance of the 'here and now' of the earthly life.She does not defer her earthly life for the sake of the unknownafter-life.What Lawrence writes in St Mawr, strangely yet significantly,befits here and provides the motive behind the elopement ofShe-who-was-Cynthia from the self-effacing Saywells. Her selfishnesscan be seen as an attempt, perhaps, tohold fast to the living thing, which destroysas it goes, but remains sweet. ... to preservethat which is life ... from the ghastly kisses andpoison bites of the myriad evil ones ... to adhereto that which is life itself, creatively destroyingas it goes: destroying the stiff old thing tolet the new bud come through. The one passionateprinciple of creative being, which recognizes thenatural good, and has a sword for the swarms ofevil. Fights, fights, fights to protect itself.But with itself, is strong and at peace. l 5Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 343.
it be,:omes evident then that She-who-was-Cynthia has a"creative being" and her act of abandoning the Saywells is onlya form of creativo destruction. While the passage above appliescontextually to the horse, St Mawr, and the protagonist of StMawr, Lou Carrington, who retreat to America in their need to -preserve themselves, here in The Virgin and the Gipsy it helps tojustify the elopement of Yvette's mother to be inevitable; asimilar instinct for self-preservation against the "life unbe-lievers". 16Hence, it is appropriate that Yvette and Lucille shouldthink of their mother in association with brightness and lifeitself. With the disappearance of the mother, the sisters feel,thedanger of instability, the peculiarly dangeroussort of selfishness, like -- lions and tigers, wasalso gone. There was now a complete stabilityin which one could perish safely.Th,? antonyms against the words "danger" and "instability"being "safety" (Lawrence uses "safely1' and "stability", asmaintained in the above-quotation, suggest the recurring Lawren-1 6 ~ , ~ Lawrence, . The Complete Short Novels, p. 498.
tian dichotomy of the dynamic and the static. That which isdynamic is ever-changing, and connotes life. Whereas that whichis static is finished, fixed, unchanging or inert. In otherwords, the opposites are suggestive of the Biblical duali~y--theFlesh and Word.For Lawrence, the Flesh is the absolute and unutterable. l8It signifies change and hence everything is true or right in itsown moment and no furtherq19 That is, a particular truth aboutlife becomes an absolute of the particular minute or an infinitesimalfraction of a minute. And an attempt to eternalize thattruth is a perversion, since outside its origin and context thesame becomes irrelevant or impertinent. Change is such a flux.Lawrence holds the Word as against the Flesh. The Word isnot made of substance. It is an "utteredan abstrac-8~. H. ~awrence, "Original Foreword to Sons and Lovers",reprinted in Gamini Salgado ed., "Sons and Loversn:A Casebook(London: The Macmillan Press Ltd., 19751, pp. 30-37.532.1 9 ~ H. . lawrence, "Morality and the Novel", Phoenix, pp. 527-
tion. Humanity mistakes the word which is born out of ths fleshto be ever-authentic; but, the word, in fact, loses its validitysooner or later since its origin is a flux. The appiication ofthe word to life which is also changing proves, hence, to be aviolation.In The Virgin and the Gipsy the rector, the Mater and AuntClssie try In futill~y to make the Word perfect and eterndl. Forthem the Word is irrevocable. And ln their adamant adherence tothe Word, they also become perversely fixed. With an utmostrigidity they resist any move for a healthy change.Hence, thedeluge towards the end of the novel washes away the rectory,eliminating thereby the Mater who is the chief oppressor.The symbolism is quite obvious. The deluge is the flux while therectory stands for the dead morality which is wickedly imposedupon youth and life.Yvette, very much like her mother, is described as cat-like.l'hc reference of Yvette to a cat is seemingly casual. And thereare two instances in the short novel where the reference occurs.In spite of his feline name, Leo 1s a "mastiff type" accordingto Lawrence. He, being an acquaintance of Yvette and Lucille,proposes marriage to Yvette. Knowing his fllrtatlousnature and also the fact that he is virtually engaged toseveral other women, Yvette feels ashamcd by hls proposal.
Cun:,cyucnt ly , she rejects him. Thwarted thus, Ltio call s Yvc t t t- ~1"Catty little bitch! "21Leo belongs to the category of social beings. And he enjoysplaying the role of a socialite. It is this aspect which repelsYvette. His proposal exposes the conformist in him. He attemptsto take advantage of her unmarried and innocent condition. Aconformist like Yvette's father himself, Leo believes that becauseshe should not die an old maid, Yvette will accept hisproposal. The fear of getting too old to marry, he calculates,will make Yvette readily take up the offer.22Leo's intent becomes clear for Yvette. And she is able toperceive the opportunist that he is and her mind almost,automatically, compares Leo with the gipsy:... instead of penetrating into some deep,secret place, and shooting her there, Leo'sbold and patent smile only hit her on the21~.tl. Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 51522 ibid., p, 51 4.
outside of the body, like a tennis ball, andcaused the same kind of sudden irritatedreaction .23By rejecting the dog-like Leo, Yvette unconsciously asserts herindividuality i.e., her cat-like quality.The second instance where Lawrence refers Yvette to a cat,is in the climax of the short novel. Unlike the first instancewhere the analogy of Yvette to a cat is made through an abuse byLeo, the second one is made by the narrator himself.In the deluge-scene, as Yvette is saved from the flood bythe gipsy Lawrence uses an image of the cat for her. The gipsyand Yvette climb the stairs of the rectory which is partially washedaway. And the ferociousness of the tiger-like gipsy alone preventsYvette here from losing her senses. Lawrence writes:23~.~. Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 51 5. See p.513 also for here Lawrence writes that the gipsy has theThe gll'is~ heir thc) "s~cln~ f lrantpcnsstrat~ny cycs that Leo lacks.stdre of the black eyes, whlch seemed to shoot her In some v~tal,undiscovered place, unerring."
Yvette was blind to everything - but the stairs.Blind, unconscious of everything save the stepsrising beyond the water, she clambered up like awet, shuddering - cat, in a state of unconsciousness.24In Fantasia of the Unconscious, Lawrence describes the sortof vision that a cat has. Yvette's vision described above isclose to that of the cat which Lawrence elaborates upon as fol-lows :Those animals which, like cats, wolves, tigers,hawks, chiefly live from the great voluntarycentres, these animals are, in our sense of theword, almost visionless. Sight in them issharpened or narrowed down to a point.. ..25It becomes evident from these lines that Yvette is like a cat.She is visionless like a cat and that is why Lawrence uses theword "unseeing"26 to describe her eyes, as he does in the case ofsimilar feline characters like Captain Hepburn in The Captain's- Doll or Cuesta in "None of That". In the crucial moment oflife-or-death, Yvette perceives a the stair-case to the24~.~.~awrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 545.25~.~.~awrence, Fantasia of the Unconscious, p. 65.26~awrence, OP- tit- p. 51 9.
exclusion of everything else. Her singleness of purpose and theutmost selfishness to save herself disregarding che gipsy, even,is similar to a cat's selfishness.The feline aspect of Yvette is seen in her tendency to seekher own good first. Furthermore, she is never ready to lend herlife for others. Unsacrificing as she is, she holds on firmly tothe essential self of hers. Thus, she is against a social beingwho lives his/her life second-hand.The third feline being in the short novel is the gipsy, JoeBoswell. Lawrence brings this out by placing him, on the onehand, against the dog-like rector and Leo. And on the otherhand, he suggests the gipsy to be removed from the society--he isaloof in more than one way.The facts about the gipsy render him as an oppos~tc of thedog-like social being. The gipsy is an 'outcast', a 'pariah'27who does not mingle freely with a particular society. The nomadiclife of the gipsy, again, implies an instability as opposed tothe fixity of the rectory. His life is not anchored to a*'D.H. Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 491.
particular place; he leads a dynamic life of change and movement,whereas the rector is nailed to a specific parish in order,perhaps, to "perish safely". 28Furthermore, in contrast to the mastiff-like Leo, the gipsyis l ~kc a wild-cat. While Leo sees Yvette to h ~ v c no MY-outother than to get engaged to him since she is becoming an "oldniilld", the ylpsy overpowers Yvt;ltte not by an lnsinuatli~g rt..ison-ing but by hls wordless sensuousness.The gipsy is capable of making his presence felt by Yvette.He draws her complete attention. And Lawrence writes of thegipsy's peculiar and subtle power as he pictures Yvette's innerunrest caused by that power:There was something peculiarly transfusing inhis stare. Yvette felt it, felt it in her knee~.~gAnd Yvette realizes that the gipsy is 'stronger' than she is.Lawrence elaborates the effect of the gipsy on her as follows:Z~D.H. Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 490.2') ibjd., p. 490.
Her will had departed from her limbs, he hadpower over her: his shadow was on her.30Still further he writes a page later:The childlike, sleep-waking eyes of her momentof perfect virginity looked into his, unseeing.She was only aware of izhe dark, strange effluenceof him bathing her limbs, washing her at lastpurely will-less. She was aware of himas adark, complete power.In addition to his deliberate disorientation from society,the gipsy's peculiar physical bearing also reveals the felineaspect of his being.The gipsy has a "loose-bodied, handsome"32 appearance. Andduring the first meeting between Yvette and the gipsy, Lawrencerepeats this feature of the gipsy. He is "seated on his cart,turning round and gazing at the occupants of the motor-car, fromunder the brim of his cap. And his pose was loose, his gaze3 0 ~ Lawrence, ~ ~ . The Complete Short Novels, p. 51 8.jlibid., p. 519.32ibid,, p. 488.
insolent in its indifference. "33 While he lifts the reins, hemoves his "loose, light shoulder^."^^ And he is said to gesturewith his "dark, loose hand"35 and, to sit "laoscly on tho side of111s cart. " 36It becomes evident here that, like Captain Hepburnof The Captain's Doll, the gipsy also belongs to a "delicate-foo~ed race". 37The gipsy 's movement is blithe and alert like acat's.In addition, when Lawrence writes that Yvette "liked thequiet, noiseless clean-cut presence"38 of the gipsy, he unmistakablyrefers to the distinctness and to a certain cat-like natureof his appearance. For almost a similar description is used by33~. ~.~awrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 488.34idem.35idem.36ibid., p. 489.37ibid., p. 109.38ibid., p. 538.
Lawrence for pen-picturing Parkin, the gamekeeper, in The FirstLady Chatterley:In his aloofness he had a peculiar clear-cutpresence, she remembered he always stood outvery distinct from his background whenever shehad seen him. This distinctness, this clarityin his presence, gave her a certain impressionof beauty, beauty that men rarely have. Hewas not handsome, with that rather bigmoustache. Yet he had a certain distinctnesssuch as wild animals and birds have.3YLawrence uses the same word "aloofness" while describing thegipsy also. He writes that the gipsy's "manner was subdued, veryquiet: and at the same time proud, with a touch of condescensionand aloofness. "40 And Lawrence reiterates this aloofness of thegipsy as he is described selling candle sticks to Aunt Cissie:With patient aloofness the man attendedto her.. . .4139~. H. Lawrence, The First Lady Chatterley ( Warmondsworth:Penguin Books Ltd., 19871, p. 23.~OD.H. Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 508.41 idem.
For Yvette, it was the "silent and forever-unyielding outsidenesswhich gave him his lonely, predative grace."42The gipsy has a wife and children. But the common familialties of humanity are scarcely maintained by him. And the suspicionthat Lawrence intends ths gipsy's manner of bringing up hischildren to resemble that of Annablc's in another of Lawr2nce.snovels, The White Peacock, is not a wholly ungrounded one. WhatAnnable upholds to be the ideal way of raising children is infact close to animal-breeding. The gipsy's children are said toplay "like little wild animals".43 In short, Annable voices hisconviction--"Be a good animalu--whereas, the gipsy is seen tolive up that conviction naively and unconsciously.Annable saysabout his children the following:You know 'em, do you, Sir? Aren't they alovely little litter? - aren't they a prettybag o' ferrets? - natural as weasels - that'swhat I said they should be - bred up like abunch o' young foxes, to run as they would.4442~.~. Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 53843ibid., p. 517.44~. H. ~awrence, The White Peacock, p. 190.
Lawrence uses the word "tiger" in connection wich the gipsyonly towards the end of the short novel. As he saves Yvette fromthe deluge, the glpsy 's eyes "glare[s] ... like a tiger ' s " and ~ ~he is "ferocious".He glared with strange ferocity into her face,forcing her to understand ....'Take your things off! Rub with this towel! ' hecommanded ferociously, the savageness of the waron him. 46The parallel between the gipsy and the wild cat, so far maintainedsubtly, culminates in the deluge-scene with Lawrence'ssudden uncovering of his cigerish ferocity. Only here the catimageis explicitly used for the gipsy.The gipsy in The Virgin and the Gipsy and Lewis in St Mawrare cat-like characters who possess the power of fixing thsiropponents with their eyes. In the case of the former, the opponenthappens to be the educated Yvette who admits to herself thathe is stronger than her.474 5 ~ Lawrence, ~ ~ . The Complete Short Novels, p. 545.46ibid., pp. 546-547.47~ee the passage quoted above, footnoted as 29, 30 and 31in this same chapter.
Lcwis ln St Mawr is the Lawrcntlan cat-like being with "palegrey eyes, that looked phosphorescent, and suggested the +yes ofa wild cat peering intent from under the darkness of some bushwhere lt lles unseen. "48 While Lou Carrlngton feels "herselffound out"49 by the powerful eyes of Lewis, her husband, Rico,flnds hlrnself "defenceless" in front of him.50The feline characters in Lawrence are seldom loquacious.They are reticent as if they are aware of the limits of languagethrough experiences of repeated unsuccess in arguments. However,since Lewis is not the protagonist of St Mawr and also sinceLawrence's portrayal of Lewis is incomplete and abrupt nothingmore can be said of him here.5148~.~. Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 290.5'~ewis is too aloof to be analysed here in any detail, foran enhancement of this study. He does not figure in the mainplot of the novel; his characterization is so realistic that hefirmly stands outside art. Perhaps Lewis is one of the charactersin Lawrence who strongly emphasizes the author's distastefor characters with a "stable ego", by exemplifying the oppositeLewis, as a character, is ever-elusive.
The lonely yet proud bearing of a feline hero is seen againin the person of Captain Hepburn in The Captain's Doll.An officer in the Scottish regiment, the Captain is dark-skinned and has "that air of aloofness and perfect diffidencewhich marks an officer and a gentleman. "52Lawrence's explicit awareness of the feline quality of theCaptain surfaces when he describes him immersed in his hobby.Hepburn chooses to stay in the uppermost room of a building sothat he can peer at the stars at night through his telescope.And star-gazing is his hobby. Hannele, the heroine of the shortnovel, also resides under the same roof, and she finds herselffrequently disturbed by the captain's movements on the Eerrace.She wakes up one such night and observes him:He was squatted like a great cat peering uphis telescope, sitting on a stool, his kneeswide apart. Quite motionless he sat in thatattitude.. . . 53The captain appears, for Hannele, "like some tom-cat staringround with wide night-eyes. "54And Lawrence reiterates that "his52~.~. Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 48.53ibid., p. 66.idem.
eyes were dilated like a cat's at night. "S5Moreover, Cap~ainHepburn is found to move about "on the roof like some catiUs6Even Hepburn's walk and his voice evoke the cat for Hannele,apart from the sense of his touch on her body.The Captain walkswith "slow" steps and his voice is a "slow, straying purr."57li,ln~:clo it!cl s the sensuous powi:r ol the Cai~t;ti n to L i d tl I !,,I crn i rig.And when he layshis hand ... on her cheek, softly, with the mostextraordinary soft hall-touch, as ,I kit ten's ~ILILJsometimes touches one, like a fluff of living air.. . . 58EIanneLe finds him irresistibly lovable. And she perceives thegracefulness of his physical movements. At a later stage in theshort novel, Lawrence is seen to reinforce the delicare bearingof the Captain:[he was] dark, rather slender and feline,with something of the phys;cal suavity ofa delicate-footed race....5 5 ~ Lawrence, ~ ~ . The Complete Short Novels, p. 66.56 idem.57ibid., 64.58ibid., p. 56.59ibid., p. 109.
The image of the dilated and dark eyes that resemble rhe catfor Lawrence is not, however, employed exclusively for Hepburn.For, Henry in The Fox is also pictured to have the same hypnotizingeyes especially at night. The description of Henry'seyes, when he is out to shoot the fox at the Bailey Farm onenight, reads as follows:There he skirted the fence, peering through thedarkncss with dilated eyes that stlcnic\d tc:, L > t kable to grow black and full of sight in the dark,like a cat's.60Although Henry is primarily fox-like, Lawrence uses thefeline image also for him, apparently, since aggressiveness iscommon to all wild animals. It will be pertinent to note herethat far more than the dog, the cat for Lawrence does retain itspredatoriness considerably in spite of its domestication.Hencethe merging here of the canine and feline image in portraying asingle character only reinforces the observation that the cat ischosen by Lawrence to represent the predatoriness of the wildanimals at times.6' Thus, while for March in The Fox, Henry is60n.11. T,awrcnce, The Complete Short Novels, p. 169.61~his point has already been stated. See p. 44.
the fox, Banford asserts that she will trust him only as much asshe would "trust a cat not to stea1.'d2As Hannele in The Captain's Doll associates the Captain withthe cat for the sense of touch he provides, March in The Fox alsois seen to perceive the voice of Henry to be as soft as the"touch of a cat's paw." Lawrence attempts, in the latter-mentioned novel, to fuse two different images--the audial and thetactile--in order to heighten the credibility of March'sn~srnerised6~ condition when Henry urges her to marry him.Lawrence says that Henry's voice, for March,was so soft that it seemed rather like asubtle touch, like the merest touch of acat's paw, a feeling rather than a sound.64Henry the fox-like hero is more domineering and secretivethan Captain Hepburn. But since the story of The Fox is itselfabout the relentless pursuit of Henry and his final success,Lawrence perhaps deliberately wanted to use the fox-image forHenry.6 2 ~ Lawrence, ~ ~ . The Complete Short Novels, p. 168.63ibid., pp. 153 & 156.64ibid., p. 155.
Henry, whose eyes were shining like a cat's as hewatched from under his brows, and whose face seemedwider, more chubbed and cat-1i.h with unalterableobstinacy, now rose to his feet to try his throw.6iThe purposiveness of Henry is so emphatic that he appears inthe above-quoted passage to parallel the fox more than he doesthe cat. His felinity is contained in his certain physicalpostures and his powerful eyes. The unassailable will correspondsunmistakably to the doggedness of a wild canine. Henry'starget-bound moves resemble the wild and predatory canine'srelentlessness. For, as soon as he arrives on the Bailey Farmand sets his eyes on March, Henry is intrigued (Lawrence uses theword "piqued") by March and decides to win her over. She becomesthe prey for the predator that he is. And the passage thatparallels his insinuating will to that of a hunter's is theevidence for it.He would have to catch her a arch] as you catcha deer or a woodcock when you go out shooting.It's no good walking out into the forest andsaying to the deer: 'Please fall to my gun.' No,it is a slow, subtle battle .... It becomes like afate. Your own fate overtakes and determines the65~.~. Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 183.
fake of the deer you are hunting .... Your own soul,as a hunter, has gone out to fasten on the soul,of the deer, even before you see ar.y deer. Andthe soul of the deer fights to sscape .... Whsn youare really worked up to the true pitch, and youcome at last into range, you don't then aim as youdo when y ~ are u flring at a bottle. It is yourown will which carries the bullet into the heartof your quarry. The bullet's f Licjht honlc is LIsheer projection of your own fate lnto the :'a.:e ofthe deer. It happens like a suprene wish, a su remeact of volition, not as a dodge of cleverness. 6 %Unlike Henrydwho sets his will upon March and seeksconsciously to 'mesmerise' March, Captain Hepburn is unaware ofhis own charm, which nonetheless, exercises a similar power overHannele. Hepburn is of "quick, quiet movements. "67He belongs,as already noted, to a "delicate-footed race". And Lawrencedescribes his effect on Hannele:She sat feeling helpless. She couldn't helpbeina in love with the man: with his hands. withhis strange, fascinating physique with his'incalculable presence. She loved the way he put6 6 ~ Lawrence, ~ ~ . The Complete Short Novels, pp. 153-154.67 ibid., p. 51.
nls feet down, she loved the way ne moved hlslegs as he walked, shz loved the mould of hisloins, she loved the way he dropped hrs hcad alittie, and zhe strange dark vacancy of h ~ brow, sh ~ not-thinkln9.68sLawrence writes further, a few pages after the above-quotation,about the enchanted Hannele:She could ascribe no meaning to him, none whatever.And yet his mouth, so strange in kissing, 2nd hishairy forearms and his slender, beautiful breastwith black hair - it was all like a mystery to her,as if one of the men from Mars were loving her.And she was heavy and spell-bound, and she lovedthe spell that bound her.69These two inter-related passages reveal for the reader,through words like "strange", "fascinating", "incalculable","mystery" and "spell-bound", the Captain's word-defying being.The Captain is a paradoxical portrait in that his very appearanceseems to defy every attempt by the narrator or Hannele at word-- =-- --~GD.H. Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 55.69ibid., p. 57.
pic~uring him. Also the Captain himself seems to disbelievelanguage, and holds a serious conviction that any attempt atelaborate explanations will end up merely verbose.He seems tobelieve that meaning precedes language and that language issecondary. The cu1.mination of his argument with Hnnnela, towardsthe end of the novel, reveals this aspect of the Captain: hisfutile attempt at making Hannele understand that he is not.seeking a "patient ~ riselda"~~ in her for marriage, emphasizesthe irrationality and authoritarianism that go hand in glove withhis phenomenological disbelief of language.Apart from the movements of the Captain that attractHannele, there is something' else which is more positive and whichbrings out the wonderful 'animal'in him--"his not-thinking."Lawrence repeats and thereby stresses the Captain's "black" and"dark, unseeing eyes" .72"Sight is the least sensual of all the senses"73 accordingto Lawrence. And hence, his animalized character often has the70~.~. Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 131.71~ee "Conclusion" for an elaboration of this point.72~;1wrencc, QP. tit. p. 54.73~.~. Lawrence, Fantasia of the Unconscious, p. 65.
sort of "eyes, chat seemed never to have thooght b u only ~ to haverc-!cc~vcil lire cilroct tnrough his sixlnses and iictiii stl,i~qilt I it\iu~nst~nct"~~ 1 ikc the orderly, for example, in Lawrcnct' 'S sllol tstory "The Prusslan Officer". For, such a description of theeyes of the orderly as quoted above is hardly different fromthat cf the Captain's eyes by Lawrence: Hepburn's "black eyes,and that curious, bright unseeing look ... was more like secondsight than direct human vision."75The intensity that Lawrencsattributes to the same kind of animal vision of Cuesta in theshort story entitled "None of That" facilitates the understandingof the implications of Hepburn's nature.[Cuesta] was an animal, a marvellous animal. I haveoften thought, if human beings had not developed mindsand speech, they would have become marvellous animalslike Cuesta, with those marvellous eyes, much moremarvellous than a lion's or a tiger's. Have you7 4 ~ . ~ Lawrence, .The Collected Short Stories (New D2lni: Rupa& Co., 19841, p. 91.7 5 ~ . ~ Lawrence, . The Complete Short Novels, p. 53.
noticed a lion or a tiger never sees you personally?[Sic] It never really looks at you. But also it isafraid to look at the last little bit of you, whereyour courage lives inside you. But Cuesta was noEafraid. He looked straight at it, and it rn~ited.~~Luis Colmenares reports this detail about ~uesta's eyes to thenarrator-Lawrence of the story. Colmenares adds that Cuesta waslike a kitten or a leopard cub. And Cuesta was stupid, but hewas capable of making a person "physically aware of him: like acat in the room."77Thus, it becomes clear that by "unseeing eyes" Lawrencsimplies the animal vision that is impersonal. They are incapableof ncknowlcdginq CI person outsidc tllt~m. l'ht)rc>i'orc, tllt's~'animalized characters, like Captain Hepburn, are refuters ofconformity that 1s plvotal in a 'society'.It can be stated that the Captain seems to be aware of thelimits of verbal expression. And his animality subtly floutslogical reasoning and a verbal display of one's emotions. In asense, IIepburn's could have been the voice that speaks throughTdwrence 's poem "The Mcss of Love" :7 6 ~ . ~ Lawrence, .The Collected Short Stories, p. 653.77ibid.p p. 654.
The moment I swear to love a woman, a certain womanall my lifeThat moment I begln to hat? her.The moment I even say to a woman: I love you! -my love dies down considerably ....The moment the mlnd interferes with love, or thewill fixes on lt,Or the personality assumes i~ as an attribute, orthe ego takes possession of ir,~t 1s not love any more, it's just a mess.. . . 78Captain Hepburn, after the death of his wife, se3ms deliber-a"cr1y not to profess his love for iiantloie. Si~lce iic Ins I-sjlt.1.i-enced the disastrous effects of swearing his love once, in hisrelationship with his wife, Hepburn refuses to admit that heloves Hannele. However, it is not the mere voicing of one's lovethat perverts the feellng, but the very consclousnoss of ~t t h , ~ ~makes it perverted and decadent. And Lawrence seems to ignorethe fact that there is no escape from this, since a human beinqis bound to become conscious of his/her love at one time orother.All the same, for the Captain, "Words mean so lit-cle. Theymean nothing.. .".79And "Words of reply only seemed to stray out78~.~. Lawrence, The Complete Poems, pp. 472-473.7 9 ~ . ~ Lawrence, , The Complete Short Novels, p. 56.
of him in the need to say something. But he himself neverspoke."80 The Captain is so elusive that Hannele is ucable tofix even his appearance in her mind. The cat-like Hepburn repr3-sents the Flesh in that he is eternally evolving, and sxistsprimarily in concrete physicality. Hence, for Hannelewhen he was present, he seemed so t ~rrl bl y r~>'ll .Whcn hc w ~ s abst3nt he was cornpletcly vnguc, ;~r>tlher own men of her own race scenled so absolutellrthe only real~ty.*~The concrete physicality of the Captain is indirectly str?ssec? byLawrence here, for its strength of sensuous realness. The insub-stantial, sheer 'idea' of him never fulfills ~annele's yearningfor him.His presence is so absolute that in his absence he isinaccessible even mentally. Hepburn eludes her attempts ofmental conquests, in spite of her success in makinga doll of him, Lawrence's cat becomes thus a symbol for thatwhich is irreducibly essential and irreplaceable.Apart from the two short novels discussed above, The Virg~nand the Gipsy and The Captain's Doll, there is a third whichdiffers in tone and method of narration from these. The Ladybird1s peculiar in its intensity. The incantatory words of theprotarjonicii Ln this short novel reveal the author to be8 0 ~ . ~ Lawrence, .The Complete Short Novels, p. 56.81ibid.f p. 64.
iri;~dvc.!rt(:nt and less artistic. While the gipsy or the Captain isseen to raanoeuvre his partner into submission through his sensuouspower, the protagonist of The Ladybir6, Count Dionys, woosLady Daphne not by his physical grace buc by injecting his insinuatingideas into her. Again, what the invisible narrator in theother two short novels does to manipulate the plot 1s largelydone by the hero-character in The Ladybird. As a result thenarraror almost becomes redundant in The Ladybird.In short, thsmetaphysic of the author that is normally arrived at through theindirections of a&,is explicitly presented; the overt didacti-cism has floundered the art.The Ladybird is the story of a prisoner of war from Germany,who undergoes treatment at an Engllsh hospital since he had "hada bullet through the upper part of his chest" and another brcaklng"one of his ribs".82 This "swarthy-transparent" man is CountDionys.Lady Daphne, the heroine of the short novel, visits theCount at the hospital, having been acquainted with him evenbefore her marriage, after receiving the news of his ailmentthrough her altruistic mother. Of Lady Daphne Lawrence writesthatThere was a certain width of brow and even ofchin that spoke a strong, reckless nature, and8 2 ~ . ~ Lawrence, .The Complete Short Novels, p. 209.
[he curious, distraught slant cf her e7 es toldof a wild energy dammed up inside her. 6 3Very much like Yvette, in The Virgin and the Gipsy, who isredeemed by the gipsy from the dead and benumbing atmosphere ofthe rectory, Lady Daphne here is saved by the Count (after hisown recovery from the bullet-injuries, of course) from her selfimposed,dreary life.... her will was fixed in the determination that lifeshould be gentle and good and benevolent. Whereas herbl.ood was reckless, the blood of daredevils. Her willwas the stronger of the two. But her blood had itsrevenge on her. 8*On another level, Lady Daphne's determination resembles thatof March in The Fox. They are both alike in forcing themselvesagainst their deepest impulses. March exhibits this through herpursing or twitching of the mouth; Lady Daphne through her dispiritedand sickly appearance. Like Henry who relieves theformer of her dreary life-style, the count rescues Lady Daphne.After her few visits to the hospital, Lady Daphne is hauntedby the words spoken by the Count. In spite of her closedness and83~.~. Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 210.84ibid ., pp. 210-211.
ifi~*:!d w i 1.1, the Count has penetrated into her being. The Countreveals her to herself.'You remember, dear Lady Daphne, that the adderdoes not suck his poison all alone, and thepole-cat knows where to find his she-pole-cat.You remember that each one has his own dear mate',he laughed. 'Dear, deadly mate ' .'The she-adder is dainty, delicate, and carriesher poison lightly. The wild-cat has wonderfulgreen eyes that she closes with memory like ascreen. The ice-bear hides like a snake withher cubs, and her snarl is the strangest thingin the world'.Further in the same stream of ~ alk with Lady Daphne, the Count'Well! Now listen. The same with love. Thiswhite love that we have is the same. It isonly the reverse, the whited sepulchre of thetrue love. True love is dark, a throbbing togetherin darkness, like the wild-cat in thenight, when the green screen opens and her eyesare on the darkness'.'No, I don't see that,' she said in a slow,clanging voice.'You, and your beauty - that is only theinside-out of you. The real you is the wild-
cat invisible in the nighc, with red fireperhaps coming out of its wide, dark eyes.Your beauty is your whited sepulchre.'' You mean cosmetics, ' she said. ' I 've usednone at all to-day - not even powder.'He laughed.'Very good,' he said. 'Consider me. I used tothink myself small but handsome, and the ladiesused to admire me moderately, never very much.A smart little fellow, you know. Well, thatwas just the inside-out of me. I am a blacktom-cat howling in the night, and it is chenthat flre cornos out of mc. This me you look atis my whited sepulchre. What do you say -'She was looklng into hls eyes. She could seeI ht> darkness swaylng ln the depths. She pt'ccelvedthe invlslble, cat-llke frre stirrlngdeep lnslde them, felt it coming towards her.85The tone of ,the Count here seems to be softly persuasivelike that of Henry in The Fox while he urges March to marry him.Disregarding the totally unintelligent answers or responses thatLady Daphne gives, the Count proceeds with his coaxing re1en~lessly.The persuasive quality of both Henry and Count Dionys85~. H. Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, pp. 230-232.
seems to be the same, except for the two different animals thatLawrence has used to picture them through. Once again thisreinforces the observation that Lawrence's cat is at times indistinct:it is employed to suggest the cominon quality of wildanimals, namely their intentness of purpose.As the gipsy in The Virgin and the Gipsy, the Count is alsoan outsider. Lawrence mentions that his other name, "Psanek",means an outlaw. Count Dionys, however, is a wild-cat by word ofmouth. Unlike the qipsy whose ferociousness attests to histiger-like quality, Count Dionys does not reveal his felinitythrough his actions. His conscious declaration that he is awild-cat is the serious blunder that Lawrence has made in hischaracterization. For, while the cat, wild or domestic, standsin Lawrence for "self-oblivion" and sensuousness, the Countprojects an image of "self-consciousness" through his declarations.The Count seems to attempt to compensate the lack of hissensuousness, ironically, with his cunning insinuations. Thisnarrative flaw, on the part of Lawrence, has definitely marredthe characterization of the Count.Lawrence's poem "Mountain Lion", which figures in his Birds,Beasts and Plowers, is a melancholic poem.It mourns the deathof a lioness, shot dead by two Mexicans in' the Lobo canyon.
The persona encounters the two men carrying a dead lioness.Lawrence discloses the burden on the shoulders to be a lioness,only after mounting the suspense to a high pitch.Men !Two men!Men! The only animal in the world to fear!They hesitate.We hesitate.They have a gunWe have no gun. *6Thus, the persona comes close to meet the strangers and findsthat they are carrying a dead lioness.It is a mountain lion,long slim cat, yellow like a lioness.A Dead. lon83After leaving the Mexicans behind and as the persona precedesinto the Lobo valley, he discovers the probable lair of thelioness, and sentimenta.11~ recalls the loss the disappearance ofthe lioness would mean:86~.~. Lawrence, The Complete Poems, p. 401.87idem.
So, she will never leap up that way again, with theyellow flash of a mountain lion's long shoot!And her bright striped frost-face will never watch anl'more, out of the shadow of the cave in the bloodorangerock,Above the trees of the Lobo dark valley-mouth!...And I think in this empty world there was room for rnzand a mountain Lion,And I think in the world beyond, how r3sily wt: alightspare a milllon or two of humansAnd never miss them.Yet what a gap in the world, the missing white frostfaceof that slim yellow mountain lion!88Thus, even after about ten years, Lawrence still seems to voicehere the same disgust for man as in The White Peacock. The gamekeeper,Annable, brings up his children like wild animals sincehe prefers the animals to the increasingly mechanized humanbeings. He decides that his children "can be like birds, orweasels, or vipers, or squirrels, so long as they ain't humanrot. . . . "89Likewise, the persona of "Mountain Lion" expresses a strongdistrust of human being when he says that man is the "only animalin the world to fear".88~.~. Lawrence, The Complete Poems, p. 402.8 9 ~ . ~ Lawrence, .The White Peacock, p. 191.
CHAPTER IICANINE <strong>ANIMAL</strong>S: TAPE2 AND WILDThis chapter is divided into three sections, one each for thethree different canine beasts: the dog, the fox and the wolf.Lawrence's treatment of the canlne animals distinguishes,unlike his treatment of the feline animals, between the domes~icand the wlld (or predatory) canines far more sharply. The dog,domestic as it happens to be, incites contempt according to him,while the fox or the wolf is rescued from such a disgrace byvirtue of its aggressive nature. The attitude that Lawrencemaintains towards the dog in his fictional writings is invariablyone of contempt. He, thus, singles out the domestic canlnc.However, the presence of a short novel with the fox for itstitle does demand a separate section in this chapter for itself,apart from the wolf. The fox becomes a symbol and an artisticdevice for the realization of Lawrence's metaphysic in the shortnovel, The Fox.Nevertheless, on one level, the fox and the wolf are alikefor Lawrence in that they are both epitomes of a certain dogged-ness. l'11,y exillbit an unwavering will towards tl~elr pursult.
The DogFar more than the other animals and their counterpart char-acters, Lawrence's treatment of the dog and the dog-liks charac-ter as well remains explicitly constant. That is, whether it isthe actual dog or the dog-like hu~an being, Lawrence's attitude,with the exception of a few early works, has been one of con-tempt.Lawrence writes in his essay e ex"' the following wordsabout the servility of the dog, which, nonetheless, anticipatesthe later and more sharply defined usage of the animal as asymbolic image in his poem entitled "~ibbles"~ and a group of hisworks of fiction.l~awrence's non-fictional prose works contained in thefirst volume of Phoenix supplies in its "Appendix" the informationthat "Rex" was first published in the February 1921 datedissue of Dial. The actual date of its writing is not found evenin Keith G r 's A D. H. Lawrence Handbook (Manchester: Manchester<strong>University</strong> Press, 1982). Nevertheless, the fact that the Phoenixis chronologically designed with "Rex" being placed among thefirst few essays, and the picturesque quality of the essay suggestthat it could have been written during his Sons and Loversphase.*D.H. Lawrence, The Complete Poems, pp. 394-400.
Nothing but love has made the dog lose his wildfreedom, to become the serv~nt of man. And thisvery servility or completeness of love makes hima term of deepest contempt--"You dog ! "3Furthermore, later in a significant passage in his essay "JohnGalsworthy", he contrasts the dog with other canine animals:... once you have the fall into social beings, sexbecomes disgusting, like dogs on the heat. Dogsare social beings, with no true canine individuality.Wolves and foxes don't copulate on the pavement.Their sex is wild and in act utterly private. Howlsyou may hear, but you will never see anything. Butthe dog is tame--and he makes excrement and hecopulates on the pavement, as if to spite you.4Apparently, Lawrence formed any definitive attitude towardsthe dog only when he wrote this essay on Galsworthy,For thereis a cluster of Lawrence's early writings that do not use the dogimage to evoke an unambiguous feeling of contempt.In otherwords, Lawrence's use of the image of the dog in his early writ-ings has no trace of an elaborately thought-out significance or asymbolic import.3 ~ . ~ Lawrence, . "Rex", Phoenix, p. 21.~D.H. Lawrence, "John Galsworthy", Phoenix, p. 547.
As examples, instances from Lawrence's few early novels likeThe White Peacock, The Trespasser and Sons and Lovers and theprose piece "Rex" could be shown.Y'iiL! :irst two novels of Lawrence, ?he White Peacock (1910)and The Trespasser (1912) contain dog images in the form ofsrmiles attributed to one of the main characters: in the firstnovel, it is George Saxton and in the second, it is the hero,Siegmund. However, it would be a mistake to suppose that anabundance of canine analogies is found in these two works.Contrarily, there are hardly more than two or three images of thedog in each of these novels. The nature of these few imagespresent in these novels and also the very fact of their being fewin number justify the assumption that Lawrence had not given anyserious thought about the dog by this time.George Saxton, though thwarted in love, appears to be thshero of The White Peacock since Cyril Beardsall remains chieflythe narrator and Leslie gradually fizzles out after his marriage.fq~art from being the hero, George seems to be a quasi-successorof the game-keeper,5 Annable, in his raw physicality.Here, it5~ulian Moynahan, The Deed of Life, p. 9.
is significant to remember that Lawrence intended the game-keeperto bring a balance in the novel which was orherwlse "LOO muchmg. "6The narrator-Lawrence's sympathies are with Georgerather than Leslie, and the widely discussed scene of Cyrii andGeorge bathing together, described in the chapter called "A Poemof Friendship", attests to this fact. &cause Cyrii is thenarrator and the Lawrence-figure the presence of a tinge ofsubjective thrill in the narration of the bathing scene is unmis-.takable. These are factors which prevent one fro% consideringGeorge a contemptible character solely because Lawrence has usedthe dog image in describing him.I thought he could only look like a faithful dogor a wounded stag.Alice, who has been keeping Cyril up-to-date as to ~eorge'slife, writes these words. Iier letter brings the news of George'swife, Meg, giving birth to twins and the husband's disappointmenton finding both the babies to be boys. Alice describes theresultant fiendish fury of George who had been yearning for agirl-child. George's anger is unusual and terrible since he isbasically a timid person.6~essie Chambers, D. H. Lawrence: A Personal RecordCambridge <strong>University</strong> Press, 1980), p. 117.(London:7 ~ . Lawrence, ~ . The White Peacock, p. 343.
The context being this, the of f-handness in lice's words,and in turn, Lawrence's, becomes evident. Effected partly by theaddition of the alternative image, nameiy, that of the "woundedstag", the dog simile here does not evoke contempt because thedog is specified to be a faithful one. And on the whole, thepicture is one of timidness. Hence it becomes clear that thsslrnile with the dog-image has no more than a functional immediacy.The only threat, apparently, to the above conclusion is Law-rence's rendering of George as a socialist in the latter half ofthe novel. But even that is effaced. For George's flirting withthe socialism is short-lived as he is seen to be disillusionedwith it far before the novel ends.The same limited purposiveness is secn in an image in - TheTrespasser also. Lawrence describes the intimacy of Siegmund andHelena, after they both have reached the Isle of Wight to spend aweek. This is to be a relief and an escapade for Siegmund fromhis unpleasant wife and the grubbiness at home. Lawrence writes:At length she found herself released, taking agreat breath, while Siegmund was moving his
mouth over hgr throat, something like a dogsnuffing I S1c] her, but with his lipsa.Hsre, it is evident that Lawrence's use of the simile,likening Siegmund to a dog, is indispensable, because it suggestsmore than a plain visual image. The dog's sniffing is to re-create the sensation, in an astonishing economy of words.it isa bold image, suggestive of the sense of touch.In addltion to the common aspects between George and Sieg-mund, like their both being central characters in their respec-tive novels and both meeting a tragic end, there is a thirdsimilarity. Both of them are in love with women who are somswhatcdt-like. And Lawrence could have been aware of this odd pairzngof man and woman at least in the case of George and Lectle, ofThe White Peacock. For while discussing with Cyril his~ I I I~>OIIIi t t tit1 I c)v,\ I 01, l,ctl t l(l , G~or(j~~L G~:,ko(l by Cy! i 1 ''WII,~~. i Iyou'd had her?" And ~eorge's reply is: "We should have been likecat and dog. "9 Lawrence could have consciously or unconsciouslyhinted at the cause of the unfortunate destinies of George andSlegmund as this: that they both desired women who happened to be8 ~ H. . Lawrence, The Trespasser (Harmondsworth: Penguin BooksLtd., 1986), p. 30.9 ~ . ~ Lawrence, . The White Peacock, p. 365.
thelr very opposite. Through the imagery Lawrence probably was~mplylng the incongruous mlsrnatching which would have entailed agreater misery for both the pairs. For George's desiring ofLettie, or Siegmund's loving Helena, if fulfilled, would havebeen no different from coupling a dog and a cat.It is not very difficult to see that Lawrence's use of thedog-simile for George Saxton and Siegmund are not far differentfrom the ones he has employed for Walter Morel in Sons and Lovers(1912). They are, invariably, contextual and are used simply tobring out an analogical parallel of short-ranged import. YetSons and Lovers has to be singled out because the parallel drawnbetween Walter Morel and the dog here appears to have a greatsrernphas i s .Sons and Lovers contains the dog irnage attributed to WalterMorel, the collier, to describe his meanness. Morel has "deniedthe God in hirnl'10 (that is, he has sacrificed his human qualitywhile nurturing the baser aspects--the animal and the sensual)and his wife calls him less than a dog.The scene is the collier's returning home one night, slight-ly intoxicated, and getting enraged at finding nothing to eat.The dialogue between him and his wife is as follows:~OD.H, Lawrence, Sons and Lovers (Harrnondsworth: penguinBooks Ltd., 19841, p. 102.
'What are you doing, clumsy drunken fool?' themother cried.hen tha should get the fla~~in' tking tnysen.Tna should get,up, like other women have LO, ar,'wait on a man.'Wait on you - wait on you?' she cried. 'Yes,I see myself. '.Yis, an' I'll learn thee tha's got to. Waiton me, yes, tha sh'lt wait on fie--'ever milord. I'd wait on a dog at the doorfirst. '1 1Gertrude Morel, the collier's wife, is too much the oppositeof him.The puritanic and self-righteous Mrs. Morel "in seekingto make him [Walter] nobler than he could be ... destroyedhim. "I2 And all the contempt that Lawrence shows for hisfather-figure, Walter Morel, in the novel still does not degradeWalter so much as to place him on a par with an Arthur Saywell(The Virgin and the Gipsy), or even a Rico (St Mawr).Walter Morel has scenes to show his bright, good-I r r , , . Arltl t lit se scenes stand out wlth an authcnt I city and~ID.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers, p. 7612ibid., p. 51.
1.t1c.y cvc:~i uriderm~nt: t!i~ contemptuous toi:cl of tllc ~;~ii.r~l: or \%I!i ~'ll1s allegedly due EO the borrowed sta2dar3.s of author. j 3The heavy autobiographicality of the novel and the recurrenceof a similar instance as the above-cited one where the wifecalls her collier-husband a dog or less than a dog in Lawrence'splay The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd (1913) invigorate the instanceso as to rouse one's strong doubt if the scene was a reproduccionfrom Lawrence's own home and a record of the encounter betweenhis parents, Lydia and Arthur Lawrence.Moreover, the analogy of Walter to a dog could have beenmerely a mechanical exercise on the part of the writer sinceco:ivc-r~t lori ;issoclates the dog with contempt and lowliness. Theword 'cur', though at present not much in use, is a standingevidence for the pejorative and condescending manner in which thedog is often looked at. Hence it can be deduced that Lawrence'suse of the dog image here does not permit the assumption tha-c itsprings out of a well-developed personal symbolism.In addition, the scenes that are pro-Walter in the noveltogether seem to embody the "black tom-cat"14 which the authortries unsuccessfully to hoodwink. The impression created byI3~eith Sagar, "Introduction" to Sons and Lovers, p. 14.1 4 ~ . ~ . Lawrence, "The Novel", Phoenix 11, p. 41 8.
these scenes, that Walter Morel is not so despicable as xheauthor intends us to see him, is far from being negligible.These three earliest novels of Lawrence only support thevrc:w that thus far hc had de:vc!opilcino singlci~is:;s al St't'l il1~1towards the dog. His disposition towards the dog is divided.And his essay "Rex" has a passage to s~bstantiate this conclu-s ion."Rex" is an account of a pet dog of that name. The essaydescribes the growth of Rex from a puppy to a good-sized dogalong with the tensions and annoyance caused by it at home.Lawrence's essay has a naivetewhich reveals, on a subtler level,his own affection for and attachment with the dog. It does showthat Lawrence himself was carried away, to an extent, by Rex'snaughtiness. The essay, in fact, discloses the author's ernotiona1fluctuations and his unresolved mind with regard to the animalityof the dog. This is reflected in the following passage inthe essay:And his [Rex's] true nature, like so much else,was dual. First he was a fierce, canine littlebeast, a beast of rapine and blood .... He wasalmost a peril to the neighbourhood. But notquite. Because close second in his nature stoodthat fatal need to love, the besoin d' aimerwhich at last makes an end of liberty. He had a
terrible, terrible necessity to love, and chistrammelled the native, savage hunting beascwhlch he was. Ee was torn between two greatimpulses: the native impulse to hunt and kill,and the strange, secondary, supervening impulseto love and obey. l 5The complacent allowance here of two contrary impulses toexist side by side in the dog marks the difference between theLawrence of this essay and the much later one of the poem "Elbbles",where he is much more demanding and asserts himselfto be a scrupulous master. The poem will be discussed at a laterstage of this chapter.Returning to the quote from "Rex", it can be seen that thepresentation of the.dua1isti.c nature of the dog is considerablyundisturbed by the subjectivity of the aurkior. Rex 1s picturrdas the author sees it; and, the air of neutrality is not dellberatebut a natural outcome of ~awrence's naivete. Biit, is hegoing to leave the dog as such? Or does he intend to weigh thepros and cons of both the impulses of the dog and determinehimself accordingly--as to love or despise the dog? since Lawrcnceresolutely uses the image of the dog to denote only contemptin his later writings, it seems that the latter questionhas received an affirmative answer.1 5 ~ . ~ . Lawrence, "Rex", Phoenix, p. 18.
It will be seon in the following few pages how Lawrence useshe dog as a symbol for a 'social being'. The main texts hencewill be The Virgin and the Gipsy (1926) and St Mawr 11924).Hr~hur Saywell, the rector, and Rico, the Anstralian, from therespective short novels become the dog-like characters who epitomizeLawrence's utmost hatred for the dog.A social being is tame or domesticated. And a social beiri~j':;tarnc:nosa is ilchi~vcd Crorn within 2nd kt: is not c;~u:;c'tI ,ti?extern31 physical force. It is self -control1 imposedupon as a prerequisite by the modern civilization for an undiscurbedand smooth-running life. A social being, according toLawrence, is also in a measure an exhibitionist;17 the publicdemonstration of one's private feelings and emotions is no lessrepugnant than the dog's spitefu act of copulating on the2avement.At the very outset of The Virgin and the Gipsy, Lawrence hlntsat tht> 'social bc~ng' that the rector is. Arthur Saywell ' s wi fcnas abandoned him to live with another man. Lawrence describest lir*:,ol:nc~ thdt CoJ lowzd hcr clopcment, at the rectory.The rector was now forty-seven years old; hehacl - clisplayed an "intense and not very dignified'~D.N. Lawrence, "The Novel and the Feelings", Phoenix,P. 757.7~.~. Lawrence, "John Galsworthy", Phoenix, p. 547.
grief after the flight of his wife. Sympatheticladies had stayed him from suicide. His hairwas almost white, and he had a wide-eyed, trasiclook. You had only to look at hia, co know howdread£ ul it all was, and how he had been wronged.The demonstration (Lawrence uses 'displayed') of his 'nocvery dignified grief' and the rector's creating a scene by apublic attempt at suicide are all outlined by the author tosuggest the exhibitionist tendency of the rector. And in addi-tion to this, Lawrence again a little later, implies also howthe rector and his household live a mechanical life in order toconform to the unwritten norms of the society. Everything isuttered and acted out only in accordance with the expectations ofthe society. There is no room for freedom or individual flexi-bility. The rector is unchanging and static due to the constantfear of violating a certain decorum. With the Saywell householdthe all-conditioning commandment runs as follows:Let there be as much hate and friction insidethe family, as you like. To the outer world [sic ja stubborn fence of unison.19Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, pp. 471 -472.
Furthermore, Lawrecce also suggests a tinge of selfconsciousnessto underlie even rhe crlvial, day-to-day acclvltlcsof the rector. It is his self-conscio~sness that drives therector to prcject a tragic appearance in response to hls wife'sdesertion. He contrives to win the sympathy of the world throughsuch a projection and also to perfectly fit in with the socic'ty.Lawrence satirizes this aspect of the rector in the followinglines:He [the rector] wanted, in his own eyes, to have afascinating character as women want to havefascinating dresses. 20While approximating himself to the social ideal of a man,the rector has forged his genuine feelings and has lost hisindividuality. His sole ambition is to conform. Such an ambitionis naturally never-ending since a finish for that ambition onlyimplies death or defeat.It becomes a 'vicious circle.'L3wr~nce hence, rightly, considers self-consciousness as aform of slckness or perversion. To be self-conscious at thirty-seven, he writes, is a sign of 'arrested development.'Andself-consciousness at forty-seven, like the rector's, is a symp-1 om of ' seni.1~ precocity. '2120~.~. Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 475.2 1 ~ . ~ . Lawrence, "Surgery for the Novel - or a Bomb", Phoenix,p. 518.
Lawrence writes about a 'terrific rumpus' at the rectory onaccount of Yvette's misappropria~ing the money raised towards theWindow Fund.Aunt Cissie's aim of getting a stained glass window for thechurch was to be fulfilled through canvassing, holding bazaarsand staging amateur theatrical performances with the help ofYvette and her sister, Lucille. For saving the money, raisedthrnurjh rli(>sc> activities, the two sisters each had a box.When Aunt Cissie feels coniident that the money will beadequate, she summons Lucille and Yvette to bring in their boxes.Yvette's box is found to contain only fifteen shillings and it islearned that she has spent all the rest.The matter is brought before the rector. And he, in spiteof his 'doting fondness' for Yvette, becomes 'severe'.This isthe first of the two scenes in the short novel where Lawrencereveals the despicable character of the rector through dogimages:'The rector was angry: his face had a snarling,doggish look, a sort of sneers2*22~.~. Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 496.
Lawrence's use of the dog image flourishes cumula~ivslyhere. Repetitions of 'sneer' and 'snarl' are employed effectively.And a few lines after the above-quote, Lawrence describesthe rector's attitude, again, to be that of... a cold, mongrel sort of sneer, which showedwhat an utter unbeliever he was, at the heart.23As the whole family surrounds and prods her with questions,Yvette recoils in shame and disgust.Yvette remained crushed, and deflowered and humiliated.She crept about, trailing the rays of her pride ..., Whvdid she feel she had caught some physical contagion?24The root cause of Yvette's sense of humiliation is therector's self-righteousness. The rector had always been a conventionalbeing. It might be remembered that even his sorrowover the flight of his wife and his sustained love for her, the'She-who-was-Cynthia', are pretensions set forth by him to showhimself as an ideal Christian to the world and uphold furtively amoraliry which, in itself, is an external imposition. The rectorthus effaces his individuality and hence lacks any feeling of hisown. Yvette is, it is obvious, wounded by the accusation whichhas an inescapable tone of 'nobler-than-thou-art'.23~.~. Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 496.24 ibid., p.497.
The rector is a social being in that he is a lifeunbeliever.Being a life-unbeliever as against his dclinqusntwife who was only a 'moral-unbeliever', the rector is anti-life.~awrence's proposi.tion that a social being is ani;i has beenfulfilled in the person of the rector.25Yvette shows an awareness of and contempt for the dog-likemen--the socialized men. And her own awakening was due to thedawning of a new consciousness on the advent of the yipsy in herlife. With that new consciousness which is no more dormant,Yvette becomes capable of perceiving how men like her father andUncle Fred would be hated by the gipsy woman. She is sure thatthe gipsy womanwould despise the rectory and rectory morality,uttcrl y. Shc would strangle Granny wlCh onc hand.And she would have the same contempt for Daddy andfor Uncle Fred, as men, as she would have for fatold slobbery Rover, the Newfoundland dog. A great,sardonic female contempt, for such domesticateddogs, calling themselves men. 2625~, H. Lawrence, "John Galsworthy" , Phoenix, p. 547.26~.~. Lawrence,, The Complete Short Novels, p. 500.
The second instance, after the Window Fund Scene, whereLawrence uses the image of the dog for the rector happens to beIn the 'Inquisition Scene'.The rectory morality decries, here,tk.e friendly intimacy of Yvette with the Eastwoods.Major Eastwood was a man from the army and his would-be wifeis a 'Little Jewess'.The Jewess is older than the Major andawaits her divorce from Simon Fawcett, her wealthy first husband,In order to marry Major Eastwood. But the rector hearing thestory of the Eastwoods, disapproves of his daughter having anythingto do with them at all. For, in his eyes, the Major is amaguereau: "A Young sponge going off with a woman older thanhimself, so that he can live on her money. "27The rector, havinghlrnself experienced desertion by the wife, passes this caustlccomment about the Major. In a subtler sense, he identifieshimself with Simon Fawcett, the first husband of the Jewess. Andthe Jewess is herself a successor of the rector's wlfe in ditchlnyher husband Tor another man. The rector reeks of L~II u~li~~d~ilyvengeance.When the rector asks Yvette about her connection with theEastwoods and condemns her for it, he becomes uneasy, beingunable to face the guileless daughter. For, his taboo boomerangs2 7 ~ . ~ Lawrence, .The Complete Short Novels, p. 532.
and betrays his own meanness of mentality. And Yvette's naivete,evident in her response, ironically becomes the insultadded to the injury. Nevertheless, the rector is cowed beforethe unspoken contempt of Yvette and Lawrence aptly uses the imageof the slave who winces with the fear of the slave's collar.Archur Saywell, the 'born-cowed,' flinches before Yvette,the 'born-free', who might snap the slave's collar round hisneck. The figurative language here implies that the rectorfears an exposure of his own secret lust and awful thoughts."His thoughts, secretly, were something to be scared of. "28 Butin spite of his anticipatory moves behind the curtains and thedistancing of himself through a resort to formal speech, theslave's collar is locked round his neck by Yvette:And in spite of herself, beyond her own knowledge,the contempt for him was in her young, clear,baffled eyes. It fell like the slave's collarover his neck, finally.29The image of the slave here amounts to the domesticated andservile dog, particularly because of the presence of the collar.The last feature that heightens the doggishness of therector is his self-taming. Lawrence uses a symbolic gesture of28~.~. Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 532.29ibid., p. 535,
the dog to attribute to his dog-like characters a self-controlling tendency.Lawrence draws a particular, significant image of the dog,to attribute to an over-socialized character who is quite contemptible.The image is that of an angry dog: the picture of adog lifting its upper lip and baring all its teeth. For Lawrence,the dog that lifts its upper lip and shows its teeth isscared of its own temper and hence the act is destined to endrner~ly ae a show, an empty threat. This has chiefly surfacedin the two dog-like characters, Arthur Saywell (The Virgin andthe Gipsy) and Rico (St Mawr).Man is less than an animal when he tames himself, accordingto Lawrence. For, even in the case of the domestic animals (withthe exception of dogs perhaps!) tameness is not exerciscd Eromwithin. In "The Novel and the Feelings" Lawrence writes:Tameness, like alcohol, destroys its own creator.Tameness is an effect of control. But the tamedthing loses the power of control, in itself. Itmust be controlled from without. Man has prettywell tamed himself, and he calls his tamenesscivilization .... Tameness means the loss of thepeculiar power of c0rnmand.3~30~.~. Lawrence, Phoenix, p. 757.
The rector in The Virgln and the Gipsy is seen to retreatin fear of his own temper in both the scenes where his dog-likeaspect comes to light--the 'Window Fund Scene' and the 'InquisitionScene. 'Wh~le the rector scolds Yvette for 'doing the large with'the fund ralsed towards the stalned glass window for the church,he finds her recoiling in shame and humiliation at his unbelief.He realizes that he has pushed her to the verge of rebellion. Asa result, he immediately changes hls manner from belng the embodimentof discipline to an affable father, "to the worldly oldgood-humoured cynic. "3'The second instance occurs in the eighth section of theshort novel where the rectory's disapproval of Yvette's lntlrnacyw~."i~ tile lidstwoods is elaborated upon.The rector has been parading as a 'conservative anarchist'and Lawrence satirizes this by saying that hisanarchy extended to his humorous talk, and hissecret thinking. The conservatism, based on amongrel fear of anarchy, controlled every3 1 ~ . ~ Lawrence, .The Complete Short Novels, p. 497.
action .... Therefore, in his life, he wasfanatically af raid of the unconventional. 32The contradictory inclinations of the rector arrest him fromacting out anything positive and Lawrence is seen here to exploitsuch conflicting impulses of a dog, which he has seen in Rex, tohis own artistic ends. The above-given passage from the shortnovel continues as follows, suggesting the helpless state of thedog-like rector who is unable to act decisively:When his conservatism and his abject sort offear were uppermost, he always lifted his lipand bared his teeth a little, in a dog-likesneer.The same image of the angry dog lifting its lip, is employedby Lawrence for Rico, another social being, in St Mawr.Rico is an Australian. He meets Lou Witt in Rome and has ashort-lived love-affair with her. But being unable to "get awayfrom one another"33 they both get married. Nevertheless,the marriage turns out to be a failure. Lawrence accounts fortheir marital relationship turning out to be a fiasco.... it was a strange vibration of nerves, ratherthan of the blood. A nervous attachment, rather3 2 ~ . Lawrence, ~ . The Complete Short Novels, p. 532.33 ibid. ,p. 278.
than a sexual love. A curious tension of will,rather than a spontaneous passion. Each wascuriously under the domination of the other ....And soon, tacitly, the marriage became more likea friendship, platonic. It was a marriage, butwithout sex, Sex was shattering and exhausting,they shrank from it, and became like brother andsister .34Rico is a painter who is "anxious for his future and anxiousfor his place in the world. "35He is seen to lead a life that islop-sidedly public. He has given himself to or diffused himst?lfover a particular stratum of the society. He is devoid of anypersonal intimacy that is real and even his Elirting with othcrwomen is an attempt to project an image he desires. Lawrencewrites:[Rico] behaved in a most floridly elegant fashion,fascinating to the Italians. But at the same timehe was canny and shrewd and sensible as any youngposer cotid be and, on principle, good-hearted,34~.~. Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 279.35 ibid. , p. 27736 idem.
~ico's principled good-heartedness and his potentials to be a'poser' do give away his fervent wish to 'fit in' or 'go down' ina particular society. His desire, in short, is to conform.Rico "entertained clever and well-known people. "37 And heis himself in the habit of making social visits. Lawrence almostridicules it, when he gives a meticulous account of it, paying apseudo-reverence.. . . [Rico] started the social round: firstthe Manbys: then motor twenty miles toluncheon at Lady Tewkesbury 's : then youngMr. Burns came flying down in his aeroplanefrom Chester: then they must motor to thesea, to Sir Edward Edwards' place, wherethere was a moonlight bathing party.38Rico always maintains his handsome appearance and he is, at anymoment, "in the picture".39 And even the horse, St Mawr, isreluctantly accepted by Rico with the consolation that at least~'D.H. Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 280.38ibid., p. 304.39ibid., p. 306.
he can "cut a handsome figure in theBlind to thehorse's otherworldliness, Rico watches St Mawr with an "artist'seyen4' and considers that the groom and the horse together wouldconsti,tute an extraordinary contrast in a picture which would be" so amusing to paint. "42Lawrence's contempt and sarcasm towards Rico is scathingalthough he never relaxes the appearance of restraint. Ricois the representative of the modern-day men who live an abnormal-ly mind-oriented life--the life that is devoid of any natural,physical warmth. Rico is also unnaturally conscious of thesociety around him and, consequently, he is more the bigwig, SirHenry Carrington, as his title implies than the man who hasmarried Lou. He negates his private life in order to be a famouspainter. His anxiety to become a famous painter, "a secondLasslo, or a thirteenth ~ r ~ e n makes , " ~ him ~ nerve-worn; hisfixedness about a career costs the sacrifice of his body, the'life in the flesh.'Lawrence writes with chagrin:40~.~. Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 289.idem.42ibid., p. 290.43ibid., p. 384.
Rico was tall and handsome and balanced on hiships. His face was long and well-defined, andwith the hair taken straight back from the brow.It seemed as well-made as his clothina, and asperpetually presentable.You could not imaginehis face dirty, or scrubby and unshaven, orbearded, or even moustached. It was perfectlyprepared for social purposes. If his head hadbeen cut off, like John the Baptist's, it wouldhave been a thing complete in itself, would nothave missed the body in the least. The bodywas perfectly tailored. 'The head was one of thefamous 'talking heads ' of modern youth. . . . 44Another important aspect about Rico is his self-control.When the horse, St Mawr, was thrust upon him by his wife, he'squirms' in vain, protesting that he did not care for riding,1ji.1 i-v i v i ncj [.lit! i indli ty In the tone of h ~ "you r Inus t get ahorse", 45 Rico gets angry but only ineffectually:He qot quite angry, and his handsome archednose tilted and-his upper lip lifted fromhis teeth, like a doa that is aoina to bite.4 4Yet daren't quite bife.4 4 ~ . ~ Lawrence, .The Complete Short Novels, pp. 290.
And that was Rico. He daren't quite bite.Not that he was really afraid of the others.He was afraid of himself, once he let himselfgo. He might rip up in an eruption oflife-long anger all this pretty-prettypicture of a charming young wife and adelightful little home and a fascinatingsuccess as a painter .... He had composedthis little tableau vivant with great effort.46It is an unpleasant act to erupt like that and damage his ownimage. Rico exercises his self-control in order to prevent, atany cost, anything untoward from happening. Ironically, hisself-control, when resorted to so frequently, kills his manl.inessand renders him stale and monotonous. Lawrence elsewhere writesthat he never 'lets himself go'.Rice has a confrontation with Phoenix, the groom brought byIlrs. Witt, Lou's mother, from Arizona. phoenix has the peculiarphysical assertion of a half-breed and is devoid of any feelingor emotion when he exercises his will. He has a habit ofstartling the maid, Fanny, with a cruel savage's pleasure. Atone such instance Lou happens to cajole him not to repeat it andRico appears on the spot. As Rico enquires Lou discloses whathad happened to him. Lou also expects her husband to rebuke46~.~. Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, pp. 282-283.
P11oi:nix ilnd correct him, since Phocnix disregards 'commandor reprimand ' from a woman.On the other hand, Rico's bearing is that of an 'importantgovernment official'.He is bossy, which infuriates Phoenix inde-scribably. Rico's presence, ironically, instead of settling thetension, incites "murder pure andin Phoenix. Dis-turbed by this, Lou draws her husband away from the place inorder to avoid anything dreadful from happening. Here again,Lawrence repeats Rico's fear of his own rage.Rico was always thankful to be drawn quickly,submissively away from his own rage. He wasafraid of it. He was afraid lest he shouldfly at the groom in some horrible fashion.The very thought horrified him. But inactuality he came very near to it.48Yet Rico "daren't quite bite."49 He anticipates too much becauseof his self-consciousness and averts anything spontaneous orimpul.sive. Rico is aware of the fact that by letting himself go,even once, he will not emerge himself unaffected.~'D.H. Lawrence, The CsmpLeta Short Navels, p, 367,aidem.49ibid., p. 283.
Lawrence also points out a .central powerlessness' seen inthe middle of Rico's eyes. It is to suggest the inner cowardiceof Rico. When Rico meets Lewis, the groom of St Mawr, for the firstt i rr~c,,r{%i~ 1 i xrd; ;I ::1\1 F-d~f i c i c'nc-y. [it. ft'c.1 !; d;.t l>~lc.cll
utter contempt for democracy and Whitmanian oneness. The poemis addressed partly to the reader and partly to the "black snub-nosed bitch"53 itself.Though the poem appreciates the tornado-like swiftness ofthe dog'sjoie de vivre, its "Chinese pu~zle-face"~~ and itsfierce courage which challenges even the coyotes that are capableof swallowing the bitch like "an Oyster. "55 Lawrence still distanceshimself from Bibbles, a "sort of French bull. "56 .Bibbles's most detestable quality is its indiscriminatingiovi~. it loves everybody. "All humanity is an^"^^ to the "WaltWhitmanesque bltch. "58 Lawrence uses shorter names for the dog,like Pipsey or Pips. He also addresses it in a number of otherw;lyr; :;ccirni ng i tr; qua1 ity and ;Ippi?nrancc. For rx,\mpl*. , hc~ cksc::ill(> wc,~.tl nicjqclr tlclr-idi tlcjit:; col(~\ir; c:oncIc~mrii; i t :if i 1 th-r,i~t i nfjhabit by calling it a scavanger; and, even, to ridicule its all-loving, indiscriminating nature, coins a name for the bitch-"omnipip"!The indiscriminating love of Bibbles is similar to the"democratic live-by-love"59 principle and the belief in53~.~. Lawrence, The Complete Poems, p. 39454ibid., 398.55ibid., p. 396.56ibid., p. 395.57ibid., p. 398.58ibid., p. 395.
"one Identity". Bibbles is as ludicrous as the "all-embracing"hitm man.^^ Thus even Bibbles, by "Aiming ... at being lovedW6lbecomes invariably an embodiment of the social being like ArthurSaywell or Rico.The author of "Bibbles" is far more cautious and hence,older and wiser than the writer of "Rex". Unlike the latter whowas carried away by the pet, the poet here is wary and states atthe very beginning of the poem itself that it is not he who ownsthe dog but "it's you [Bibbles] who appropriated The lastline of the poem again attests to this fact: Lawrance is seen tostate his position clear and he is not ready to take the bitchunconditionally. The finality and decisiveness in themattcr-of-fact last line is emphatic:You learn loyalty rather than loving,And I'll protect you.6360~.~. Lawrence, Studies in Classic American Literaturep. 174.G~D.H. Lawrence, The Complete Poems, p. 398.62ibid., p. 395.63ibid., p. 400.
The FoxThe short novel or, as Lawrence preferred to call it, thenovelette, The Pox was written first as a short story in 1918,and was later revised and finally completed in an expandedfashion in 1921 to be what it is now.64The fox is less frequently found than the dog in Lawrence.But this has been compensated for by the short novel which hasthe beast's name for itstitle. The fox contains rich imageryand an all-pervading symbolism.The story is about two girls, Banford and March, who attemptto live alone and independent on a farm--the Bailey Farm--"alittle homestead, with ancient wooden barn and two-gabled farmhouse,lying just one field removed from the edge of the wood. "6564~eith Sagar ed., A D.H. Lawrence Handbook, p. 224.b b ~ . ~ Lawrence, .The Complete Short Novels, p. 137. .
The girls have some heifers and fowls and ducks on the farm. Theheifers had to be disposed because they became too unmanageable.And the fox from the woods often took away the chickens.Inclin-ing towards strange illnesses, the hens refused obstinately tolay eggs. And ironically, the girls tend to, as a result of thisunflourishing condition of the farm, foster a low oplnion ofNature ~tsclf.Henry Grenfcl., a youth appears suddenly on the scene. Hecomes to the farm only to find that it is no more owned by h ~ sgrandfather, William Grenfel, and also that the oldman himself isdead. Henry contrives to stay with the two girls and he succeedsin it without much difficulty.Gradually Henry is drawn towards one of the girls, March,and wants to marry her. Banford, unable to tolerate the idea ofMarch marrying Henry and leaving her eventually, beglns to detestHenry and finds him 'cheeky and impudent'.Henry, in turn, findsBanford to be the only hindrance against his union with March.Hence he kills Banford in order to secure fulfillment in hislove.The novelette is open-ended. For Lawrence does not suggestan unambiguous future for the pair, Henry and March, after theelimination of Banford.
In the novelette the fox is a symbol. The symbolism involvedin the canine beast evolves through the plot.Lawrence's picturing of the two girls living together isdeliberate. His subtle supplementary utterances about the girls,especially March, are undoubtedly purposive. He writes:and again,March was more robust. ... She would be the manabout the place. 66March did most of the outdoor work. When shewas out and about, in her puttees and breeches,her belted coat and her loose cap, she lookedalmost like some graceful loose-balanced youngman, for her shoulders were straight, and hermovements easy and confident, even tinged witha little indifference, or irony. 6 7It gradually becomes evident then that the two girls, bl,\rctland Banford, are living a mock-married life. While Banford is "a66~.~. Lawrenca, The Complete Short. Novels, p. 135.67 ibid., p. 136,
small, thin delicate thing with spectacles, "68 March is "morerobust" and has a "distant, manly way. "69 Furthermore, March issald to do "most of the outdoor work";70 she does "four-fifths ofthe workN7I at the Bailey Farm. And Banford, the more feminineI oak 1 r ;j of the two, does "not look as if she would marry. "72It is not surprising hence that the psychoanalyst EdmundBergler, from a clinical perspective, have observed "a classiclesbian configuration in the connection between the two women."73H.M. Daleski detects a "sterile relationship"74 betweenMarch and Banford, while Tony Slade perceives "more than a68~.~. Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 135.73~udith Ruderman, D.H. Lawrence and the Devouring Hother(Ralegh [ ~orth ~arolina] : Duke <strong>University</strong> Press, 1884 I , p. 50.74~.~. Daleski, "Aphrodite of the Foam and The LadybirdTales", (Sussex: The Harvester Press Ltd., 1979), p. 151.
suggestion of a lesbian, though non-physical, relationship be-tween them. "75However, laying aside the suggestion of her unnatural bondwith Banford, March can be seen to have still a feminine, virginalgrace. This is in spite of her manly attire and her handling agun. It becomes evident when Lawrence conjoins the followingwords as well along with the passage where he describes the"loose-balanced young man" in March:But her face was not a man's face, ever. 76This suggests the conflicting tendencies in March - her dualnature. And R.P. Draper shows an awareness to this more pointed-ly than any other critic. He writes:March plays the man in this menage of two girls,but she is not really a masculine type, and herconsequent ambiguity is beautifully caught by75~on~ Slade, D.H. Lawrence (New York: Arco Publishing Co. ,Inc., 1970), p, 109.76~.~. Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 136.
Lawrence. Her movements are ''easy and confident,"but she is clearly not in her element.77Wliun t.1~ two y ~ rls get "tiytxl" ol' o~tcil otllcl t.llt~y 1'j3t8~om~~c\little irritable with one another."'*"Then Banford, Eeelinynlorc nc!rvc-worn than ever, would become despondent, and March wouldspeak sharply to her."79 In the midst of this situation, thepassnqc? that Lnwrance bringsin has a landed meaning. It isintended to satirize subtly the unnatural togetherness of Marchand BsnEord.She [~areh] put her gun to her shoulder, but eventhen pursed her mouth, knowing it was nonsense topretend to fire. ... In her heart she wasdetermined to find him [the fox]. What she woulddo when she saw him again she did not consider.*OThe obvious psychoanalytic symbol that the gun happens to beand the self-acknowledged womanhood of March which does perceive77~onald P. Draper, D. H. Lawrence (London: The MacmillanPress Ltd., 19761, p. 125.78~,~. Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 137.79 idem.aoibid., p. 138.
the futility of her own pretensions to firing, usher in thesymbolic fox smoothly and unobtrusively. The "unsatisfied tend-enciesnB1 of March drive her to seek the fox which stands for ahealthy, positive life of the senses and is a phallic symbol.Itis significant that the fox's intrusion in the life of the twowomen at the farm-house takes place long before that of theyouth, Henry, does.Lawrence has, meanwhile, been presenting March as undertension. arch's "mouth ... was almost pinched as if in pain andirony."82 "She was always lapsing into this odd, rapt state, hermouth rather screwed up. "83 And "She pursed u~ her mouth againin an odd, screwed fashion, much too old for her years.. . . "84Further, after the arrival of Henry on the farm, Lawrence de-scribes March:" ... she drank her tea, screwed up her mouth andheld her head averted. "a581~.~. Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 137.82 ibid.,~. 136.83ibid., p. 138.84ibid., p. 141.85ibid., p. 145.
The recurrent references to the pursed mouth of March andhtr hvtdrted head suggest a hard resistance on the part of her tosomething. Lawrence himself blurts it out, when he writes of herlater:She primmed up her mouth tighter and tighter,uckerinq it as if it were sewed, in her:f fort to keep her will uppermost. l6In spite of her manly attire and her hard will, she is luredby the fox and all that it stands for. The fox is the antithesisof the sterile life at Bailey Farm. The woman-to-woman life ledby March and Banford until the arrival of Henry is seen to gohand in glove with their low opinion of "Nature altogether."87The assumption that the puckered mouth of March Indicatesthe hardening of her will is reinforced through her first dream.Lawrence deliberately makes the fox's brush sear her mouth in thedream. The act implies contemptuous condemnation, tinged with asense of mockery and sarcasm, of March's unrelenting will. Symbolically,the act represents a demand to absolve her will.March's resistance to the fox-like Henry is on behalf ofBanford. That is, March is acted upon by both Henry and Banford,who represent the Id and the super Ego respectively.8 6 ~ . ~ Lawrence, .The Complete Short Novels, p. 144.87ibid., p. 147.I
Henry is placed as the polar opposite of Banford. While hestands for that which appeals to the senses, Banford is seen toembody reason. The difference is brought out when they try toinflusnce March in their opposite ways.Henry holds March in the grip of his sense-power. He isseen to talk to March in short sentences. His voice is soft andit produces the effect of a touch rather than sound. "March feltrather than heard" ~ e n r when ~ , he ~ ~ talked. He disarms her byhis voice. Lawrence writes that "his voice seemed to sound inher somewhere where she was helpless against it."89And Henry isrepetitive in his words and speaks softly "as if he were produc-ing his voice in her blood."90Whereas, Banford talks to March in a way that appeals to hersentiments and reason. Their enterprise together being a "deliberateassertion of female independence"gl she tries to reclaimMarch from her 'unsatisfied tendencies' or vagaries by remindingher of that goal. And she attempts to dissuade March from marryingHenry by revoking the female pride in her so as to makeBa~.~. Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 155.89idem.goidem.9 1 ~ . ~ Draper, . D.H. Lawrence, p. 125.
her see the whole affair with the boy as 'cheap'.think how you can make yourself so cheap. I can 't"I can'timaginehowyou can lower yourself like it."g2 And earlier it is:He'd soon think he was master of both of us, ashe thinks he's master of you already. 93Banford tries to sow, though unconsciously perhaps, the seeds ofmistrust in March in order to sever her relationship with Henry.If it had been absorbed by March, the effect of it would have been asudden distancing of herself from Henry. Banford's coaxing ofMarch to hold her woman's pride and to preserve her self-respectis to prevent her from letting herself loose in the hands ofHenry when she is alone with him. The latter half of the aboveyuotc,"as 11u thinks he's master of you dlready," is a cunningaddition by Banford which is sufficiently provocative to makeMarch over-assert herself and thus thwart the hopes of Henry. Itis a calculated phrase.All the same, it proves unsuccessful with March, for hersenses have the better of her and she is, as seen already, enslavedby Ne~lry's mere voice.9 2 ~ . ~ Lawrence, ,The Complete Short Novels, p. 178.
It would be appropria~e to discuss the image of the fox atthis juncture and then proceed from it to Henry who is the foxforarch.^^In the first instance when the fox appears in the novslst~e,Lawrence's picturing of the beast is realized through vividvisual images. March happens to confront the fox suddenly, at aclose range :He was looking up at her. His chin was presseddown, and his eyes were looking up. They met hereyes. And he knew her. She was spell-bound -she knew he knew her. So he looked into her eyes, andher soul failed her. He knew her, hewas not daunted.She struggled, confusedly she came to herself,and saw him making off, with slow leaps over somefallen boughs, slow, impudent jumps. Then heglanced over his shoulder, and ran smoothly away.She saw his brush held smooth like a feather, shesaw his white buttocks twinkle. And he was gone,softly, soft as the wind.94Undoubtedly, the above-given passage is visually evocative.But the image of the quadruped is not altogether realistic. Ithas something of a fairy-tale about it. The description effectslike the projection of a slow-motion picture.Y 4 ~ . ~ Lawrence, . The Complete Short Novels, p. 143.95 ibicl, pp. 138-139,
Nonetheless, Lawrence seems deliberate here. The apparentreason for such deliberation is the necessity to parallel the foxwith the mesmerising Henry. Hence the fox "possesses"96 Marchand becomes "a settled effect in her spirit. "97However, apart from being a visual image, the passage con-tains images of touch also. The fox leaps away holding his taillike a "feather" and his movement is "soft as the wind."The fox is a symbol for that which is physical and unhinderedby the mind. And hence, it includes the phallic as well.Lawrence's comparison of the fox's movement with that of thesnake reinforces such a derivation.... he [the fox] was so sly. He slid along Inthe dee grass, he was difficult as a serpentto see. 1; 8Lawrence repeats the analogy just before the beast gets shot byHenry:... [Henry] saw the shadow of the fox, the foxcreeping on his belly through the gate. Therehe went, on his belly like a snake.9996~.~. Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 140.97ibid, p. 141.98 ibid., p. 138.99 ibid., p. 170.
As in his poem entitled "Snake", Lawrence fervently wants toshow here also that the 'creeping on his belly' is indicative ofthe fox's navel being polarised to earth; loothat is, the animal'sfirm-footedness on the earth is a sign which must inspireone to defy that which is cerebral. Being down-to-earth likc ananimal implies, according to Lawrence, a restoring of the senseswhich is essential for the present-day excessive mind-oriented-nr.ss.Tn other words, Lawrence stresses here the life of thebnlrr~als which is dynamic, physical and excludes the spiritualand/or cerebral.The morning after the fox was shot dead by Henry, March andBanford come out to see the fox hung up by its heels. And Marchlingers and wonders at the beast's shape. She touches it and ismoved.White and soft as snow his belly: white and softas snow. She passed her hand softly down it.And his wonderful black-glinted brush was fulland frictional, wonderful. She passed her handdown this also, and quivered. Time after timeshe took the full fur of that thick tail betweenher hand and passed her hand slowly downwards.Wonderful sharp thick splendour of a tail! Andhe was dead! She pursed her lips and her eyeswent black and vacant. o1100~. H. Lawrence, Apocalypse, p. 49.~O~D.H. Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 172
March feels a deadly pain on seeing such a beautiful brutechus laid waste. The pursing of her lips here is to imply ~ h eendurance of that pain and the act of controlling her tears. Thefox is "incomprehensibLe" and "out of her range. "lo2The situa-tion is almost similar to that in Lawrence's short story, "Odourof C21ry~:~,~:it.hcmums", O3 where Mrs. Elizabeth Bates bewails thedeath oi her collier-husband in a pit accident. Mrs. Bates hadbeen self-assertive and blind to the otherness of her husbandwhile he was alive. But after his death, the sight of his un-blemished body (for he was only smothered to death and was other-wise uninjured physically) makes her repentant. O4Both Mrs.Bates and March are piqued into life ultimately after a liLeloss, although it was too late in the case of the former.March's act of running her hand repeatedly over the tail ofthe fox reinforces the conclusion that the beast is a phalllcsymbol. The tail of the animal is "black-glinted", "sharp","thick", "frictional" and white-tipped.Very subtly Henry overtakes the fox in its phallic splen-dour. March sees Henry as the fox. And the author reassures thereader on this point more than once.lo2~.H. Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 173.103~. H. Lawrence, "Odour of ~hrysanthemums", The CollectedShort Stories.
The effect on March on seeing the fox and Henry is the same.They both appear unexpectedly in front of March and 'spell-bound'her. Secondly, Henry resembles the fox to an alarming degree.He had a ruddy, roundish face, with fairishhair, rather long, flattened to his foreheadwith sweat. On his cheeks, on the fresh ruddyskin were fine, fair hairs, like a down, butsharper. It gave him a slightly glisteninglook. Having his heavy sack on his shoulders,he stooped, thrusting his head forward. Hishat was loose in one hand. lo5This posture of Henry gives a picture to the reader as if hewrr ' i ;]I-I Iiricj on four legs with the hat for his tail. Henry isruddy like the fox. And the thrusting forward of his head suggeststhe snout of the animal. Lawrence uses the word 'snout 'lo6itself later, while describing Henry.Henry is as stealthy as the fox. The author gives a samplefor Henry's stealthiness in the scene where he quietly reachesthe door of the girls' room in the night in order to overhear th?talk between them. And Henry surpasses the fox in stealthinessand that is evidenced in the killing of the brute by him.105~,ll. Lawrence, Tile Complete Short Novels, p. 142.lobibid., p. 190.
Both the fox and Henry are aggressive. While the fox'spredatoriness can be seen in its preying on the fowls of theBailey Farm, Henry's can be seen in his calculated and successfulfelling of the tree so as to annihiiate Banford and in the extraordinarypersuasiveness he employs to win b arch's approval formarrying him.Finally, there is another parallel between Henry and thefox. They both emit a pungent and slightly repulsive smell.March is seen to lend herself involuntarily unto the odour ofthe fox and Henry. Lawrence writes about the odour of the foxand that of Henry in a passage and indistinguishably blurringthe two for March.Hidden in the shadow of the corner, she arch]need not any more be divided in herself, tryingto keep up two planes of consciousness. Shecould at last lapse into the odour of the fox.For the youth, sitting before the fire in hisuniform, sent a faint but distinct odour intothe room, indefinable, but something like awild creature. March no longer tried torirsrrvp hersclf from it. l O7~O~D.H. Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, pp. 147-1 48.
It is Banford in the novelette who voices her abhorrence forthe smell of Henry. As she realizes the impudence of Henry tocourt March, she begins to express openly her hatred for anddisapproval of him. She says:I couldn't,I couldn't live in the same housewith him. Oh - ! I feel quite sick with thesmell of his clothes, O8March utters a very similar disgust over the fox's smellwhen Henry shows the dead animal which is about to be skinned.March says:My word, what a strong smell he's got!Pooo! - 1t'll take some washing off one'shands. I don't know why I was so silly asto handle him. l O9March's words here, perhaps, are uttered on behalf of Banford andit's not her genuine reaction. For she had been until thenfascinated by the odour of the fox. Or her reaction probably isa justified one since, even here, the repulsion is not voiced'O~D.H. Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 167.log ibid, p. 173.
over the living animal's smell but only over a carcass. AndLawrence himself interposes in this same scene that,What she said seemed to him [~enry] so differentfrom the look of her big, queer dark eyes.l1°Thus, the fox comes here to stand for the senses. It suggeststhe irresistibility of the sensuous--the Flesh. Andthrough the fox-like Henry, Lawrence illustrates the strongintentness of the animal, its life-or-death relentlessness.OD.H. Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 173.
'The WolfThe wolf, another canine beast, is not to be found as repeatedlyas the dog is, in Lawrence; nor does it usurp an allimportantand central position, like the fox of The Fox,in anysingle work of Lawrence. But in spite of its rare appearance,tile wolf occupies a more strategic position compared to the dog'sI)
and her friends, and who is the wife of Joe Boswell, the gipsy ofthe title of the short novel, is the wolf-like character here.The gipsy woman is not given a name.She is "handsome in abold, dark, long-faced way, just a bit wolfish", and she has"bold, predative eyes".Lawrence seems to uphold the wolf for a certain doggednesswhich is, inevitably, a form of aggressiveness. Hence he, apparcnrly, laces the wolf as an antithesis of the dornestlcated(socialized) and common dog.Of the gipsy woman Lawrence writes the following in thescene where she is approached by Yvette and her friends to havetheir fortunes told:She was a tall woman, with a frightening way ofreaching forward her neck like a menace. Hereyes went from face to face, very active,heartlesslx searching out what she wanted. l1 'D.H. Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 490.2idern.
And again,' She smiled in a way that was more wolfish thancajoling, and the force of her will was felt,heavy as iron beneath the velvet of her words. ' I3She is repeatedly said to have a "dark-wolf face. " I l4Sheis sly "like a wheedling wolf"115 while bargaining for an extra'bit of silver' from Yvette.She gazes arrogantly at Yvette and her friends. She is,like her husband, a 'living sneer' that derides thedomesticated and household dogs who call themselves men. Thisparticular feature of the gipsy woman makes Yvette yearn for suchcourage which is essentially physical.Lawrence gives away in a crucial passage the gipsy woman'sri?lcntlcssnesi; 2nd perseverance which is perhaps whi~l: kc ii[i~?ri:~iatesmost in the wolf. Yvette is fascinated by this quality ofthe gipsy woman and she even trusts that that aspect of the woman3 ~ H. . Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 49 1.idem.
would secure a person from the undermining evil embodied in therector, her father. The passage reads as follows:She [Yvette] liked her dusky, strong, relentlesshands, that had pressed so firm, like wolf'spaws, in ~vette's own soft s. She liked her.She liked the danger and the covert fearlessnessof her. She liked her covert, unyieldinq sex,that was immoral, but with a - hard, definnt priduof its own. Nothing would ever get that womanunder. She would despise the rectory and therectory morality, utterly; She would strangleGranny with one hand. And she would have the samecontempt for Daddy find for Uncle Fred, as men, asshe would have for fat old slobbery Rover, theNewfoundland dog. A great, sardonic femalecontempt, for such domesticated dogs, callingthemselves men. l lThe emphasized words in the above-quote illustrate thedominant quality of the wolf, or what bestows its canine aloof-ness. Wolf is one among the predatory animals that are, Lawrencesays, "in our sense of the word, almost visionless." He116~.~. Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 500.
explains further the concentrated vision of these animals bydistinguishing it from the human way of seeing. The civilizedman watches everything through his eyes and he gets outsidehimself to study the object and learn about it. Whereas thepreying animals detachedly hold themselves in tact even when theysee intently. For,Sight in them is sharpened or narrowed down toa point: the object of prey. It is exclusive.They see no more than this. And thus they seeunthinkably far, unthinkably keenly.Thus, the gipsy woman's intentness and indomitability aresuggested by Lawrence to be indicative of her almost inhumanquality and brutal savagery which naturally becomes an 'immorali-ty' in the democratic societies of the present day. The essenceof democracy being equality, it implies a reciprocity and co-existence. The gipsy woman is a dynamic and fundamental refuterof democracy and socialism. Lawrence very subtly juxtaposes hercanlnity with that of the Newfoundland dog that belongs to therectorywhich is a representative (like "Daddy" or Arthur Saywelland "Uncle Fred") of the mechanized and indistinct life-style.1'I1,11- is, tlica wol f is l~ncnmpramiriinq nppo:ir1d t.o ths: all -pl (:a[i--ing dog.-- - ----I I 7~.Kl. Lawrence, Fantasia of the Unconscious, p. 65.
The same undivided persistence of the wolf is stressed againby Lawrence in his poem "The Red Wolf" (~1922). The poem is moreor less a dramatic, interior monologue.The red wolf becomes the metaphor for the Lawrentian personaof the poem. The poem is a presaging of what Lawrence was topresent later in his novel, The Plumed Serpent. It voices theinner disquiet of the persona entailed by his religious beliefsor disbeliefs. The persona denounces the European Christianity,apparently, in favour of a new faith.In The Plumed Serpent Jesus is given a farewell. The novelexpresses the reason for the sudden shirking of Christianity asthat of its growing inadequacy. Lawrence suggests his own dissatisfactionthrough Don Ramon.... I am sure the white Anti-Christ of charity,and socialism, and polltlcs and reform, wlllonly succeed in finally destroying .... That,and that alone makes me take my stand. - You,Carlota, wlth your charlty works and your pity :and men.... with their Reform and their Liberty:and the rest of the benevolent people, politicians,111tl :ioci~l I st!; dnd so lorlll, surcl~dryctl wi t.h [,I t i/10s 1 iving men, in their mouths, but really with
hate - the hate of the materialist have-nots forthe materialist haves: they are the Anti-Christ.... the new world, that wants to save ths People,this is the Anti-Christ. This is Christ withreal poison in the communion cup. l l8Though his wife Carlota is the object of attack here, Ramon'sdisgust and ruthless condemnation is against all her likes. Andthat is legion. Ramon revives a religion anew to replace Christianity.'l'hc: [,c!rsona of the poem, like Ramon of The Plui~~t~cl Stiry)o~\t,having lost his faith in Christianity, seeks a new religion andfinds himself prepared to be converted and admitted into theIndian which surely attracted Lawrence during this period.Ronald G. Walker in his "Introduction" to The Plumed Serpentwrites the following:When he began to write ... he drew more heavilyupon the Pueblo Indian religion than he had inhis earlier efforts, rendering it with astronger sense of identification. l91 1 8 ~ . H. Lawrence, The Plumed Serpent ( Harmondsworth: PenguinBooks Ltd., 1985) p. 247.
The final lines of the poem complete the dialogue startedtowards the middle of the poem between the red wolf and the 'darkold father'.The red wolf or the paleface persists stubbornlyeven when Indian 'Old Nick' threatens him with the dogs of thedark pueblo. The persona, the wolf, is not scared by that andpushes himself further by an adamant refusal to retreat. Therelentless pursuit of the red wolf is strongly evidenced in thefollowing lines that conclude the poem:Since I trotted at the tail of the sun as Ear asever the creature went west,And lost him here,1'm going to sit down on my tail right hereAnd wait for him to come back with a new story.I'm the red wolf, says the dark old father.All right, the red-dawn-wolf I am. 20The 'dark old father' calling himself 'Star-~oad' clearlyechoes the "Lord of the Morning Star"'of The Plumed Serpent:The path between gulfs of the dark and the steeps ofthc! light;The path like a snake that is gone, like the lcnyth ofa fuse to igniteI 2 O ~ . ~ Lawrence, .The Complete Poems, p. 405.2 1 ~ . ~ Lawrence, .The Plumed Serpent, pp. 205-217.
The substance of shadow, that bursts and explodes intosight.I am here undeparting. 1 sit tightBetween wings of the endless flight,At the depths of the peace and the fight.The dark old father is not different from the lord of the twoways.However, it is sufficiently clear that Lawrence's poem is ola wolf image endowed with the characteristic of undaunted persistenceas seen in the case of the gipsy woman of The Virgin andthe Gipsy. The 'pale-face' or the 'red-dawn-wolf' is not readyto yield even after sun-down.The conventional association of sun-down with one's lastphase of life, that is the metaphorical use, only heightens herethe unslackening aspect of the persona'swolf is unflinching .will. The red-dawn-1 2 2 ~ . ~ Lawrence, . The Plumed Serpent, p. 214.
CHAPTER I11EQUINE <strong>ANIMAL</strong>S: SUPEWNNUATED MENAND MASTERLESS HORSESThe horse, as an image and a symbol, occupies one of themost important positions in Lawrence. It appears more concentratedlyin three particular works of his than it does in hisothers. The animal is pivotal and crucial in "The Rocking-horseWinner", a short story, St Mawr, a short novel and The Rainbow, anr,vr I . 'I'hc! horse is so central here that a considerable parc ofthe understanding of these stories depends on a certain explicationof the symbolism involved in the image of the horse.C.G. Jung observes that legend has long attributed clair-voyance and foresight to the h0rse.lHowever, these associationsof the horse are only of occasional use and of secondary rele-vance in Lawr,ence. This is so perhaps because Lawrence, being awriter who did not beliLve in the delineation of theI~rorn C.G. Jung, Symbols of Transformat~on (London:Koutlcdgc & Kegan Paul, 1952), as quoted in "Introduction" byKeith Sagar and Mellssa Partridge to D.H. Lawrence, - TheComplete Short Novels, p. 29.
conventional character wlth "a stable egd', * foxnd =he clalrvoy-anc and foreseeing horse almost useless. These two qualities, heI r,L t.,1lc 1 ii must:J y to curit rol ;i~~d rn,inlpul
While Lawrence writes that "In sex we have our basic, mostelementalhis belief that sex is the closest appraximationthat one is capable of to the unconscious of man becomesevident.Sex is our deepest form of consciousness. It isutterly non-ideal, non-mental. It is pure bloodconsciousness.6And again he continues to write a few lines later in his Fan~asiaof the Unconscious the following:The blood-consciousness is the first and lastknowledge of the living soul: the depths.'It becomes needless to say here that Lawrence did not consider ithealthy, the sex that was mental and non-physical.The ~awrentian horse represents, as a symbol, an unmixedphysicality and a state of oblivion achieved through sex. Thus,the link between the horse and the palpably concrete physicalityor flesh surfaces unmistakably, when Lawrence writes the followingin his Apocalypse:5 ~ . Lawrence, ~ . Fantasia of the Unconscisus, p. 185.6i dem .ibid., p. 173.
Far back, far back in our dark soul the horseprances. He is a dominant symbol: hc gives uslordship: he links us, the flrst palpable andthrobbinq link wirh the ruddy-glowing Almightyof potence: he is the beginning even of ourgodhead in the flesh.*The balance between the two states of being, the sensual andthe spiritual, of man has been jeopardized by the setting in ofthe Christian era. And the effect is the gradual rendering ofthe spiritual as superior to the sensual. And Lawrence's life-long effort was to restore the balance by upholding the sensualand physical above the spiritual.9Lawrence subtly suggests this state of unhealthiness--theshying away from the sensual--through Clifford Chatterley in - TheFirst Lady Chatterley. Clifford's paralysis is symbolic of his:msi nsual nature.8 ~ . ~ Lawrence, . Apocalypse, p. 6 1.g~atherine Carswell voices thus in The Savage Pilgrimage.See the extract reprinted from Carswell by H. Coombes ed., - D.H.Lawrence: A Critical Anthology, p. 250.
Clifford who was terribly wounded in the war has got hislower half of the body paralysed. Propped up on a wheelchair, heallots it to himself to attend to his coal mines. And he lossshimself to the world of machines and gradually becomes a part ofthe 'system'.His physical disability only expediting his disin-tegration, he ends up as the embodiment of that which is mental orcerebral. His physical calamity aggravates his inclination forimmortality into a madness.Unconsciously and insensitively, Clifford compels his wifeinto his sterlle and inhuman life.lOHe tends to d?ny her herwomanhood. By sheer negation he ill-treats Cons~ance, his youngwife, who hardly enjoyed a year's marital happiness. Through adialogue between Clifford and Constance, Lawrence suggests thevoluptuousness and physicality for which the horse becomss asymbol. The subject of the discussion becomes the allegoricalchariot of Plato.According to the Platonic view, the human soul is the chariotand it is drawn by two horses, one black and the other white.The symbolism embedded here is obvious: the black horse represents~OD.H. Lawrence, The First Lady Chatterley, pp. 18-21.
the instincts, the senses or, more crudely, sexual desire, andthe white horse stands for the spirit, the ideal and the cere-bral.Constance perceives herself to be the black horse whichClifford, like a charioteer "anxious for immortality", pullsviolently and inhumanly at the reins and cruelly breaks her.Lawrence's adaptation of Plato's chariot to suit his need can beseen in the following passage:Clifford bullied her, not by obvious compulsion,but by insidious negation. Some part of her soulhe just absolutely ignored .... As one might killa person by withdrawing all the air from her ....He would have done just the same if he had neverbeen wounded in the war. Only then she would nothave seen so clearly. The terrible catastrophehad made her clairvoyant.The poor black horse of her body! He had beenlyi,ng now for months as if he were dead, with hisneck twisted sideways as I£ it had been broken bysome specially vicious twist of the reins. Shehad felt him dead, a corpse inside her. l2~'D.H. Lawrence, The First Lady Chatterley, p. 36.12 ibid., p. 39.
While Lawrence attributes the power of clairvoyance to thehorse in the above reference, his awareness of the legendarybelief that horses possess foresight is revealed in The Virginand the Gipsy: the fortune-telling gipsy woman is said to bsempowered like a horse with it. Lawrence renders this throughYvette's admiration for the woman: "...that gipsy woman who toldmy fortune, like a great horse.. . ."l3 The likening of the qipsywonian to a horse here is unprecedented and distinct, And it maynot have been intended to suggest only an aspect of physicalsirniLarity between her and the horse since Lawrence has used the.i:nay'? of the wolf for that purpose. l 4As in The Flrst Lady Chatterley, ln Women In Love GeraldCrlch 1s seen to force hls red Arabimare to stay and wait whilea locomotive passes by.Unllke the flguratlve or metaphoric useof the lmage of the subjugation of the horse In the former In-stance, here In Women ln Love the atroclty done to the horse 1s~1rtt.1~11 : tllc rodrl nq I I O S : ~ ~ ~ CI~JLII ~iot ti rcil I 1 I .II(~ ,111cl 1
e perceived that the horse is used in the background or as acasual instrument. Only in St Mawr and The Rainbow does thehorse loom omnipotently to presage the destiny of the centralchnractcr: in thc former, the heroine Lou CL3rri~iqton.irlil117 ttlt'latter, Ursula Brangwen.The horse or horses, as the case might be, in these twonarratives is the initiator and the intensifier of the respectiveheroine's destiny. The animal is indispensable.However, sincethe short story "The Rocking-horse Winner" is of a differentquality and is a slight deviation, as far as the horse-symbol isconcerned, from the other two works of fiction, it will be takenfirst for discussion in this chapter.'The short story, "The Rocking-horse Wznner" is iibout ahousehold that is devoid of love or affection and the bizarreatmosphere that amounts ultimately to a death in the family.Bester, mother of two girls and a boy, unfortunately findsin her heart of hearts, "a hard little place that could not feellove.. . .not for anybody. " lIt is evident that Hester is only adifferent version of the Gertrude Morel of Sons and Lovers: likeGcrt~.uclt~, Hester is also dissatisfied in her marital life andaffects thereby her son. And it is perhaps not a coincidencethat both these women have a son named Paul. Hester's son Paulis the misguided boy - the rocking-horse winner.1 5 ~ . ~ . Lawrence, The Collected Short Stories, p. 734.
The lack of love seeks a bogus fulfillment through luxury.Hester does not get satisfied with the husband's income. Andthere is an unquenchable craving for more money in the house.Hence, the mother herself tries to earn by doing embroidery anddrawing, and frets herself more and more to earn.Significantly, there is little said about Hester's husband.His appearance in the story is carefully avoided as if to enhancethe Oedipal matrix that is embedded in the plot.Paul shows an infantile wish to usurp his father's place bybeing lucky. He believes that hls belng lucky will win hismother's affection for him. And to be lucky, for master Paul, isto be capable of earning a lot of money. He divines that thatalone will please his mother. The bitter-irony in the tone ofhis mother while she speaks of her husband is misunderstood byPaul to be the result of material discontent. And he determinesto earn money somehow or other, since he is misled to believethat money will cause his mother to love.Master ~aul's Oedipal love almost naturally ushers him intoa vicious realm of masturbatory and fetishist activity. Hisrocking-horse, ironically, becomes his fetish and he clings tothe wooden horse even after he has physically overgrown thatphase of his life, His mother, Ilcster, asks him once:
Aren't you growing too big for a rocking-horse?You're not a very little boy any longer, youknow.But instead of quitting the hobby-horse, Paul takes it, his'L~CCTE~ OF\S"('I'~\ :r ', to "i~i:~ OWII I~t~ii.t)oi,i ,\( t tit' t (11, ut t Ilt' ~IO\~W. ''17And innocently apologetic, he answers his mother for persistingwith the wooden horse:Well, you see, mother, till I can have a readhorse, I like to have some sort of animalabout ....I8W.D. Snodgrass in his essay on the shor~ story has tracedits implications with the help of Lawrence's essay "Pornographyand Obscenity". Lawrence's views on sex and his resentment overthe prevailing attitude of contempt which ultimately reduces sexto the status sf an cxcrcmilnt;ll function, nrp vchemrntly r.x-pressed in "Pornography and Obscenity".19 Tabooing ssx asa sin or as something to be ashamed of, is sure to pave1 6 ~ . ~ Lawrence, .The Collected Short Stories, p. 737.17ibid. ,p. 745.9 ~ , ~ Lawrence, . Phoenix, pp. 170-187.
tkrc~JJ. For the emaciating and deadening activity of masturba-tion, according to Lawrence. Master Paul strays into thatunhealthy habit and Snodgrass explains the short story to under-Lie this theme. Moreover, Snodgrass points out the sexualconnotations implied in the act of Paul's horse-riding:Just as the riding of a horse is an obvioussymbol for the sex act, and "riding" was oncethe common sexual verb, so the rocking-horsestands for the child's imitation of the sexact, for the riding which goes nowhere.2oThus the rocking-horse, being a poor substitute for the livinghorse, become a suitable symbol for the deviation or perversionwhich Paul's secrecy implies.Moreover, ~awrence's frequent references to the rockinghorsewinner as "Master Paul" is not wholly devoid of irony. Theword "master" has an exclusive relation to the horse, as it willbe seen in the case of Lawrence's The Boy in the Bush, which isfocused upon in the following few pages. Paul here, hence, isportrayed with grim irony to be the master and conqueror of awooden horse.2 0 ~ D. . Snodgrass, "A Rocking-Horse: The Symbol, the Pat tern,thc Way to Live", from Mack Spilka ed. D.H. Lawrence: ACollection of Critical Essays, p. 122.
The parallels between the 'sex act' and horse-riding werenot perhaps unfamiliar for Lawrence. He is seen to superimposeorgasmic and violent sex very covertly when he describes, in - TheBoy in the Bush, Jack riding a horse called Stampede. The novelseems to belong to the period of "The Rocking-horse Winnt%r" andIn the novel The Boy in the Bush, when Jack rides Stampedefor the first time it turns out to be an exhausting and strenuousride, since Stampede is a wild and an untamed horse. Lawrencedescribes the whole event as follows:By being very quick and light, Jack got intothe saddle, and gripped. The boys stood back,the horse stood up, and then whirled around onhis hind legs, and round and down. Then up andaway like a squib round the yard. ... but Jack,because it was natural for his legs to grip andstick, stuck on. His bones rattled, .his hatflew off, his heart beat high ....He did not believe in the innate viciousness ofthe horse. He never believed in the innate21~hlle The Boy in the Bush was written and revised finallyby mid-January 1924, St Mawr was written and completed betweenJune and August of the same year. And the short story "TheRocking-horse Winner" was written during February 1926. SeeKeith Sagar, A D.H. Lawrence Handbook, pp. 223 & 226.
viciousness of anything, except a man. And hedid not want to fight the horse for simplemastery. He wanted just to hold it hard withhis legs until it soothed down a little, and heand it-could come to an understanding.Irnd iIilwr(~rlc:e wrltr1s, just when the ride is about to end:Jack was conscious of a body of live muscle andpalpitating fire between his legs, of a furioushead tossing hair like hot wire, and bits ofwhite foam. Also he was aware of the tremblingin his own thighs, and the sensual exertion ofgripping that hot wild body in the power of hisown legs. Gripping the hot horse in a grip ofsensual mastery that made him tremble with acurious quivering. 22In spite of the intermittent references to the quadruped, thesensuality and the meticulousness in the above passage certainlygive rise to an ambivalence.Rico in St Mawr also has a similar experience like Jack.St Mawr is also wild and untamed like Stampede. Moreover,Lawrence makes both Rico and Jack emerge victorious after aZ~D.H. Lawrence, The Boy in the Bush (Harmondsworth: PengulnBooks Ltd., 1981), pp. 73-74.
distressing and exhausting ride on their respective horses. Jackfc.!t?lubravc! and fearless in front of Red Ensu, nftt.r ili:; l.iilc onStampede, though Red Eaju is "bigger, older and on his ownground. "23Jack is undaunted. Rico also, like Jack, bezom?sheroic after a tiresone ride on St Mawr which was undertak2nprimarily to reach Corrabach Hall. Lawrence describes ~ico'sappearance and elation:... Rico arrived after all somethinq of aconqueror at Corrabach. To be sure, he wasperspiring, and so was his horse. But-hewas a hero from another, heroic world.14Curiously enough, the horse for Lawrence is inseparable fromits master. Lawrence is seen to use the word 'mastery' in thequote from The Boy in the Bush, and the almost synonymous word'conqueror' in that from St Mawr. The need to master the horse isan imperative for Lawrence. However, by mastery he does not mean'b,2ssiness' or a bullying sort of dominance. Significantly, therequiremmts for the Lawrentian, ideal sex or love seein to bald2313.11. T,awrcncr, The Boy in t h ~ Busi~, 11. 75.z4~.~. Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 309.
good for this mastery as well. That is, the ideal mastery is tobe distinguished from the "rnind-perverted, will-perverted, ego-prverted" 25 mastery.~awrence's reiteration of the need to master the horse, onceagain, gets more clearly voiced in a passage, at a later stage inThe Boy in the Bush.... though Stampede was wild and wicked, he[Jack]never exerted his last efforts. He bucked likethe devil. But he never let himself altogethergo. And Jack seemed to be listening with aninward ear to the animal, listening to itspassion. After all, it was a live creature, tobe mastered, but not to be overborne. ... he neverfor one momknt doubted his own mastery over it.In his mastery there must be a living tolerance.This his instinct told him. And the stallion,bucking and sitting up, seemed somehow to acceptit.26This ability to "har~nonize"~~ with the horse and to feel the"strange, powerful life beneath him and between his thighs,25~.~. Lawrence, "The Mess of Love", The Complete Poems,p. 473.26~.~. Lawrence, The Boy in the Bush, p. 133.27 ibid ., p. 381.
heaving and breaking like some enormous alive wave ... the exultancein the power of lifeW28 on the part of Jack suggests thenature of the symbolism of the Lawrentian horse to be unambiguouslysexual. And Lawrence's revealing use of the word 'mastery'in relation to the horse here is significant. The implicationsthat underlie this usage become clear if the 'herd of horses'that frighten Ursula towards the end of The Rainbow are analysed.One of the most expansive of Lawrence's novels, The Rainbowis a complex narrative outlining the history and development ofthe Brangwen family through three generations and Lawrencechooses one character from each generation to portray, The thirdgeneration pair, Ursula Brangwen and Anton Skrebensky, and theirunsuccessful affair become the points of discussion here becausethe horses that chase Ursula are inextricably woven into herlove-affair with Skrebensky."The Sons of God saw the daughters of men thatthey were fair: and they took them wives of allwhich they chose ...."There were giants in the earth in those days;and also after that, when the Sons of God'camein unto the daughters of men, and they bare2 8 ~ . ~ Lawrence, .The Boy in the Bush, p. 134.
children unto them, the same became mighty menwhich were of old, men of renown."29Over this passage in the Bible Ursula lingers in wonder andawe. Being a girl of impressionable age, she questions herselfif she is sufficiently,'fair' to be taken as a wife by one of theSons of God. It becomes a secret wish, her 'aspiration'.When he writes of the apocalyptic horses in his Apocalypse,Lawrence quotes Enoch who states that the Sons of God who knewthe daughters of men had 'the members of horses'.30The sugges-tion that Ursula not only aspires for one of the Sons of God forher husband but more importantly, yearns for a good horseman. Itdoes not appear casual for Lawrence that the Sons of God areskilled horsemen too. His emphasis of this aspect of the Sons ofGod is unmistakable and deliberate. For, very frequently,I,nwrence makes his heroes potential horsemen. Skrebensky ofthis novel is not alone in being a good horseman: Jack2 9 ~ . ~ Lawrence, . The Rainbow, p. 320.30~.~. Lawrence, Apocalypse, p. 61 .
in The Boy in the Bush, as it has already been shown, Lewis in StMawr, the groom of the stallion St Mawr, and the gipsy, JosBoswell in The Virgin and the Gipsy, who is an "A1 man withhorses"31 are all Skrebensky 's companions.Of Anton Skrebensky, Lawrence writes that he is a goodhorse-rider and so, he has a "down-to-earth" forcefulness.Lawrence observes:He seemed so balanced and sure, he made such aconfident presence. He was a great rider, sothere was about him some of a horseman's surenessand habitual definiteness of decision,also some of the horseman's animal darkness.32And for the great rider in Skrebensky, Ursula becomes the horse-like woman wanting to be mastered. Hence, the writer likens herto a horse:[Skrebensky] saw Ursula kindle and flare upto the romance of the situation. She raisedher head like a young horse snuffing withwild delight. 3331~.~. Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 522. It isMajor Eastwood, in The Virgin and the Gipsy, who voices this~sjkv-t of t 110 qil):;y.32~.~. Lawrence, The Rainbow, p. 493.33 ibid., p. 350.
However, the aspirations of Ursula place her at the polaropposite of Skrebensky, who is gradually disclosed to be a finishedbeing. Whereas Ursula "was a traveller, she was a traveller onthe face of the earth", and "could not help it, that she was atraveller. "34Ursula's essential nature is very much like that of LouCarrington in St Mawr. The traveller in Ursula corresponds tothat in Lou. For Lou also experiences an eternal restlessness;she feels "like a sort of gipsy, who is at home anywhere andnowhere".35 Thus, both Ursula and Lou are unable to containthemselves. Their inherent unrest makes them the onward moving,questing protagonists that they are.That which takes Lou Carrington finally to the desert spacesand to the lonely ranch can be seen to be present in Ursula also.Lawrence writes of Ursula the following which is revealing:... she lay face downwards on the downs, thatwere so strong, that cared only for their intercoursewith the everlasting skies, and she wishedshe could become a strong mound smooth under thesky, bosom and limbs bared to all winds and cloudsand bursts of sunshine. 36Lawrence, The Rainbow, p. 467.35II.H. Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 276.
Lou, like Ursula, is also found to exhibit a tendency tocommune with nature. Towards the end of St Mawr, she is seen toassert that "a wild spirit more than men"37 wants her thereamidst the mountains, at the ranch, where there is only thunder and1 iqhtninq and pack-rats.Similarly, Birkin in Women in Love retreats to the hillsideand 'saturates' himself. with a communion with the cool prirnrc.ist?s,after his climactic encounter with Herrni~ne.~~It is a common predicament of the Lawrentian protagonists toseek a recession from the world of mankind since there is nofulfillment possible for them from that world. The horses thatappear towards the end of The Rainbow symbolize this helplesslonging. Perhaps, Lawrence was not conscious of it when he wroteof Lady Daphne in The Ladybird to have an unvent wild energywhich portends in the long run, the blood's revenge against thebody. 39 Lou Carrington's sado-masochist decision to stay in thesavage desert-ranch is suggestive of such a blood-revenge: herown dammed up energy compels her to physically victimize herself.37~.~. Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 427.38~.ii. Lawrence, Women in Love, p. 165.? '1.' Lawrence, op. cit.p. 210.
Returning to Ursuia of The Rainbow, it 1s evident that herunchnnnolcd urge 1s what gives her the steel-like and destructivestrength. Her inward yearning is to be conquered. But ironically,In spste of his physical gracefulness and movements, Skrebenskyhas no 'core' to himself. He is extremely vulnerable.Gradualiy and unconsciously, Skrebensky becomes dependent onUrsula. He fails to perceive the eternally unsettled yearning inher, which adds to her burden of herself. He does not giveany hope of relieving her of her burden. Yet he becomes flnallyso dependent--almost parasitically--on her that he urges her tomarry hlm. For,When the time came that he should kiss her again,a prevention was an annihilation to him.40His practicality and down-to-earth aspect now turn him to bevulgarly calculative and manipulative. He becomes static. Henceit is only convincing that these qualities of Skrebensky repelUrsula who is instinctively romantic and adventurous.She findsthat "To his own intrinsic life Skrebensky was dead" and that"His soul lay in the tomb."4I Furthermore, contrary to her ownbeliefs, Skrebensky "did not consider the soul of the individualsufficiently important. "42 He was content to be average andunadventurous.40~.~. Lawrence, The Rainbow, p. 501.41 ibid., p. 374.42 ibid., p. 375.
Skrebensky's assignment to go to India, though sounds to himpleasing, does not attract Ursula because his decision to go toIndia and pride himself on being part of the ruling classreflects, for her, his unchallenging spirit which seeks to belordly over a vulnerable, if not lowly, race. Skrebensky'sis not true Lawrentian aristocracy. Ursula, hence, assesses hisdecision to go to India to be a direct outcome of his insinuatingand cowardly cunningness.He was always side-tracking, always side-trackinghis own soul. She could see him so well outthere, in India - one of the governing class,superimposed upon an old civilisation, lord andmaster of a clumsier civilisation than his own.It was his choice. He would become again anaristocrat, invested with authority and respon-+sibility, having a great helpless o ulacebeneath him .... He would go to IndiaLater in the novel, when Ursula attacks democracy, it angersSkrebensky. The fear of being labelled as a rebel and an outcastis what prevents Skrebensky from defying democracy. Hiscowardice allows him only a secret nurturing of aristocraticleaning. His unmanly secrecy enrages Ursula and the dialoguethat ensues reads as follows:43~.~. Lawrence, The Rainbow, p. 494.44 ibid., p. 512.
"What do you mean?" he asked her, hostile.do you hate democracy?""Why"Only the greedy and ugly people come to the topin a democracy," she said, "because they're theonly people who will push themselves there. Onlydegenerate races are democratic.""What do you want then - an aristocracy?" heasked sec;etlx'rnoved. He always felt that byrights he belonged to the ruling aristocracy.Yet to hear her speak for his class pained himwith a curious, painful pleasure. He felt he wasacquiescing in something illegal, taking to himselfsome wrong, reprehensible advantage. 44Ursula's blatant rejection of democracy is, nevertheless, not tobe taken as an approval of Skrebensky's secret sense of superior-ity. And the passionately voiced views of Ursula very naturallylead both Skrebensky and her into a direct verbal combat in whichUrsula'scoup de main is:"You think the Indians are simpler than us, andso you'll enjoy being near them and being alord over them," ... "And you'll feel so righteous,governing them for their own good. Who are youto feel righteous? What are you righteous about,in your governing? Your governing stinks. Whatdo you govern for, but to make things there asdead and mean as they are here! "45I44~.~. Lawrence, The Rainbow, p. 512.45 ibid ., p. 513.
After exposing Skrebensky thus, Ursula seeing his sufferingrrbcls reqrctful. For, "Stronger than life or death wL3s ht,rcraving to be able to love him. "46Lawrence shows through Ursula what an unspontaneous andpassionless love would be like. Ironicaily, because of her'craving to be able to love' Skrebensky, Ursula finishes him andher relationship with him in the terrible scene of their lovemakingamidst the sand dunes. Against the destructive andtowering physical vitality of Ursula, Skrebensky who has becomeincreasingly vulnerable, finds her more than his match.Frank Kermode has pointed out the 'old Lawrentian lesson'which Katc in The Plumed Serpent learns: "that the ruin of Europ?arises from the sexual demands of women, their ignorance of thetruth that their fulfilment lies not in sexual satisfaction butin submission."47 Ursula is, in the light of Kermode'sobservation of Kate, the predecessor of Kate and Constance of - TheLady Chatterley's Lover as well, who can be seen to insist onhaving their satisfaction before they meet their ideal, Lawrentianpartners. While Constance Chatterley is seen to assert herself46~.~. Lawrence, Thz Rainbow, -- p. 514.47~ra~~k Kermoile, Lawrence, p. 103.
with Michaelis, Kate Leslie, it is learnt, had been accustomedto have her orgasms with her husband Joachim before she meetsCipriano. R.E. Pritchard shows an awareness of this when hewrites:... Kate has to forgo any self-assertion. She hasno 'personal intimacy' with Cipriano, who, intheir love-makin denies her her orgasm, her' satisfaction '. 48,Thus, like Kate and Constance, Ursula is also self-assertiveand Lawrence's hinting of it becomes evident when he writes of thedestructive love-making between her and Skrebensky in the chapterentitled "The Bitterness of Ecstasy":... she fastened her arms round him and tightenedhim in her grip, - -whilst her mouth sought his in ahard, rending, ever-increasing kiss, till hisbody was powerless in her grip, his heart meltedin fear from the fierce, beaked, harpy's kiss.The water washed again over their feet, but shetook no notice. She seemed unaware, she seemedto be pressing in her beaked mouth.. . .494 8 ~ , ~ Pritchard, .D.H. Lawrence: Body of Darkness, p. 176.49~.~. Lawrence, The Rainbow, p. 532.
Apart from the violence suggested in the words 'hard','grip', 'rending' and 'fierce', the word 'beaked' is unique andsignificant. Lawrence uses it, apparently, with a special senseand the word finds its place almost exclusively in the contextwhere the woman insists on her satisfaction during the sex-act.While Kate differentiates her'sexual experience with Joschim fromher experience with Cipriano, Lawrence writes that the experienceshe has with the latter isSo different from the beak-like friction ofAphrodite of the foam, the friction whichflares out in circles of phosphorescent ecstasy,to the last wild spasm which utters the involuntarycry, the final love-cry. This she hadknown to the end, with Joachim. And now thistoo was removed from her: What she had withCipriano was curiously beyond her knowing: sodeep and hot and flowing, as it were subterranean.She had to yield before it. She couldnot grip it into one final spasm of whiteecstasy which was like sheer kn0wing.5~Lawrence's "Aphrodite of the foam", here is a clever usage ofthe myth. The Aphrodite whom Lawrence refers to is, more like-lily, Hesiod's.And it is given that, according to Hesiod,Aphrodite "sprang from the foam (a~hros of the sea50~.~. Lawrence, The ~lume'd Serpent, pp. 459-460.
that gathered about the severed member of Uranus when Cronosmutilated him.51 That is, Aphrodite is born of severed phallus.The harpy-like or beaked woman is an Aphrodite of the foam,according to Lawrence, in that, very much like her mythicalcounterpart who is born of a severed phallus, she vaguely retainsan association with castration because of her "rending" andtearing of the male genital.Lawrence describes the 'beakiness' of the woman who isself-assertive in sex, in the case of the gamekeeper's wife,Bertha Coutts. Far more overtly than the previous two instances,the quotes from The Rainbow and from The Plumed Serpent above,Lawrence explains the kind of love-making where the woman is adestructive 'old whore', through Mellors.Speaking to ConstanceChatterley of his unsuccessful married life with Bertha, Mellorsunfolds the causes for the failure:... when I had her, she'd never come off when I did.Never! She'd just wait. If I kept back for halfan hour, she'd keep back longer. And when I'd comeand really finished, then she'd start on her ownaccount, and I had to stop inside her till shebrought herself off, wriggling and shouting, she'dclutch clutch with herself down there, an' then51~ir Paul Harvey ed., The Oxford Companion to ClassicalLiterature (London: Oxford <strong>University</strong> Press, 1969 1, p. 33.
she'd come off, fair in ecstasy. And then she'dI :' ' ~ w t l v y l I;tb.rtiunlly r tjtrC tiicsle rif i t 1and she got worse. She sort of got harder andharder to bring off, and she'd sort of tear at medown there, as if it was a beak tearing at me. ByGod, you think a woman's soft down there, like afig. But I tell you the old rampers have beaksbetween their legs, and they tear at you with ittill you're sick. Self! Self! Self! all self!tearing and shouting! They talk about man'sselfishness, but I doubt if it can ever touch awoman's blind beakishness once she's gone thatway. Like an old trull! 52The repetition of the word 'beak' and the additional use of itsother inflected forms are too frequent to go unnoticed in theabove quotation. And again, the painfulness which was just hinted atin The Rainbow or The Plumed Serpernt, involved in SUCK a love-making is also made explicit, if not outrageously so.Thus, it becomes clear that the yearning within Ursula is,though slightly perverse because of the beakishness, unfulfilledand skre6ensky, unlike Cipriano of The Plumed Serpent or5 2 ~ . ~ Lawrence, . Lady ~hatterley's Lover, p., 436. Thisand the subsequent references to Lady Chatterley s Lover areto the twin text "Sons and Lovers" and "Lady ~hatterley'sLover" (London: Chancellor Press, 1960).--
Mellors of Lady Chatterley's Lover, 1s unable tosecure Ursula a sense of peace, whlch 1s no different perhapsfrom obliv~on.~~ Flndlng herself In a cul de sac In her affalrwlth Skrebensky, Ursula flnally snaps her engagement to hlm.At thls stage of the story, the sense of her unusedness andthe deep unrest caused by the frustration, of Ursula, are evokedby Lawrence through the dream-vlslon of the ' herd of horses ' .Fear~ng herself to be pregnant wlth ~krebensky's ch~ld,Ursulawrltes h ~ m a letter pleadlng wlth hlm to accept her. And whileshe awa~ts hls response, she 1s frenzled and exhausted by theattack of the masslve and powerful horses.The group of horses that threaten to trample her down are,unm~stakably, an externallzatlon of the yearning wlthln53~rsula's cravlng to be relleved of her own burden,1.e. self-knowledge, 1s slmllar to that of the persona's InLawrence's poem "Resurrect~on of the Flesh", The CompletePoems, pp. 737-738.-
herself, to be possessed physically. The horse is, In nouncertain terms ever, a symbol for the physicality of a woman.Crude it might sound, the horse seems to pose a one-to-oneparallel with a woman, as far as these particular narrratives ofLawrence are concerned. The woman is to be possessed as thehorse is to be mastered. Paradoxically, being thus possessed,the woman is released from the burden of her own self.Ursula was failed by Skrebensky in that, he could notcontrol her. He had no power to hold her from her waywardnessand hence, left her adrift in a directionlessness.Lawrenceclues the reader of this, while he writes:After each contact, her anguished desire for himor for that which she never had from him wasstronger, her love was more hopeless. Aftereach contact his mad dependence on her wasdeepened, his hope of standing strong and takingher in his own strength was weakened. He felthimself a mere attribute of her.54The horse in Ursula is rendered masterless and,consequently, she becomes conscious of "a gathering restiveness,a tumult impending within her."55 And she attempts to dodge it.The house becomes suffocating. She, "feeling the seethlng risingto madness within her" ,56 ventures out of the house.54~,~.~awrence, The Rainbow, p. 514.'sibid., p. 538.56idem.
Lawrence, In a revealing passage in an essay, "The Novel andthe Feelings", remarks:Supposing all horses were suddenly renderedmasterless, what would they do? They wouldrun wild. But supposing they were leftstill shut up in their fields, paddocks,corrals, stables what would they do? Theywould go insane.57It becomes explicit then what Lawrence is trying to do in thedream-vision of the group of horses that appear In The Rainbow.He is fictionalising the suppositions that are merely expressedIn the above quotation. The horses that encircle and frighten Ursulain the novel are implied both to be 'master-less' and 'shut up'.Lawrence's pre-occupation with the complernentariness between thehorse and the master is evident here also.As the symbolism has suggested, Ursula can be safely fittedin the place of the horses. Staying indoors becomes suffocatingfor her and she escapes only to wander aimlessly. Her unrest andthe growing madness are pointed out already. Ann L. McLaughlinmakes a note of the fact that the horses here are enclosed by thehedges and are not free.57~.~. Lawrence, Phoenix, p. 758.
The horses Ursula encounters symbolize vitality.But they also reveal the anguish that arlseswhen that vltallty is balked, for these horsesare not free like the horse in Apocalypse. Theyare hedged lnto a meadow awaitlng man's enslavinguse, and Ursula 1s immediately aware of theirtension and thelr drive toward madness. 58The physicality of the symbolic horses is described byLawrence wlth an alarming vividness. These horses are 'clenched'and 'knotted'.They are lmposlng and dangerously powerful.These horses represent the developing tension within Ursulathat needs to be eased out. Ursula, being at the mercy of herown tormenting passion, feels holdless. Her condition ofwretchedness and despair will be pacified only when she knowsherself through another belng. Her tenslon (suggested by thewords, describing the horses, like 'gripped', 'clenched','narrow', 'burst', 'endurance', and the repetitions of 'pressing'that occur in the quotation given below) wlll be eased only by thetouch of a man (master) who will define her to herself. Lawrencedescribes the horses that oppress Ursula as follows:She was aware of their breasts gripped, clenchednarrow in a hold that never relaxed, she was58~nn L. McLaughlin, "The Clenched and Knotted Horses in - TheRainbow" The D.H. Lawrence Review, Vo1.13, No.2, Summer 1980,-1P, 179.
aware of their red nostrils flaming with longendurance, and of their haunches, so rounded, somassive, pressing, pressing, pressing to burstthe grip upon their breasts, pressing forevertill they went mad, running against the walls oftime, and never bursting free ... rain could notput out the hard, urgent, massive fire that waslocked within these flanks, never, never. 59Very much like the group of horses that annoy Ursula, in - TheFirst Lady Chatterley, Constance Chatterley is also pictured tovidetgo a similar trauma before she meets the gamekeeper, Parkin.Like Ursula, Constance also is tormented not merely by a sexualhunger, but something greater which is concommitant with sex.And the irony of their situation lies in their struggle toexpress that other which eludes expression.Unlike the intensely and elaborately dramatized scene of thehorses in The Rainbow, Lawrence is seen to condense and suggestthe idea in a nutshell in The First Lady Chatterley.It would beappropriate to quote here the few paragraphs that Lawrence usesfor the purpose.The only thing that troubled her were strangeviolent disturbances within herself, with which59~.~. Lawrence, The Rainbow, p. 540.
she could not reckon. She had recurrent violentdreams, of horses, of a mare which had beenfeeding quietly, and suddenly went mad. And shewould get up in the morning with a terrible anger~lr~on her, so that if she had not controlled herself,she could have bullied the servants cruellyand have spoken to Clifford in savage derision.On the tip of her tongue were the terrible, torturingthings she wanted to say to Clifford as hesat propped up so bright and coldly alert in bedor lay so apathetic,She never said the things. But she came nearerand nearer to saying them, and at last she was sofrightened, when she got up in the morning in oneof these demoniacal tempers, that she would hurryout into the park to walk herself calm. At suchtimes her face was blank wlth ugly passion, andher eyes wide with fear of herself. 'I ampossessed, I know I am possessed, ' she would sayto herself pathetically, rushlng forward impelledby some savage power in her breast. She couldhave killed something, someone. It was a greatcruelty surging in her.And in the park, and on the edge of the wood, areminiscence would come back on her. It was herethat something, something had happened. Shelooked around, into the secret of the place.Ant it came upon her again, her dream ofhorses. Surely there was a group of horses,and a mare that would go mad and lash at theothers with her heels and tear them with herteeth!606 0 ~ . ~ Lawrence, .The First Lady Chatterley, pp. 24-25.
In The Ralnbow, the horses are sald to chase Ursula duringthe month of October, while Constance is haunted by thereminiscence, probably, by early winter. And Ursula isfr~ghtcncd by the horses in the woods, whereas Constnncc Is "inthe park, and on the edge of the wood" .61Constance's looking"into the secret of the place"62 uncovers the symbolism involvedin the wood. The lmage of the wood reinforces the perspectivethat the whole episode of the horses is an externalization of theinward trauma. The wood implies the protagonist's 'heart ofdarkness', so to speak. While Lawrence replaces BenjaminFranklin's creed with his own, the imagery is of theforest--'That my soul is a dark forest' and 'That my known selfwill never be more than a little clearing in the forest'.63Lawrence retains much of the symbolism of the scene of thehorses of The Rainbow for The First Lady Chatterley, though hehas!.(Arc (1 11 ln several other ways. Lawrence has, in thelatter instance, shortened it and, at the same time, he hasdistinguished a mare from the group of horses. And moreimportantly, Lawrence does not dramatize here, but presents itpassively.6 1 ~ . ~ Lawrence, .The First Lady Chatterley, pp. 24.62 idem.6 3 ~ . H. Lawrence, Studies in Classic American Literature,p. 22.
The singling out of a mare from the group of horses in TheFirst Lady Chatterley seems to imply a meticulous parallelbetween the animal and Constance. The 'cruelty surging' withinConstance and her fear of its resulting in an unpleasant andindecent bullying of the servants or a savage derision towardsClifford are connoted by the mare "that would go mad and lash atthe others with her heels and tear them with her teeth!"64Thisexplicitness and meticulousness, in spite of the skill involved,defeat the purpose of the symbolism. And the horses are nonexistenthere as far as the physical sphere of things isconcerned. Finally, the passage lacks the subjective immediacywhich is unmistakably present in The Rainbow.Besides these connotative readings of the scene of thehorses, ~awrcnce's own 'p~ll~anal~tics'~~ can be reicrrcd tosince much has been made about the passage in his Fantasis of theUnconscious in connection with this scene here. Lawrence in thisparticular passage discusses a dream like Ursula's--the fear-dream of horses:... a man has a persistent passionate fear-dreamabout horses. He suddenly finds himself amongG4~.H. Lawrence, The First Lady Chatterley, pp. 24-25.6 5 ~ Lawrence, ~ ~ . "Foreword" to Fantasia of the Unconscious,p. 15.
great, physical horses, which may suddenlygo wild. Their great bodies surge madlyround him, they rear above him, threateningto destroy him At any minute he may betrampled down. 66Reading the above-given passage the reader's suspicion thatLawrence is trying to refute and explain away the dream which hehas himself dreamt at one time or other perhaps, grows stronger.R.E.Pritchard has touched this while writing about the particularsection of The Rainbow. Perceiving that Lawrence is defendingsuch a dream to be symbolic of 'male sensual power', he writes:In so far as this is a male sexual power, it isnot surprising that Lawrence should fear aquasi-homosexual submission to it. 67Nevertheless, Pritchard seems to agree with Lawrence thatthe horse is suggestive, of course as a symbol, of 'male sexualpower'.But Lawrence, though feared an accusation ofhomosexuality, still could have feared it because it was a dreamconnoting the female sexual power. And his explanation of thedrcam is too general to be unequivocal. That every dream is awish-fulfillment, and that it implies the presence of something to6 6 ~ . ~ Lawrence, , Fantasia of the Unconscious, p. 170.67~.~. Pritchard, D.H. Lawrence: Body of Darkness, p. 77.
e censored from the dream, is a theoretical fact which does not,at any event, help to establish the horse as a symbol of malesexuality in itself.Lawrence's apprehension and his fear of guilt make himconclude that a man's dream of fearful horses does notnecessarily imply incest, even though it is a dream suggestive ofthe "love of the dreamer for the sensual male who is hisfather."6* And such an interpretation as the above, by Lawrence,is belied by his own narratives. The horse's requiring a masterand a woman's need to be possessed, undoubtedly, suggest theLawrentian Will-to-Inertia,69 which is the female principle.Lawrence's own feminine impulse to submit or to yield to aman could be seen to be present in his novels, The White Peacockand Women in Love, and, paradoxically, his 'leadership novels'are works of wish-fulf illment in the sense that they compensate,though fictionally, for the unsuccess of the Rananim.The much-discussed bathing scene in The White Peacock whereCyril, the narrator and the Lawrence-figure, lends himselflimply6 8 ~ Lawrence, ~ ~ . Fantasis of the Unconscious, p. 171.449.6 9 ~ . ~ Lawrence, ."Study of Thomas Hardy1', Phoenix, pp. 448-
in the hands of George Saxton to be rubbed dry after the bath, isrelevant here:He saw I had forgotten to continue my rubbing,and laughing he took hold of me and began torub me briskly, as if I were a child, or rathera woman he loved and did not fear. I leftmyself quite limply in his hands ....It satisfied in some measure the vague,indecipherable yearning of my soul ... ourlove was perfect for a moment, more perfectthan any iove I have known since, eitherfor man or woman.70And in Women in Love the point need not be laboured sincethe conclusion of the novel is left open-ended with a disputebetween Ursula and Birkin over the latter's insistence on havinga male partner and the disapproval of Ursula for the same asperverse. 71Beyond doubt the horse stands as a feminine symbol of sex.The Lawrentian horse represents a woman's passion and sexualcraving.What Julian Moynahan writes about the 'ritual scene' - theappearance of the herd of horses - does not explicate the7 0 ~ , Lawrence, ~ .he White Peacock, p. 294.7 1 ~ . ~ Lawrence, .Women in Love, p. 583.
symbolism. He writes that the scene dramatizes the "voiee of her[Ursula's] submerged 'essential' nature signaling her that shemust continue her search after wholeness. "72 The image of thehorses in themselves does not seem to get the author's directH.M. Daleski writes that his own view is close to that ofE.L. Nichole who holds that the horses synbolize "the anarchyof elemental passion". 73 Explaining further, Daleski impartsthat "in presenting Ursula's encounter with the horses he[Lawrence] gives us a concentrated, symbolic retrospect ofcrucial stages along her soul's journey. lt7*While Philip Hobsbaum flnds this particular section of TheRainbow to have a "narrative descripti3n [which] is orgiastic inits best, sexually suggestive in its ~ m a ~ e r he ~ " st111 , ~ ~ doesnot pursue the horses any further.72~ulian Moynahan, "Ritual Scenss in The Rainbow" from ColinClarke ed., D.H. Lawrence: "The Rainbow" and "Women In Love": ACasebook, p. 145.73~.~. Daleski, The Forked Flame: A Study of D.H. Lawrence(Wisconsin: The <strong>University</strong> of Wisconsin Press Ltd., 19871, pp. 122-123.74 idea.75philip Wobsbaum, A ~eader's Guide to D.H. Lawrence (London:Thames and Hudson, 1981 ) , p. 60.
And it is curious that even F.R. Leavis should evade thehorses of The Rainbow in toto. 76Keith Sagar, drawing a parallel between the encirclinghorses in The Ra~nbow and the imagery of the swooping eagle7'that Lawrence employs in a passage about mind and consc~ousness,does not point out the contextual significance of the horsesymbol.78~rsula's effort to run away from the horses is suggestive ofher inner struggle to escape her own yearning. Although shefeels in her heart of hearts that the yearning deserves to befulfilled, she fears it because of the condemnatlon from thesociety which would entail her indulgence of the instinct~ve andessentially physical. This fear of Ursula could possibly haveresulted after her talk with Dorothy:Dorothy could feel that Ursula was alreadyhankering after somethlng else, somethlngthat this man [Skrebenskyl did not give her.76p.~. Leavis, D. H. Lawrence: Novelist (Harmondsworth: PenguinBooks Ltd., 1978). p. 60.77~. H. Lawrence, "Preface" to Cavalleria Rusticana by GiovanniVerga, Phoenix, pp. 249-250.78Keith Sagar, The Art of D.H. Lawrence (London: Cambridge<strong>University</strong> Press, 19781, p. 64.
"The question is, what do you want," prepoundedDorothy, "Is it just other men?"Ursula was silenced. This was her own dread.Was she just promiscuous?79Suspecting vaguely her 'indecipherable' yearning to be merepromiscuity, she attempts to escape, when the horses chase her,by bedring "the wcight steadily".80 She does not ddrv tuacknowledge her yearning by turning and looking at those horses.Yet after jumping over the hedge and escaping them, Ursula pitiesthe equine beasts that stand as an antithetic to the life of the"ordered world of man". 81What Lawrence writes for Constance Chatterley is noteworthyhere. Clifford Chatterley, her husband, being paralysed after hewas wounded in the war, Constance feels herself to be wastingaway. She is anguished by the lack of physical warmth, until shemeets Mellors, the gamekeeper.... never had she felt so acutely the agony ofher own female forlornness. 82The 'female forlornness' of Constance is almost the same asthat which makes Lou, in St Mawr, look slightly distracted andalso "so much younger and so many thousands of years7 9 ~ , ~ Lawerence, .The Rainbow, p. 527.80 ibid., p. 540.81 ibid., p. 541.*~D,H. Lawrence, Lady ~hatterley's Lover, p. 377.
older than her mother" ,83simultaneously. It is worthremembering that Lou and Constance are married women and theirrespective narratives begin with the account of their sexlessmarital lives. That is, Lou and Constance begin their livesapparently from that juncture where Ursula in The Rainbow is leftoff. The pre-marital frustration of Ursula with Skrebenskybecomes a prolonged and seemingly endless agony for Constance andLou after their marriage. Their discontent is so desparate thatthey are benumbed. They are, as a result, on the verge of madnessas the symbolic horse suggests. And their impending insanityis that which makes an indelible mark on their external appearance.That ~awrence's horse represents the physical pining of awoman and that it is inevitably a sexual symbol will become clearand reinforced with an analysis of the short novel St Mawr.St Mawr is the name of the horse, a stallion, that awakensLou Carrington from her mechanical and superficial way ofliving. On seeing St Mawr, "she felt that it forbade her to beher ordinary, commonplace self. "84Within the first few pages of the short novel itself,Lawrence discloses with irony the dry and sexless marital life of8 3 ~ . ~ Lawrence, . The Complete Short Novels, p. 317.84 ibid., p. 287.
Lou. Her relationship with Rico, her Australian husband, is a"nervous attachment, rather than a sexual love."85 Rico, asshown in the chapter on canine animals in Lawrencea6 is a socialbeing and hence lives a superficial life of social prominence.He belongs to the "cardboard let 's-be-happy world". 87 And his isa terribly unreal world where everything appears bodilass,"wraith-like", for Lou.The curious lack of physical existence or the total negationof the sense of touch undermines Lou, and she despairs.Consequently, she is condemned to look older than her age and alittle distracted. The life devoid of the sense of touch doesimply almost automatically a directionlessness.Burdened with afreedom which is unintercepted, Lou experiences an inwardbarrenness and loneliness.The awareness of her own condition slowly surges within herand overpowers her after her acquaintance with and knowledge ofSt Mawr. The horse provides a Joycean epiphany, if not a morepowerful apocalyptic vision, for Lou. She sees the horse at themews in Westminster and falls, almost immediately, "half in love85~.~. Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 279.86~ee Chapter I1 above, pp. 105-1 1287~awrence,op.cit., p. 299.
with St ~ awr."~~ Lou is seen in the short novel to identifyherself with the horse at several instances, though unconsciouslyperhaps.Rico, Lou's husband, is the exemplary modern youth; hebeLongs to the mechanical world. To a degree, Rico is portrayedas lacking the essential manly 'dare'. He is effeminate. Andhis characterization is a subtle accomplishment for Lawrence.Rico is an artist, or, more precisely,.has pretensions to bean artist. The self-consciousness which makes Rico flinch underthe steady stare of Lewis, the horse's groom, is one evidencewhich supports the fact of his feminine quality. He feels'defenceless' and exposed in that 'man-to-man' confrontation withLewis.And more importantly, Lawrence likens Rico to a horse. Byalluding to Rico as a horse, which is a feminine sexual symbol,Lawrence seems to mock and satirize Rico. This again reinforcesthe horse to be a feminine sexual symbol in Lawrence and Rico tobe effeminate.You had only to see the uneasy backward glanceat her [LOU], from his big blue eyes: just like88~.~. Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p, 284,
a horse that is edging away from its master: toknow how completely he was mastered.8YThe horse that glances backwards stealthily suggests anapprehension on the part of the animal which is appropriately,Lawrence mentions elsewhere, a symbol for the emotions. Unlikefeelings, emotions are recognizable according to Lawrence. Theyare "noble like the horse, timid like the rabbit, but allcompletely at our service.Rico is like a horse in that he exhibits a tendency to go'nasty' sometime or other, as a horse would if not mastered withan utmost competence. Lou is disgusted with the men of her dayand Rico is the most outstanding representative of them. Shefeels there is no "single man who is a proud living animal".91And, as a result, men have become merely women in her eyes. Theyare degraded and in a subtler sense have obliterated the dynamicand active life of Man. Lou feels that "Men are all women,knitting and crochetting words together. "928 9 ~ Lawrence, ~ ~ . The Complete Short Novels, p. 276.756.90~.~. ~akrence, "The Novel and the Feelings", Phoenix, p.gl~awrence, op. cit. ,p. 321.92 ibid., p. 322.
And it becomes clear thus that Lou's ennui is the outcome ofher deadening life with Rico. The world of Rico is corrosive anddecadent.The atmosphere of 'enjoying ourselves' wasbecoming cruel to her: it sappod ell thit I L f ~ bout of her. 'Oh, if only I needn't enjoymyself, ' she moaned inwardly. 93What, according to Lydia Blanchard, makes Gudrun and Gerald, inWomen in Love, a representative pair of the decadent modern worldcan be seen inescapably to permeate the llves of Rico and theManby girls. While Rico places himself 'in the picture'unfailingly, the Manby girls--Flora and Elsie--are bent on having'a good time' and 'lots of fun'.That is, they exhibit a"willingness to experience oneself [themselves] as an object in asetting . . . " .g4Moreover, painting which is Rico's career, is not very farfrom being a feminine activity like knitting or crochetting.Lawrence himself being an artlst-painter, perhaps notunconsciously voices a self-deprecation and a fatigued distastefor painting which could have intermittently descended on him.Painting is not far from novel-writing in that both theactivities confine the artist involved to a seclusion of self-93~.~. Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 337.g4~ames Hougan's definition for decadence partially quotedfrom Lydia Blanchard, "Women in Love: Mourning Becomes Narcissism",Mosaic, Vol.15, No.1, 1982, p. 111.
absorbedness. Lawrence who voices the disgust towards novelwritingin his Kangaroo, through Richard Lovat ~ omers,~~probably found the opportunity to articulate a similar contempttowards painting as a profession through Rico here.It is not just Lou who feels that men are like women'knitting and crochetting words together', but her motherMrs. Rachel Witt, also feels the same about the young Englishmen.Talking about Dean Vyner, Mrs. Witt expresses the same idearetorting to Rico's words:'... I can imagine there would be great satisfactionin having him [Dean Vyner] for a husband.''Why, mother?' asked Lou.'Oh, such a presence! One of these old Englishmen,that nobody can put in their pocket. Youcan't imagine his wife asking him to thread herneedle. Something after all so robust! Sodifferent from young Englishmen, who all seem tome like ladies, perfect ladies. ''Somebody has to keep up the tradition of theperfect lady,' said Rico.'I know it,' said Mrs. Witt. 'And if the womenwon't do it, the young gentelmen take on theburden. They bear it very well. '9695~ee the Chapter IV, p. 203.9 6 ~ . ~ Lawrence, .The Complete Short Novels, pp. 303-304.
Thus all these characteristics of Rico constitute hisfailure as a man or husband. Even his flirting with the Manby girlsis a pose - something that is done out of a necessity to 'fitin', since he recognizes it as a trend and a fashion of the day.Lawrence presents St Mawr in the midst of such decadence andmakes it an antithesis of all the morbidity. St Mawr, at leastfor Lou, serves as a corrective.Lou's first meeting with the horse becomes a prelude to herultimate liberation. Her contact with the horse, her touch of StMawr, causes "in her weary young-woman's soul, an ancientunderstanding . . . to flood in. " 97 And this understanding, becauseof the force of its strangeness and authenticity, nonethelessgenerates a conflict within Lou against her present-daylife-style. The intriguing eyes of St Mawr put "a ban on herheart: ... some uncanny authority over her, that she dared not,could not ~nderstand."~~ The horse brings Lou, first and fore-most, a realization. It awakens her essential and vital being.Since she had really seen St Mawr looming fieryand terrible in an outer darkness, she could notbelieve the world she lived in. She could notbelieve it was actually happening, when she wasdancing in the afternoon at Claridge's, or inthe evening at the Carlton, sliding about with97~.~. Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 286.9* ibid., p. 287.
some suave young man who wasn't like a rnan atall to her. Or down in Sussex for the weekendwith the Enderleys: the talk, the eating anddrinking, the flirtation, the endless dancing:it all seemed far more bodiless and, in a strangeway, wraithilike, than any fairy story. Sheseemed to be eating Barmecide food, that had beenconjured up out of thin air, by the power ofwords. She seemed to be talking to handsomeyoung bare-faced unrealities, not men at all:as she slid about with them, in the perpetualdance, they too seemed to have been conjuredUJ out of - air, merely for this soaring,slithering dance-business. And she could notbelieve that, when the lights went out, theywouldn't melt back into thin air auain, andcomplete nonentit . The strange nAnentity ofit all. , 9 dThe passage quoted above is a sample which gives a glimpseof the world of Rico. But it is still an adequate one to suggestwhy Leavis parallels St Mawr with Eliot's The Waste Land. l ooThe horse, St Mawr, intensifies Lou's yearning to divestherself of the shackle of decadence. The horse suggests thepromise of another world, more potent and forceful than her own."The wild, brilliant, alert head of St Mawr seemed to look at herout of another world. "lo1And "She [Lou] realized that St Mawr99~. H. Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, pp. 299-300.~O~F.R. Leavis, I' St flawzU D.H. Lawrence: Novelist, p. 271.101~awrenoe, OF, tit ,, p. 287.
drew his hot breaths in another world from Rico's, from ourworld. Perhaps the old Greek horses had lived in St Mawr 's world. "Io2Again, Lawrence reiterates that "in his [St Mawr's] dark eye,that looked, with its cloudy brown pupil, a cLoud within a darkfire, like a world beyond our world, there was a dark vitalityglowing, and within the fire, another sort of wisdom. "'03 WhenRico rides St Mawr to Corrabach Hall in spite of the stallion'swild and dispiriting temper, Lawrence writes that he emerged athis destination a "hero from another, heroic world."lo4 Thus,Lawrence repeats and thereby stresses the strangeness of thehorse.And Lou, the protagonist, is guided by the horse whose name,as Keith Brown holds, has its link with the disciple of St.Benedict of France, St. Maurus. Keith Brown adds that the Welshmeaning for Mawr - being 'great', the name of the horse can alsoconnote The Great Holy One: "the hidden God [Pan] who shinesthrough him. "1°5 This does not sound far-fetched, since the novel'O*D.H. Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 292.103 ibid ., p. 299.104 ibid., p. 309.'05~eith Brown, "Welsh Red Indians: D.H. Lawrence and St.Mawr", Essays in Criticism, Vol.XXXI1, April 1982, p. 160. - -
certainly discusses the omnipresence of Pan; and, throughCartwright, Lawrence asserts that Pan can be seen in St Mawr thehorse. O6St Mawr, like its Benedictine disciple-counterpart, lives alife of retreat and celibacy. Pained by the growing decadence inEurope, St Mawr, though raised for "stud purposes", does not"fancy the mares".1°7In a subtle way, Lawrence invests Lou withthese aspects that are detected in the horse.Lou also lives a life of celibacy and isolation. After sheescapes to the ranch, what.Lou voices about taking a man almostechoes, by transference, the horse's own reason for abstainingfrom mating and for its vindictiveness. Lou says:... sex, mere sex, is repellent to me. I willnever prostitute myself again. Unless somethingtouches my very spirit, the ver~~jfuickof me, I will stay alone, just alone.Lou's retreat to the ranch is suggestive of her choice of sex.As it has already been stated, the tendency here of Lou isI ~ ~ D . H . Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 326.107 ibid., p. 285.108 ibid., p. 408.
similar to that of Birkin in Women in ~ove.109 It is a paradoxicalcondition for Lou who is sexually famished but stillcannot stoop to fulfill herself when sex does not have a "meaningand a mystery that penetrates [her] very soul". l loLike Lou, the horse St Mawr refrains from mating with a marein Europe, because it finds "mere sex ... repellent". The horselacks masters to handle it, except for Lewis, in the Englishsetting whereas in Texas, St Mawr, for once, finds itself normal.A ranch-man takes St Mawr casually for a ride and handles itroughly, which makes even Lewis envious. Having landed on thesoil where the horse is not yet superannuated for man, St Mawrfinds itself at home. Hence St Mawr is seen to follow "at theheels of the boss' long-legged black Texan mare, almostslavishly. ' l l lAt this stage, Lawrence very subtly transfers theimplications of St Mawr onto the landscape around the ranch whereLou decides to remain like the vestal virgins. Early in theshort novel Lawrence prepares the reader for the landscape intowhich the horse is transfigured now. Lou is aware of the horsein this aspect even before the crucial accident in the story,which forces Lou and her mother to quit Europe, takes place:logsee above, p. 162.~~OD.H. Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 427.111 ibid., p. 401.
Why did he [St Mawr] seem to her like some livingbackground into which she wanted to retreat? Whenhe reared his head and neighed from his deep chest,like deep wind-bells resounding, she seemed tohear the echoes of another darker, more spacious,more dangerous, more splendid world than ours thatwas beyond her. And there she wanted to go. l2David Cavitch shows an awareness of this when he writes thatthe lightning described to strike at the New Mexican landscape,which Lou retreats to finally, is "reminiscent of St Mawr'sexplosive hoofs " . l '3After the accident in which St Mawr hurts severely Rico,Lawrence reiterates the horse as a promise of a new setting. Louis described to feel a sudden release from the exasp eration.And a vision of the Texan landscape descends on her. As alreadyforeshadowed by Lawrence, St Mawr's eruption now suggests thepossibility of escape.Something suddenly carried her away to the greatbare spaces of Texas, the blue sky, the flat,I ~ ~ D . H . Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 299.113~avid Cavitch, D.H. Lawrence and the New World (New York:Oxford <strong>University</strong> Press, 1969), p. 162.
urnt earth, the miles of sunflowers. Anothersky, another silence towards the setting sun. 'However, the horse is condemned as a wicked animal.It hasproved once again that it is a killer. Identifying herself withthe horse, Lou justifies St ~awr's atrocious behaviour as anatural outcome of its being masterless. According to Lou, thehorse is grief-stricken because it is unruled and is rendereduseless. And undoubtedly, Lours own condition of being leftmanless for her life is reflected here.Dimly in a woman's muse, Lou realized this, as shebreathed the horse's sadness, his accumulatedvague woe from the generations of latter-dayignobility. And a grief and a sympathy floodedher, for the horse. She realized now how his sadnessrecoiled into these frenzies of obstinacy andmalevolence. Underneath it all was grief, anunconscious, vague, pervading animal grief, whichperhaps only Lewis understood, because he felt thesame. The grief of the generous creature whichsees all ends turning to the morass of ignobleliving.She did not want to say any more to the horse: shedid not want to look at him any more. The griefflooded her soul, that made her want to bealone. She knew now what it all amounted to.She knew that the horse, born to serve nobly,had waited in vain for some one [sic] nobleto serve. His spirit knew that nobility hadgone out of men. And this left him high anddry, in a sort of despair. l l1 4 ~ . ~ . Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p, 345.'l5ibid., p. 347.
On the basis of Lawrence's description of the horse as it islylng on its back In the accident and klcking its hoofs, DavidCavltch deduces St Mawr to be not merely phallic but a symbol"of dangerously overwrought sexual inhibition. " I Contrarily,the upturned "pale gold belly" of St Mawr when Rlco "pulled thehorse over backwards on top of him"117 is suggestive of thehorse's masterlessness - the dearth of noble horsemanship.England (or even the whole of Europe) has become the "morass oflgnoble living" because the horse is unused and has become a mereplaything, a source for 'lots of fun'. It 1s divested of ~ t sherolc world and it is diminished almost to an insi.gnificance."While horses thrashed the streets of London, London lived. " 11*The ungrounded horse, lying backwards and kicklng its hoofsin the air, also suggests the sordid and highly ironlc plcture ofthe modern man who has to lie on his back, grittlng his teethwhile the woman attalns her orgasm by her own "exertions". l 9Thus,6~avid Cavitch, D.H. Lawrence and the New World, p. 156.H Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 338.I~D.H. Lawrence, Apocalypse, p. 6 1.119~he cruel and heavily sarcastic words of the sexuallyineffectual Michaelis to Constance Chatterley form the basis ofthe point made here. See Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover,pp. 337-338.
the picture of the writhing and lizard-like St Mawr here is anindirect condemnation of both the sexes of the modern age.Neither is the woman justified in insisting on her sarisfactionin sex, nor is the man who lacks the virility to sccurt> his womanthe sense of peace,The cause of St Mawr's sudden unleashing of violence is itsseeing a dead snake on the path. Here is the phallic symbol inits most perverse aspect. And is it not a deliberate stroke byLawrence that the horse's "sun-arched" neck and its snake-likeway of looking around should get distorted to picture here, inthe moment of its malevolence, a curving fish and a panickedlizard? The horse here is seen in its most horrifying posture."The physical sense of injustice is a dangerous feellng,once it is awakened. It must have outlet, or it eats away theone in whom it is aroused. "120It was an injustice on the partof Constance Chatterley's husband who became parasiticallydependent on her and denied her the fundamental physical warmth.And the injustice done to her hy her husband is appeased by thegamekeeper. Whereas, in the case of Lou Carrington, the whole~~OD.H. Lawrence, Lady chatterley 's Lover, p. 348.
society is barren and it is not a personal grievance. As such, Louretreats to live in isolation appropriately.Considering Lou's utterance that unless she succeds infinding her 'mystic man' she will die,l21 her decision to stay inthe ranch towards the close of the novel can imply one of twothings: either Lou chooses martyrdom so as to be faithful to hersexual ideals or that her prolonged frustration has driven her tothe ultimate point of sado-masochism. It is ambiguous which ofthese two Lawrence intends.Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 322.
CHAPTER IVKANGAROO AND THE ALLEGORICAL POUCHThe two works of Lawrence with the name of the marsupial,kangaroo, for their titles are different from each other--notmcrrc.1 ,l generically, for that difference is certainly there sincethe one is a novel while the other is a poem--in their treatmentof the animal. The animal is physically absent in the novelKangaroo whereas the very opposite is true of the poem"Kangaroo".In Kangaroo, the novel, there is only a symbolic or, as R.E.Pritchard puts it, an allegorical1 presence of the beast. Andcontrarily, the animal is an actuality in the poem "Kangaroo" andit is palpably present. Moreover, the marsupial in the novelincites contempt because of its allegorical dimension but thekangaroo in the poem is pictured with symapthy.This chapter hence will discuss only the novel and take upthe poem in the following chapter which specially deals with theanimals in Lawrence's poems.~R.E. Pritchard, D.H. Lawrence: Body of Darkness, p. 151.
Julian Moynahan voices, representing the common opinionabout Kangaroo as a novel, that "Kangaroo is the most padded andredundant of ~awrence's novels" and that "the book is a heap ofbits and fragments blown about on air currents of emotion. " 2And Daniel J. Schneider feels that Lawrence was "unwilling tofalsify experiential realities" in order to make the novel"artH.3 But John Worthen is almost alone in stating a contraryor positive view of the novel: he observes that Lawrence was notas idiosyncratic as it is generally believed, and that Kangaroounderwent changes that were satisfactory for ~awrence before itattained its present form. Worthen refers to Lawrence's letterto Seltzer where he states that he hadgone through Kangaroo [ sid--many changes--it is nowas I wish it ... I have made a new last chapter.Now it is as I want it, and it is good.4All the same, this chapter will attempt a study of the novelwith regard to its use of the kangaroo image and assess theextent to which the novel becomes art.2~ulian Moynahan, The Deed of Life: The Novels and Tales ofD.H. Lawrence, pp. 101-102.3~aniel J. Schneider, "Psycholoq~ and Art in Lawrence'sKangarooi1, The D. H. Lawrence ~eview, -flol. 14, No. 2, Summer 1 981 ,pp. 156-171.4~ohn Worthen, D.H. Lawrence and the Idea of the Novel(London: The Macmillan Press Ltd., 19791, p. 136.
Kangaroo, like so many of Lawrence's other novels, has aLawrence-figure for the protagonist, Richard Lovat Somers. Awriter like Lawrence himself, Somers and his wife, Harriet,appear to be far more transparently and undisguisedly Lawrence andFrieda here than even Birkin and Ursula in Women in Love are.Somers happens to land up in Australia, with his wife, morebecause he is the drifting sort who feels, like the Lou of Stm, "at home anywhere and nowhere" ,6 than because he washarried by the military at Cornwall under suspicions ofespionage.The novel begins in Australia, with Somers expressing aweariness which verges on ennui. He perceives the profession ofa writer to be inherently static. The career, he divines,preordains a life of physical inactivity and condemns one to anelitist seclusion. Somers's state of mind agarn parallels thatof Lou here in that he is also at the point of concluding thatthe intellectual activity is merely a tiresome task of "knittingand crochetting words together. "7~R.E. Pritchard, D.H. Lawrence: Body of Darkness, p. 150.Also see Keith Sagar, The Art of D.H. Lawrence, p. 131.~D.H. Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 276.
On another level, Somers and Harriet are seen to continuefrom where Ursula and Birkin are left off in Women in Love.For, the dispute that surfaces towards the end of Women in Loveas to whether or not it is, on the part of Birkin, a perversionto desire an 'eternal union' with a man8 is followed up inKangaroo, though not to an unambiguous conclusion. Like Birkin,Somers is inclined to have a male companion and Harriet resentsit. However, the conflict that ensues fills the novel in spiteof the fact that the source of the tension is relativelyunpronounced.Urged from within by a secret wish and a sense of his owninadequacy, Somers gets intrigued with the Diggers. The diggersare chiefly Returned Soldiers and Somers is introduced to theleader of them, the "~irst",9 who is Ben Cooley the Kangaroo, byJack Callcott. Somers camouflages his liaison with Jack and BenCooley under a drive to "do something with living peopleu--"to dosomething along with men. " '0Nevertheless, Harriet is able to8 ~ . ~ Lawrence, . Women in Love, pp. 452 & 583.9 ~ . A. Lawrence, Kanqaroo (Harmondsworth: Penguin Uooks Ltd. ,1985), p. 116.
see through her husband's impulsive and irrationaljustifications. She knows his unmixed abhorrence of politicsand, hence, feels that he will be nipped in the bud."She issure that Somers's mingling with the diggers, through Jack who isa neighbor, will soon come to an end.Somers persists in spite of his wife's remonstrances andmeets Kangaroo as arranged by Jack. Kangaroo is a nickname forBen Cooley, who is a Jewish lawyer. He is called Kangarooprimarily because he "looks like one."12 But, as the novelprogresses, it develops that Kangaroo is not called so merelybecause he resembles one in appearance, but also because he isllke a mother kangaroo in nurturing a certain ideal within hispouch. 'Young ~ustralia' is the little kangaroo that Ben Cooleywants to be brought up in a certain way.Lawrence contrives to present a physical resemblancebetween Ben Cooley and a kangaroo with an alarming accuracy. Themeticulousness in his description here is similar, in itsextremity, to that of ~enry's appearance in The Fox, which bringsout the fox in him. 13 The particular passage where Lawrencepictures Ben Cooley runs as follows:Kangaroo wasn't really witty. But he had such aninnocent charm, an extraordinary winsomeness, that~'D.H. Lawrence, Kangaroo, p. 78.l2 ibid, p. 116.l3~ee the section "The Fox" in Chapter 11, p. 130.
it was much more delicious than wit. His presencewas so warm. You felt you were cuddled cosily,like a child, on his breast, in the soft glow ofhis heart, and that your feet were nestling on hisample, beautiful 'tummy'. lThough Lawrence never mentions the animal kangaroo while hedescribes Herr Regierungsrat who appears towards the end of theshort novel The Captain's Doll, there are striking similaritiesbetween him and Ben Cooley, and in turn, syllogistically, betweenhim and a kangaroo.Herr Regierungsrat approximates a kangaroo in appearance.And there are other factors, too, constituting hischaracterization which parallel those of Ben Cooley's.Perhaps,Herr Regierungsrat is the predecessor of Ben Cooley.The physical stature of both Ben Cooley and HerrRegierungsrat resembles the kangaroo. Lawrence's picturing oEBen Cooley is as follows, when Somers meets him for thefirst time:[Ben Cooley] Wasa kangaroo. His face was longand lean and pendulous; with eyes set closetoqether behind his pince-nez: and his body wasstout but firm. He was a man of forty or so, -Lawrence, Kangaroo, p, 132,
hard to tell, swarthy, with short-cropped darkhair and a smallish head carried rather forwardon his large but sensitive, almost shy body.He leaned forward in his walk, and seemed as ifhis hands didn't quite belong to him. But heshook hands with a firm grip. He was reallytall, but his way of dropping his head, and hissloping shoulders, took away from his height ....he seemed to lean the sensitive tip of his lonqnose ... approaching ... with the front of hisstomach. 5And it would be appropriate to look at Herr Regierungsrat whoalso resembles a kangaroo in his appearance, although Lawrencedoes not state so in his case.The Herr Regierungsrat was not at first sightprepossessing. He was approaching fifty, andhad gone stout and rather loose .... Then hewore one of those dreadful full-bottom coats,a kind of poor relation to our full-skirtedfrock-coat: it would best be described as afamily coat. l 65 ~ H. . Lawrence, Kangaroo, pp. 120- 12 1 .l6~.H, Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 96
The ' full-bottom coat' vaguely represents the "sack-wise down"'dripping or the "plumb-weighted"18 body of the kangaroo which ispictured in Lawrence's poem "Kangaroo". Herr Regierungsrat 'scoat broadens towards his belly and silhouettes the kangaroo inhim.Lawrence writes of this further:When he was on his legs, he walked nimbly,briskly, and his coat bottoms always flew.So he waved through the town, greetingsomebody at every few strides.. . . l 9Ben Cooley is "swarthy" and with "sloping shoulders" asHerr Regierungsrat is "rather loose" and carries himself "nimbly".While Lawrence renders the hands of Ben Cooley to be limp andnearly useless, like the forelegs of kangaroo, HerrRegierungsrat's legs are unlike a man's and are contrived to beas little functional as the kangaroo's.Lawrence describes thisaspect of Herr Regierungsrat 's legs :... he seemed almost eternal, sitting there inhis chair with knees planted apart. It was asif he would never rise again, but would remainH. Lawrence, "Kangaroo", The Complete Poems, p. 394.'8ibi4, p. 393.1 9 ~ , ~ . Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 98.
sitting for ever.... He seemed as if he hasno legs, save to sit with. As if to stand onhis feet and walk would not be natural to him.20A kangaroo never walks and, in that sense, its legs arenonexistent. They are used only "to sit with". And importantly,Herr Regierungsrat moves in "strides" which, vaguely, can evokethe springy jumps of a kangaroo for the reader. Moreover, hisapparent "sitting for ever" recalls the animal in the poem whomnone can unseat .2'Apart from these physical likenesses between HerrRegierungsrat and Ben Cooley, both of them are wifeless and akeJewish. This is not, beyond doubt, a coincidence. Perhaps, asit appears to be the case with Herr Regierungsrat, Lawrence hadMax von ~chreibershof en, 22 the first husband of Frieda's youngersister Johanna, in his mind as the model for creating Ben Cooleytoo!20~.~. Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 97.2 1 ~ . Lawrence, ~ , The Complete Poems, p. 392.22~ee "Notes" to The Captain's Doll, item 19,The Complete Short Novels, p. 602.D.H. Lawrence,
Herr Regierungsrat is a widower. And it is intriguing whenLawrence writes of him that "His wife, whom he had married late,had died after seven years of marriage. Hannele could understandthat too. One or the other must die. "23 Hannele instinctivelyrejects Herr Regierungsrat, when she meets Captain Hepburn again,and forgoes her engagement to him with utmost indifference.Ben Cooley is deserted by his wife after seven months ofmarriage. He is aware that no woman can stand him. And Harrietreasons that he is "too much like Abraham's bosom" that a woman"would feel nowhere" .24 Ben Cooley, as he himself says, is"wedded" to his ieals. 25 And Lawrence's belief is against allideals since, more often than not, they "are a superimposition ofthe abstracted, automatic, invented universe of man upon thespontaneous creative universe."26 Ideals have no physical existenceof their own since they are products of the mind and aredoomed to be abstractions. Thus, being wedded to his ideals, BenCooley has given up his bodily life and has merged himself withthe unlimited, the Infinite. He is, paradoxically, everywhereand nowhere. Lawrence clues this further when he lets Dcn Cooley,the Kangaroo, say that "Like the unicorn, the family 1i.e. his family]23~.~. Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, p. 99.24~.~. Lawrence, Kangaroo, p. 133.25 ibid., p. 132.26~. H. Lawrence, "Democracy", Phoenix, p. 705.
knows no female. "27 For here, the reference to the unicornreinforces the mind-orientedness of Ben Cooley.Because, hlLawrence, the unicorn stands for Light, Intellect, Mind andspirit. 28 That is, the unicorn is opposed to the Lion ofDarkness, the Senses and Physical Substance.The second similarity is the Jewishness of HerrRegierungsrat and BenCooley. The former is said to be found inthe Austrian city of Kaprun, "in an [Sic] hotel full of Jews" andis portrayed to have a "subtle stoicism" and a "recklesshopelessness",29 which probably is the result of the war, but canalso be suggestive of the legendary suffering Jew, whereas, BenCooley of Kangaroo has, Somers observes, Jewish blood in him."The very best that is in the Jewish blood: a faculty for puredisinterestedness, and warm, physically warm love .... The manhad surely Jewish blood. "30The third common feature about Herr Regierungsrat and BenCooley is their humanness. While the former's "intelligence ...[is] so delicate, so human",31 Ben Cooley's faith in human27~.~. Lawrence, Kangaroo, p. 133.2 8 ~ . ~ Lawrence, ."The Crown", phoenix IT, pp. 369-370.29~.~. Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, pp. 95 and 9730~.~. Lawrence, Kangaroo, p. 123.3 1 ~ , Lawrence, ~ . The Complete Short Novels, p. 98.
intelligence is mocked by Somers to be "All too human". 32Thus,both the Jews seem to set such huge store by human intelligenceand to negate the animal and the sensual in man.Yet Lawrence has far more to say of Ben Cooley than of HerrRegierungsrat, largely owing to the fact that the scope ofKangaroo is infinitely greater than the short novel. Andfurthermore, Ben Cooley happens to be the title-character, theKangaroo of the novel's title.The fact that Lawrence's two essays "Democracy" and "WaltWhitman" (though the latter is more a chapter in his Studies inClassic American Literature than an independent piece of prose)were written in the same phase of his life to which Kangaroobelongs is revealing in itself. Considered by some as apolitical novel, Kangaroo does voice Lawrence's contempt andsarcasm for democracy. And he chooses here the national animalof Australia to represent the incorrigibly idealistic democracy.The marsupial aspect of the kangaroo, almost to theexclusion of its other qualities, has impressed Lawrence so muchthat he uses particularly the female kangaroo as a symbol for theingiscriminatingly all-encompassing democracy.32~. H. Lawrence, Kangaroo, p. 229.
Ben Cooley is unmanly and matriarchal, while his paunchresembles the marsupial pouch of a kangaroo. He imagines himselfto be the father whom the world needs. And Somers finds thisattitude of the Kangaroo to be objectionably prepossessing, even as heis fascinated and won over by the physical warmth and'winsomeness' of him.For the Lawrence-Somers, Kangaroo's "Abraham's bosom" andthe pouch-like belly are not only visually sardonic andunpardonable, but the figurative meaning they embody is also tobe condemned. Because, the "AbrahamNS bosom" of Ben Cooleypresumes an equally impossible abstraction like Whitman's "OneIdentity".In his essay on Whitman, Lawrence derides his "I embraceALL"^^ mainly because it evolves from an extreme idealism as muchas from a disregard for the individualistic and independentexistence of the other. Lawrence writes:Walt becomes in his own person the whole world,the whole universe, the whole eternity of time,as far as his rather: sketchy knowledge ofhistory will carry him, that is. Bacause to bea thing he had to know it. In order to assumr174.33~. H. Lawrence, Studies in Classic American Literature, p.
the identity of a thing he had to know thatthing. He was not able to assume one identitywith Charlie Chaplin, for example, because Waltdidn't know Charlie. What a pity! He'd havedone poems, paens and what not, Chants, Songsof Cinematernity .34Whitman's true democracy is based on two principles: theprinciple of the Average and the principle of the denti it^.^^average is an abstract idea, a unit ofThewhich can serveas a standard measurement to provide for the material and bodilyneeds of man. On the other hand, the principle of identity tendsto provide for the spirit and/or the consciousness. But,according to Lawrence, Whitman assumes that "every humanconsciousness has the same intrinsic value as every other humanconsciousness, because each is an essential part of the Great~onsciousness."~~ The tenet of sympathy and love which is thebedrock of ~angaroo's ideology, hence, is akin to the latter halfof Whitman's proposition of the ideal democracy and also it isclose tp Christ's 'love thy neighbour as thyself'.While174.34~. H. Lawrence, Ptudies in Classic American Literature, p.35~, H. Lawrence, "Democracy" Phoenix, p. 699.36 ibid . , p. 704.37 ibid . , p. 706.
Graham Hough is aware of a trace of ~hristianit~38 tounderlie Kangaroo's faith, Keith Sagar writes directly that"Kangaroo seems to be an amalgam of Knitman and ~hrist. "39However, there is an unbridgeable gap between the Kangaroo asa symbol and Ben Cooley the man. Unlike the symbol of dog, thekangaroo does not warrant any contempt in itself. Andadmittedly, Lawrence does not have any contempt for the actualanimal, which becomes evident through his poem on kangaroo. Theshameless dog which copulates on the pavement deserves contemptand Lawrence's hatred for a social being found the dog a perfectsymbol for representing his lack of a private, personal life.With the kangaroo, hence, the symbol and the meaning do nothave an adequate and satisfying correlation beyond the superficial one.Moreover, Ben Cooley retains so much of the author's voicethat he does not develop into a distinct character to be putagainst the protagonist, who is himself a Lawrence-figure. AsPhilip Hobsbaum observes, "The leader of the movement [theDiggers' ~ovement] the 'Kangaroo' of the title, also has someLawrentian characteristics but is physically quite unlike".40The characterization of Richard Lovat Somers and Kangaroocertainly overlap. In addition to his identifying too closely with Ben38~raham Hough, The Dark Sun, p. 1 12.39~eith Sagar, The Art of D.H. Lawrence, p. 132.40~hilip Hobsbaum, A Reader's Guide to D,H.Lawrence, p. 78.
Cooley as he does with the protagonist, Somers, Lawrencehas failed to develop the contradistinction he apparentlyIlntended in making Somers also metaphorically pregnant as againstthe pouched kangaroo of a Ben Cooley.Surprisingly, it is Kangaroo in the novel who speaks of the'equillbrium' that is essential between a man and his woman.The Lawrentian "star-equilibrium" that is propounded by Don~arnon~l and a similar idea voiced by c irk in^^ is expressed hereby Ben Cooley who 1s neither the protagonist nor the Lawrence-figure.The utterances of Kangaroo when he 1s in one of his emotionalbouts, are undeniably Lawrentian.The following words spoken byKangaroo can be an example here:I [Kangaroo] have the greatest admiration for theRoman Catholic Church, as an institution. Butthe creed and the theology are not natural to me,quite .... I think we need something more flexible,and a power less formal and dogmatic; more generous... generous power, that sees all the issue here,not in the after-life, and that does notconcern itself with sin and repentance and redemption.I should try to teach my people what it istruly to be a man, and a woman. The salvation ofID. H. Lawrence, The Plumed Serpent, pp. 2 15-2 17.42~.~. Lawrence, Women in Love, pp. 161 & 479.
souls seems too speculative a job. Ithink if a man is truly a man, true to hisown being, his soul saves itself in thatway. But no two people can save theirsouls alive in the same way. As far aspossible, we must leave it to them. 43Lawrence's own view was the same as the above, voiced byKangaroo, regarding Christianity as a religion. Lawrence alsobelieved that Christianity, and the spiritualism it offered, hadno solutions for the problems of earthly living but was onlymeant for the after-life.And it entails an inconsistency on the part of ~awrence'scharacterization of Kangaroo, when he disparages Kangaroo forupholding an indiscriminating democracy. Because, as seen in theabove quotation, Kangaroo is aware of the fact that no two peopleare alike. The accusation that Kangaroo is indiscriminating andhis sympathy is a generalized feeling for mankind en bloc is madethrough Somers. And it can be seen that Somers himself has beenonly projecting his own problems on others.Richard Lovat [Somers] wearied himself to deathstruggling with the problem of himself, andcalling it Australia. 4 4The androgynous protagonist is enciente with something whichcorresponds to Kangaroo's ideal-filled pouch. As against thelove-ideal of Kangaroo, Somers is fostering a devilish rage43~.~. Lawrence, Kangaroo, p. 125.44 ibid,, p. 33.
in his stomach. Ironically, like the untargetted love of Kanga-roo, ~orners's anger has no paritcular cause. ~t is an objectlesspassion. ".. . the horrible bitter fire seemed really to have gotinto his brain, burst up from his deepest b0wels."~5 The angeris reminiscent of Count Dionys's in The ~ ad~bird.~~ It is uncer-tain if Lawrence intended the image of the expectant woman inSomers to be an answer to the Whitmanesque Kangaroo.The narrator's conclusion that Richard Lovat Somersmistakes his own problem to be Australia's gets reinforced whenSorners frenziedly perceives rage in everybody.Rage! Rage! Rage! The awful accumulations thatlie quiescent and pregnant in the bowels of men.47And again, when the tension between the two groups led byWillie Struthers and Kangaroo mounts and results in a clash, thepassive Sorners, who went with Jaz to hear the Labour LeaderWillie Struther's speech, experiences the throes of horror.... Richard sat back feeling very sick, andconfused. But such a pain in his stomach, asif something were torn there. And he couldnot keep still.. . . 48The imagery of pregnancy and the metaphoric agonies ofchildbirth are deliberate here. Though the quoted lines above45~. H. Lawrence, Kangaroo, p. 293.46~.~. Lawrence, The Complete Short Novels, pp. 227 & 238-239.47~awrence, op. cit., p. 289.48ibid . , p. 348.
do not bear any explicit reference other than a vague suggestive-ness, the parallel is unmistakable. And the seething fury iswhat Somers is conceived of or enciente with.For Lawrence overt.ly mentions this at an earlier stage in the novel, before theclash occurs at Canberra Hall between the two groups,one headedby Kangaroo and the other by Willie Struthers:But nothing conjured away that bellyful ofblack devilishness with which he was enciente.He really felt like a woman who is with childby a corrosive fiend.49This explicit image of the woman at childbirth is used byLawrence again after the clash at Canberra Hall and after Somerswas drawn out of the place of riot.Richard ... felt very alien, far from ...everybody. He rose to his feet to rush outaqain. But the torn feeling at the pit ofhis stomach was so strong he sat down andshoved his fists'in his abdomen, and thereremained. It was a kind of grief, a bitter,agonized grief for his fellow-men.. . .So he lay down, and at length fell into asort of semi-consciousness, still pressinghis fists into his abdomen, and feeling ashe imagined a woman might feel after herfirst child as if something had been rippedout of him.504 9 ~ H, , Lawrence, Kangaroo, p . 1 83.50 ibid , , pp. 348-349.
Does not this subtly parallel the shooting of Kangaroo inhis belly which is the "male womb" or the "paternal womb"?51 IfKangaroo is punished with pistol-bullets in his marsupial pouch,Somer is punished wlth an agony at the pit of his stomach.Richard Lovat SomersJspaln and suffering parallels that ofKangaroo with a suggestion of poetic justice. For, like Kangaroo'sgeneralized sympathy, Somers'sanger also was objectless.It becomes evident that Somers is driven into contact withBen Cooley and Jack Callcott primarily by hls wlsk for an 'eternalunion' with a man. Perhaps he perceived the possibility forthe realization of that wish ln Kangaroo and Jack, and hence waslured into acquaintance with them.However, his conscious self inhibits him from the ultimatefulfillment of that desire. And this fluctuation of Somers be-tween desire and fear has been detected by Jullan Moynahan, al-though he never stigmatizes it to be the result of the protagonist'sandrogynous nature as Pritchard does.52 Moynahan observes thatSomersFrom the beginning of his association withKangaroo ... Lets the man think he may be able51~.~, Pritchard, D.H. Lawrence: Body of Darkness, p. 151.idem.
to commit himself eventually to the movementwhen he knows full well that he will nevercommit himself .53The foreboding becomes inescapable when Somers meets Kangaroofor the first time. Kangaroo is physically attractive andhe emanates a rare warmth and Somers is found, at a later stageof the novel, to suppress his urge to touch him only with difficulty.'Get up.' he [Kangaroo] said. 'Stand up and letme look at you'.The two men stood facing one another: Kangaroolarge, with his full stomach and his face hulkingdown, and his queer, glaring eyes: Somers slightand aloof -looking, Cooley eyed him up and down.S4And, not much later after this incident, the crucial moment thatSomers had been waiting for, comes to pass, Somers gives it updeliberately. Ironically, the founding of an eternal union isaverted by his fear.Somers sat rather stupefied than convinced.But he found himself again wanting to beconvinced, wantjng to be carried away. Thedesire hankered in his heart. Kangaroo hadbecome again beautiful: huge and beautifullike some god that sways and seems clumsy,then suddenly flashes with all the agility ofthunder and lightning. Huge and beautiful ashe sat hulked in his chair. Somers did wishhe would get up again, and carry him quiteaway.S3~ulian Moynahan, The Deed of Life, p. 106,54~.~. Lawrence, Kangaroo, p. 128.
... If Kangaroo had got up at that momentSomers would have given him heart and souland body, for the asking, and damn allconsequences. He longed to do it. Heknew that by going over and laying ahand on the great figure of the sullen godhe could achieve it. Kangaroo would leaplike a thundercloud and catch him up -catch him up and away into a transport. Atransport that should last for life. Heknew it.55Somers is awed by the great, sulky bear-god of a Kangaroo.He is spell-bound by the physical grace of the man. Yet heabstains from "laying a hand" on the "beautiful" Kangaroo. Andbeing unable to bring himself to do it, Somers yearns for Kanyarooto make the initial move. The "intense ambivalence of ...fear and ... anticipation of violation by a man" which DavidCavitch sees to be at the root of Lou Carrington in St Mawr canalso be detected to underlie the impulsive and frightened with-drawals of Richard Lovat Somers .56Again, if ~angaroo's sympathy is false, then it is onlybelied by his strangely insistent plea, from the death-bed,towards the end of the novel, to see Somers. Kangaroo's almostlast wish is that Somers should admit his love for him.55~.~. Lawrence, Kangaroo, pp. 147-148.56~avid Cavitch, D.H. Lawrence and the New World, p. 156.
These inconsistencies in the novel are, perhaps, dae to theminimum amount of time that Lawrence spent in writing the book.However, Kangaroo is another novel wherein the author has shedhis sickness5' after Sons and Lovers, though the question remainswhether the novelist had attained better mastery over his emotions.57~ee Lawrence's letter to A.W. McLeod, 21 October 191 3,reprinted in Gamini Salgado ed., "Sons and Lovers": A Casebook,p. 26.
CHAPTER VThe Evangelistic Beasts AND AnimalsLawrence the "foremost emotional realist of the centuryn1has written more "real poems" than the compositions like "To~uelder-~oses" . Of course, the distinction was made by Lawrencehimself between his "rhyming poems" or compositions and the"unrhyming poems". Lawrence tended to call his unrhyming poemsas his real poems because the "demon" in him experienced onlyhere more freedom to voice itself than in the rhyming poems.And"the need to rhyme was like a wedge driven between the object andthe word. "3The result was a "forced and uneasy" verse.Lawrence's attempts at rhymed poems or metrical farms provedto be unsuccessful. He realized that the conventional, rhymingverse contains a "drill-sergeant" who did not allow his instinctivebeing its spontaneity. Hence Lawrence sought a new form.And Whitman seemed to approximate best the form that LawrenceIA Alvarez, Stewards of Excellence: Studies in Modern Englishand American Poets, p.141.~D.H. Lawrence, "Preface to the Collected Poems (1928)", TheComplete Poems, p.27.
himself had in his mind. Lawrence describes this ideal form asthe poecry of the present--"the instant; the quick".The Evangelistic Beasts and the animal poems, with an exceptionof a few from the latter-mentioned group, do not graph out atruth experientially. They are utterances from a fixed anddetermined self of Lawrence. Although Lawrence was dead againstall ideas and idealsI5 he himself admits that "even art is utter-ly dependent on philosophy: or . . . on a metaphysic. " 6And it canbe seen that the poems discussed here are overt assertions ofthat metaphysic. Rejecting the conventions of metrical poetry,these poems, ironically, set forth to dogmatize about somethingelse. Unquestionably, these poems fall far short of his "End ofAnother Home Holiday" or even "Resurrection of the ~lesh".'The Evangelistic Beasts, a section of Birds, Beasts andFlowers, was first published in 1923. There are four poems underthis general heading The Evangelistic Beasts and each of them hasa gospel saint's name for its individual title.4 ~ . ~ Lawrence, . "Poetry of the Present" (Introduction to theAmerican Edition of New Poems 19181, The Complete Poems, p.185.5 ~ . ~ Lawrence, . Studies in Classic American Literature, p. 516 ~ H. . Lawrence, "Foreword", Fantasia of the Unconscious p. 157 ~ . ~ Lawrence, . The Complete Poems, pp. 62-64 & 737-738.
The "Revelation" in the New Testamnt of the Bible has apassage describing four beasts that are in the middie andround about a throne. And these apocalyptic beasts are "full ofeyes", "before and behind" and, moreover, each of them is said tohave six wings.8 The four beasts, one like a lion, anotherlike a bull, the third like a man and the fourth like an eagle, cameto be associated with the four gospel writers, St. Mark, St.Luke, St. Matthew and St. John respectively, as they are introducedin the passage in the "Revelation".Lawrence's The Evangelistic Beasts is a semi-serious retorrto the Biblical passage and its implications. The repugnance thatLawrence felt as a boy for the "Revelation" is voiced out inthese poems through a condemnation of the incongruity and lopsidednessinvolved in the apocalyptic beasts' having wings.9The attribute of wings, intended to connote spiritual lof~i-ness, to the beasts like lion and bull and even man is disagreeableto Lawrence. And perhaps the beasts' having six wings eachof them implied a childish unnaturalness for Lawrence, Consequently,Lawrence's poems attempt to balance the two conflicting~D.H. Lawrence, Apocalypse, p. 28.9 ibid . , pp. 28-29.
postures: the spiritual ascendence or the vertical transcedenceas opposed to the concrete "here and now of the flesh" or thephysical connectedness on a horizontal (earthly) plane.Catherine Carswell, defending Lawrence against the chargethat he takes an extreme position by holding up high the body, orthat which is physical, at the expense of the spiritual or themental, writes in The Savage Pilgrimage thatLawrence wanted nothing more than equal power forthe spiritual and the sensual .... What Lawrencemaintained was that now for too long the spiritualhad been given a spurious, an ideal lordship overthe sensual, as if the one blood-stream should bepraised at the expense of the other. He saw inhimself, as in all his generation, the disaster ofa spiritual supremacy, which in the end makes menfirst sensually and then spiritually impotent.For spiritual supremacy at the cost of sensualabnegation was in his eyes inevitably followed byspiritual impotence. In restoring the just plaeceand power of the sensual, the restorer must firstappear to exalt it above the spiritual. Rut thisis only in appearance and because the balancz hasbeen already destroyed. lIn the light of The Evangelistic Beasts, at least, whatCatherine Carswell says in the above quotation can be seen to betrue. If "St Matthew" is an attestation for Lawrence's fervourto give "equal poewer" for the physical and the spiritual, theother threepoems--"St Mark", "St Luke" and "St Johnu--onlyu appearto exalt" the physical above the spiritual.losee the extract in H. Coombes ed. D.H. Lawrence: A CriticalAnthology, p. 250.
Gail Porter Mandell sums up these four poems in the follow-ing lines:The man, Saint Matthew, torn between spirit and flesh,is exhausted. Domesticated by his responsibility forthe lamb, the lion, Saint Mark, has settled down to acomfortable existence. Self-sacrifice has emasculatedthe bull, Saint Luke. The eagle, Saint John, bound byanempty Word, has lost interest in saaring and wants onlyto hatch a new idea. Lawrence lets us know that theChristian ideal, once compelling has lost its gqwer.The evangelistic beasts manifest this decline.Holly A. Laird sounds more generalized when he writes ofLawrence's poems in The Evangelistic Beasts, Creatures and Birdsthat "the only virtue his creatures possess is obstinacy, thepower to resist any response to the present". l 2M.J. Lockwood alone attempts a considerably detailed studyof the four poems that constitute The Evangelistic Beasts.13However, he considers that these poems along with the others inBirds, Beasts and flowers reiterate man's need to accept hisbestial nature.A prefatory note by Lawrence for these four poems, with thegospel saints' name for their titles, states that the apocalypticll~ail Porter Mandell, The Phoenix Paradox: A Study ofRenewal Through Change in the "Collected Poems" and "Last Poems"of D.H. Lawrence. (Carbondale & Edwardsville: Southern Illinois<strong>University</strong> Press, 19841, p. 112.12~011~ A. Laird, Self and Sequence: The Poetry of D.H.Lawrence (Charlottesville: <strong>University</strong> Press of Virginia, 1988),p. 145.1 3 ~ Lockwood, ~ ~ . A Study of fhe Poetry of l).il.Lawrence:Thinking in Poetry (New York: St. arti in's Press, 19871, pp.117-120.
easts should be restored to their respective corners of theheaven. For the empty heaven automatically renders the physicalman shallow and sapless. Hence Lawrence's St. Matthew, being aman, requests to be put back on earth.The first two lines of "St Matthew" express a simple awarenesson the part of Lawrence of the fact that St. Matthew the manand St. John the eagle cannot be brought under the category"beasts". Hence the poem can virtually be said to start from thethird line only-I, Matthew, am a man. 'The use of the first person in this poem is slightly Intriguing.Does Lawrence use the flrst person "I" slmply becauseMatthew alone 1s exceptional in that he 1s a man and capable ofspeech as well? Or is it because Lawrence 1s more syrnyatkli-t~ctowards Matthew than towards Mark or John or ~uke? For it isunmistakable that Lawrence becomes himself Matthew!Unlike the Son of Man, the Uplifted, Matthew the man cannotbe lifted up spiritually since the uplift of the Son of Man, theCrucified suggests a permanence which Matthew in flesh is notcapable of. Instead, he can be drawn to the Uplifted like allother men. To be lifted up for ever, into eternity, is possiblefor the spirit alone and not for the man in the flesh or body.1 4 ~ . ~ . Lawrence, The Complete Poems, p. 320.
Lawrence condenses, what he has voiced elaborately in anessay entitled "The Risen Lord", his contempt for Christ'steachings into pure irony in the following lines:'And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me'-That is Jesus.But then Jesus was not quite a man.He was the Son of ~ a n l ~According to Lawrence, the Son of Man "was not quite a man"; he"had been a sacred child, a teacher, a messiah but never a fullman."16 Almost all the Biblical episodes like the "virgin birth,the baptism, the temptation, the teaching, Gethsemane, the betrayal,the crucifixion, the burial and the resurrection" have acorresponding series of inner experience in a man's life onearth. Whereas Christ's floating "up into heaven as flesh-andblood,and never set down again"17 is an odd and incongruoustruth, for spirit, which connotes bodilessness and vapour, alone canascend to heaven. But flesh-and-blood is moored to the earth.lo lo thing in all our experience will ever confirm" Christ'sascent in flesh and blood.18 It is clear that Lawrence's indirectemphasis on the rational, the gravity of the earth, iscalled for merely to suit his metapbysic. He carefully avoidsthe referenceto "gravity" which brings in logic and reason.I~D.H; Lawrence, The Complete Poems, p. 320.'~D.H. Lawrence, "The Risen Lord", Phoenix IT, p. 574.l7 idem a
"St Mattew", interestingly, starting thus, stages a reenactmentin the psyche of Matthew of the destined-to-be-foreverconflict that goes on between the unicorn and the lion of "Thecrown". l9The unicorn symbolizes light while the lionsymbolizes darkness. Or more appropriately, the unicorn representsspirit and the lion the flesh. The opposites fight, butneither can destroy the other for the destruction of the one willentail automatically the annihilation of the other. Hence theyare to fight each other uncompromisingly. Lawrence thus impliesequal power for both.Locked in such a conflict, Matthew the man epitomizes thebalance. That is, he is the crown that the lion and the unicornfight for.\The divided self of Matthew makes him a "traveller back andforth". He, on the one hand, asserts his "terrestrial manhood",on the other, admits that he can be elevated spiritually, thoughtemporarily, as he is drawn to the Uplifted. Morning or daylightcorresponds to the unicorn aspect. Lawrence replaces the unicornhere with an image of a mounting lark in "St Matthew". Themounting lark is to suggest the spiritual meditation--the "wingsof tlic morning". And the night or darkness, the aspect of thelion of "The Crown" is represented by an image here of the nocturnal,"blood-veined wings" of a bat.I~D.H. Lawrence, Phoenix 11, pp. 365-374.
Lawrence appears to "exalt" the physicality as he speaks thefollowing through Matthew:I am man, and therefore my heart beats, and throwsthe dark blood from side to sideAll the time I am lifted up.20Lawrence has distorted here almost beyond trace, except for avague syntactic resemblance, the famous proposition of Descartes"I think, therefore I am". By this reversal, however, Lawrencegains doubly. For, apart from being an emphasis on physicalliving and an expression of flesh-awareness, the line flouts thatwhich is mental by substituting the beating heart for the thinkingmind of Cogi to ergo sum .21The beating heart necessitates, until it ceases, the downwardmovement towards the earth, from the heights of spiritualstates.As a result, Matthew prays that he should be droppeddown "again in time", before the beating heart stops and turnshim into "the other angelic matter". For life on earth is"horizontal and ceaseless". 2220~. H. Lawrence, ' TheComplete Poems, p. 320.2 l~ernard Williams, Descartes : The Project of Pure Enquiry(Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd., 1985), pp. 72-73.
The descriptions of Lawrence of the myriad living splendourson the damp, brown earth run unhindered. For the tone here isone of poignant prayer and does not carry the scathing irony andexcessive vehemence that is detected in the other three poems ofThe Evangelistic Beasts. And one hears and feels in thesedescriptions of the earthly life ofat thew's world the poet whowould "dance with rapture" that he is "alive and in the flesh".23While Matthew asserts his "terrestrial manhood" and saysthat he is "on a par with all men" and cannot deny the horizontalco-existence with beasts, flowers, adders and fishes,Lawrence gives a glimpse of this teeming life on earth. AndLawrence's inclusion of the flower, the fish and the snake isobviously deliberate.Lawrence is particular that the flowers of Matthew's worldsprout and fade. Anything that is living or animate is mortaland hence dies after its life-time. Even a flower,if it doesn't fade, it is not a flower,it's either an artificial ra blossom, or animmortelle, for the cemetry. i! 42 3 ~ . ~ Lawrence, . Apocalypse, p. 126.2 4 ~ . ~ Lawrence, . "The Mess of Love", The Complete Poems, p. 472
The inclusion of the fish along with the use of the Greek"IXBYC", in line 52, is deft.25 The word is used to connoteChrist the fish as well. And by making the fish sink down andtake the reverse of uplift, Lawrence, through this image, alsosuggests a necessary release from self-absorption. In the poem"Fish" Lawrence's main attempt is to bring out the unself-conscious life of the fish and its otherness. He is piqued byits indefinably blithe activity which is what suggests the alienaspect of the fish.This is beyond me, this fish.26His God stands outside my God.The pain of knowledge was too much for Lawrence and hencethe suffering drives him to seek oblivion. And Matthew's wish to"leave off my wings of the spirit/As I leave off my bracesu2'suggests the yearning for nirvana or a state of total oblivion25~he note to the poem informs that these Greek lettersdenoting fish, are also the initial letters of the title by whichChrist was known in the first century A.D.--Jesus Christ, Son ofGod and Saviour. See p. 997 of Lawrence's The Complete Poems,~GD.H. Lawrence, The Complete Poems, p. 339.27ibid., p. 321.
only. Clothes as a symbol of knowledge is as old as the ~ i b l e ~ ~and Lawrence's use of it as such can be seen even in his poem"Resurrection of the Flesh". 29The reference to the horizontally darting adder, carries withit echoes of the snake of the poem of that title. It is a widelyknown fact that Lawrence does not perceive the snake to be anaccursed creature. Contrarily, it is for him "one of thelords/Of life".30It crawls with its belly "polarized to theearth's centren3' and thus it is very much close to the "bowelsof the earth".32Perhaps, as M. J. Lockwood observes, 33 the "mystical note" toThe Evangelistic Beasts does not mean to restore the apocalyptic28~t least this is how Lawrence believed. He condemnsHawthorne's Hester (The Scarlet Letter), as well as ArthurDimmesdale for the same reason Eve and Adam were driven out ofEden. St was the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge thatgave Adam and Eve the sense of shame which results from watchingthemselves or being self-conscious. Thus clothes came in. SeeLawrence's Studies in Classic American Literature, pp. 90-91.29~awrence,op,cit., pp. 737-738.~OD.H. Lawrence, "Snake", The Complete Poems, p. 351.ID, H, Lawrence, Apocalypse, p. 49.32~awrence,op. cit., p. 349.33~. J. Lockwood, A Study of the Poems of D.H.Lawrence:Thinking in Poetry, p. 117.
easts once again in the four corners of heaven so much as tobring them down to earth, to a convincing stature. Lawrence setsout to do this not only with Matthew but also with the otherthree gospel saints, or apocalyptic beasts, as well."St Mark", the second poem, is a fable about the "lion inJudah" and it outlines the slow degradation of the "lion of thesenses" into the "lion of the spirit".Not after many lines from the beginning of "St Mark", Law-rence poses a series of questions which reduces the otherwiseawe-inspiring beast to a clownish absurdity.Why should he have wings?Is he to be a bird also?Or a spirit?Or a winged thought?Or a soaring consciousness?~4As St. Mark is a winged lion (and therefore less feline in theeyes of Lawrence) it becomes a figure of ridicule. How did thisparticular lion come to have wings? Lawrence explains through aflash-back.The lion of the senses, a typical Lawrentian feline, wasonce lying in front of its cave, obviously wingless then, sunningits whiskers and lashing its tail slowly, thinking of blood. The3 4 ~ . ~ Lawrence, . The Complete Poems, p. 323.
combination of the images of sight and touch through thedescription of lion's sun-brightened whiskers and slow-lashing ofthe tail, evokes a mental picture of extreme comfort andsensuousness. But the beast's aloneness and idleness causeboredom. The lion of the senses thus lying complacent has avision of a "lamb on a pinnacle" and in the process of investigatingthe vision it gets lured for a pair of wings. It was thelion's lying idle (Lawrence uses the words "motionless", "bored"and "statically angry") that brings down the doom. The predatoryIjcast now nyreos to guard mankind, and thus acyuicsces to t,irnt:itself and lose its essential nature. The hunting beast becomesa thinking cat.The contrast that Lawrence draws between the "lion of thesenses" and the "lion of the spirit" is bold and striking.While the sensuous beast is seen to lie lazily relishing thetaste of blood that lingers still, the lion of the spirit ispictured to frolic around like "a curly sheep-dog", "guarding theflock of mankind." Again, in contrast to the smug and selfishlion of the senses, the image of the lion which is in service to
the Lamb or God is one of ludicrousness, because the ramping likea dog or the flying like a kestrel of the latter does notsuggest the natural ferociousness of the animal. The lion afterthe fall, i.e., the lion of the spirit is a tame and well-behavedcreature.Lawrence describes the event of the lion getting tempted bythe Lamb with heavy sarcasm. After having the vision of thelamb, the lion speculates. "[~]e put his paw to his nose, andIpondered. "35 Eventually it accepts the offer of the lamb, andfor ,i p r ~ r/of wings it agrees to act as a "sheep-dog".The lioncompromises itself in the bargain. The lion of blood becomes35materialistic for it thinks "it was worth it" .St. Mark the lion denies its very nature. The state of thelion that refuses to fight is described in a particular passagein "The Crown" and Lawrence has only elaborated that intopoetry form in "St Mark". The passage is as follows:Supposing the lion refuses the obligation of hisbeing and says, "I won't fight, 1'11 just liedown. 1'11 be a lion couchant".35~.~. Lawrence, The Complete Poems, p. 324.36 idem.
What then is the lion? A void, a hollow ache, awant. "What am I?" says the lion, as he lieswith his head between his paws, or walks by theriver feeding on raspberries, peacefully, like aunicorn. "I am a hollow void, my roaring is theresonance of a hollow drum, my strength is thepower of the vacuum, drawing all things withinitself.Then he groans with horrible self-consciousness. 3 7The setting in of self-consciousness means the loss of thelion's "precious self-oblivion".38 And the lion of "St Mark',byceasing to be a "blood-thirsty king of beasts" ,39 suffers from thatself-consciousness. It becomes domestic, finding its shemateand settling down with a "well-to-do-family". It ends upbeing merely procreative.And the last line of the poem "Going blind at lastn4' seals itwith a finality slightly similar to the "So be it" of "St Matthew~.~'The lion losing its power of sight is the last attackby Lawrence. For, according to Lawrence, the hunting animals likecats, wolves, tigers, hawks ... are, in our sense ofthe word, almost visionless. Sight in them is37~.~. Lawrence, Phoenix 11, p. 366.* idem.39~.~. Lawrence, The Complete Poems, p. 325.40idem.4'ibid., p. 323.
sharpened or narrowed down to a point: the object ofprey. It is exclusive. They see no more than this. 42And thus they see unthinkably far, unthinkably keenly."St Luke", the third poem, is about the "Providence Bull 1143which is also bewitched by the Lamb of God and has become merelyprocreative, like the lion of "St Mark". But, unlike the lion,the bull portends danger and is not pictured to glide to itsultimate stage of deterioration.Attaining wings after being charmed by the Lamb, the bullsuffers the pressure of unvent blood-power since the "narrowsluice/of procreation"44 helps little to let out its "dammed-up"energy. The bull's negation of the sensuous-self is far lessself-willed than the lion's.In St. Luke the bull, it is more asuppression which implies an explosion later on.Physicality does not mean mere procreative power. The bullhas a "bastion" of a forehead and "cavernous nostrils" $hatsuggest the destructive power as well. For the bull's "goldenhorns of power,/Power to kill, power to createud5 are not to beignored.42~.~. Lawrence, Fantasia of the Unconscious, p. 65.43~.~. Lawrence, The Complete Poems, p. 327.4 4 idem.45ibid., p. 326.
Hence the explosion is to find its way out by "announcingbattle ready" and going to war against the forces of spiritualism.46The bull, the "Father of substance", after two thousandyears is prepared to fight the opponent.Lawrence at last restores the use of the horns to the bull."And so it is war.The poem being about the conflict betweenphysical power and spiritual ripeness, Lawrence has used imagesof war or battle throughout the poem.Beginning with the "wall"and "bastion" of the first line, there are suggestions of war in"fortress", "battery", "flag", "fires of wrath", "enemy","charge", etc. And the first half of the poem even suggests anarsenal with repetitions of the word "furnace", and separatewords like "cavernous", "flame" and "molten drip". Thus, "Thebull of the proletariat has got his head down" in order to useits horns. 4 8The last poem "St John" is an unflinching attack on the"Sun-peering eagle".49 The poem is in the tone of Lawrence's4 6 ~ . ~ Lawrence, .The Complete Poems, p. 327.4 7 idem.4 9 ibid., p. 328.50~. H. Lawrence, Studies in Classic American Literature,171-176.
essay on Walt Whitman in Studies in Classic American Literature.And this tonal similarity is due to their both (St. John andWhitman) tending towards abstractions or generalizations. ForSt. John the "great gold-barred eagle" also pretends to bean all-knowing absolute like the all-embracing persona of Whitman'spoems. 5 0St. John's Logos was already responded to by Lawrence in his"Original Foreword to Sons and Lovers". Lawrence finds John'sLogos reversed, for it is the Flesh that utters the word and notas St. John holds the word the flesh. Hence Lawrence writes:John, the beloved disciple, says, 'The Word wasmade Flesh'. But why should he turn thingsround? The women simply go on bearing talkativ~,sons, as an answer. 'The Flesh was made word'.According to Lawrence, the Flesh is infinite and unquestionable.Whereas the Word is finite and has an end. Therefore, it is theFlesh that is primordial and not the Word.Hence, it is not surprising that Lawrence satirizes St. Johnfor giving the first place to the Word, which is an uttered"D.H. Lawrence, "Original Foreword to Sons and Lovers",Gamini Salgado ed. "Sons and Lovers": A ~asebook, p. 30.
thing. And the uttered Word is not only finite but also existsin thin air since it is bodiless. Lawrence sneers sarcastically:Is there not a great Mind pre-ordaining?Does not a supreme Intellect ideally procreate theUniverse?1s not each soul a vivid thought in the greatconsciousness-stream of God?Put salt on his tail 52The sly bird of John.And therefore Lawrence proceeds with his attempt to bringdown the eagle of John "Out of the empyrean/Of the all-seeing,all-fore-ordaining ideal. "53For it has been high in an eternaluplift for too long and should be brought down to the birddirtiedrocks of Patmos. For it has been high above Jesus's"pale and lambent dove" even, and has grown old, with a droopingbeak and naked "rump". It should be shooed down from its heightso that it can undergo regeneration and arise anew as does thephoenix.The section Animals contains a total of eight poems--"TheASS" , "He-Goat", "She-Goat" , "Elephant", "Kangaroo", "Bibbles","Mountain Lion" and "The Red Wolf". However, of these eightpoems "Bibbles", "The Red Wolf" and "Mountain Lion" are not to be5 2 ~ H. . Lawrence, The Complete Poems, pp. 328-329.5 3 ibid., I?. 329.
dealt here, since the first two are discussed in the chapter oncanine animals in Lawrence and the third, "Mountain Lion", isfocused upon in the chapter on feline animals. 5 4Animals re-emphasizes the thematic statements voiced in-TheEvangelistic Beasts in a more subtle fashion. Gail Porter Man-dell sums up the poems as follows:In one way or another, all of the creatures thatthe speaker studies are enslaved either to themselvesor to others: the she-goat to her selfconscioussexuality; the elephant to his patient,mountainous blood and his unbelief; the kangarooto her inwardness; and the dog to his lack ofdiscrimination. Only in "Mountain Lion" do wecatch sight of one of the animals who has successfullyremaiygd aloof from man and thereby avoidedcorruption."The Ass" pictures the beast of burden in its patheticallyhumble condition. Like man, the ass is also subjugated by know-ledge. It has fallen "into the rut of love" (it is obvious thatLawrence implies the Christian love as much as that it has for54~ee Chapter I & 11, pp. 81-83 & 113-1 15.ail Porter Mandell, The Phoenix Paradox, p. 116.
its mate since the former requires humility while the latter, thesexual love, sacrifices all other urges in seeking its own inac-cessible fulfillment). The assSomehow ... fell in love,And was sold into slavery.He fell into the rut of love,Poor ass, like man, always in rut,The pair of them alike in that.All his soul in his gallant memberAnd his head gon~~heavy with the knowledge of desireAnd humiliation.The ass that was once physically powerful and awfully vir-ile, is now diminished and is seen to be inactive. Jesus rodethe ass in the Triumphant Entry. That was when the fall of theass occurred, according to Lawrence. The ass that "tore the windwith his teeth,/And trod wolves underfoot,/And over-rode hismares as if he were savagely leaping an abstacle, to set histeeth in the sun"57 has acquired afterwards "regretful eyes" and"diminished, drooping hindquarters" with "small toes. "58Thepicture of the postlapsarian ass brings forth the disproportionin the appearance of the donkey. Lawrence's reiterations on theinflated shape of the ass's head--Lawrence uses words and phrases5 6 ~ . ~ Lawrence. . The Complete Poems, p. 378.58 ibid, p. 377.
like "big", "gone heavy", "ponderous" and "head down" (the lastperhaps suggests the weight of its head)--are to imply the ass'spossession of painful and oppressive knowledge.The ass has become mental and has relinquished its physicalbeing. The bloated head and its "diminished hindquarters" connotethis. Like the modern man, the ass is aware of its owndesire and hence feels "humiliation".It will be pertinent here to note the fact that Lawrencecondemns such self-awareness. For, as it has already beenshown,5g it was not, according to Lawrence, the eating of theforbidden apple that brought down the fall of Adam and Eve, buttheir sin was the knowledge of and the resultant shame at theirown nakedness. Sex is not a sin but the knowledge of the actalone made it a sin.Hence Lawrence detects the braying of the animal to have anote of "Everlasting lament in everlasting desire."6Q The fret-ful braying of the donkey is interpreted by the Arabs as follows:"D.H. lawrence, Studies in Classic American Literature, pp.90-91. See also Footnote 28 of this chapter.6 0 ~ . ~ Lawrence, .The Complete Poems, p. 378.
domesticatedness and rank-sex appear to be the result of thepoet's transference of what he diagnosed to be ailing the modernman6'on the animal, as almost the case with every other animalthat appears in this section. And these poems, discussed in thischapter, except for "Kangaroo" and "St Matthew", are doctrinaireand do not attempt to perceive the otherness of the animals theyfocus upon.And the appearance of a she-goat in this poem cripticallysums up what Lawrence elaborates upon in the following individualpoem entitled "She-Goat".With a needle of long red flint he stabs in the darkAt the living rock he is up against;While she with her goaty mouth stands smiling the whileas he strikes, since sureHe will never quite strike home, on the target-quick,for her quickIs just beyond range of the arrow he shootsFrom his leap at the zenith in her, so it falls justshort of the mark, far enough.It is over before it is finished.She, smijang with goaty much-mouth, Mona Lisa, arrangesit so.69~he protagonist of St Mawr, Lou Witt expresses her chagrinat the modern-day trend of undermining a person while outwardlybeing sportive and jolly. There is no open encounter to acquirepower or victory according to her. See Lawrence's The CompleteShort Novels, p. 341. And here, the she-goat does exactlyundermine the he-goat by posing outwardly sportive and smilingbut denying fulfillment for the male in his sexual endeavours,70~awrence, loc. cit.
Lawrence concludes that the tame he-goat will never bringitself to strike its foot on the ground and fight its way topower.... bah, how can he, poor domesticated beast! 71What Lawrence writes about the she-goat that was bought atGiardini fair, in the poem "She-Goat", evokes certain parallelswith his fictional heroines like Lettie, Constance Chatterley,Kate, etc. In fact, the particular she-goat in the poem is nodifferent from the one glimpsed in "He-Goat". It remains herealso the embodiment of female will and vanity.... she leaps the rocks like a quick rock,Her backbon~~sharp as a rock,Sheer will.The she-goat is said to curl "the leaf of her tail as if shcwere curling her lip behind her at all life" , '' The she-goat ispretentious and when the persona speaks to her, "she crouchesher rear and makes water. " I4window . ,175She poses "Like a belle a t her/ ID.H. Lawrence, The Complete Poems, p. 383.72ibid., ps 386.73idem.
Constance Chatterley of Lady Chatterley's Lover and Kate ofThe Plumed Serpent are both typical heroines of Lawrence whostrive for a clitoral orgasm until they meet their respectiveLawrentian partners. Whereas, the she-goat who is apparently deniedthe possibility remains will-perverted. She has no chance offinding her godly mate since the he-goat, being a "poor domesticbeast" does not have its enemy to "hammer" and sharpen its hornpower.Again, when Lawrence says that the she-goat exposes the pinkof her nakedness and says to him that "[Tlhat's her"I6 and thatit waters self-consciously in response to his words, he undoubtedlyre-creates the scene in The White Peacock. The she-goat'sact described thus is similar to that of the white peacock'sdefiling an ange1.s head out a£ vanity.77 Thus, Lawrence seems toproject his own ideology on the animals."Elephant" has poems related to it like "Two PerformingElephants", "The Elephant is Slow to Mate", "Elephants in theCircus" and "Elephants Plodding". However, there is no obvioussignificance attached to this beast symbolically or otherwise.The poems also seem to be bare sketches, except for the firstmentionedthree pieces.76~. H . Lawrence, The Complete Poems,77~.~. Lawrence, The White Peacock, p. 210.
It is a curious fact that the elephant should not appear inLawrence's fictional writings, as does the cat or the horse, butfigure only in his poetry. And ironically the horse which loomsin Lawrence's narratives, is denied a place in the section Ani-CCmals. 7 8-The elephant is honoured as one of the oldest animals of theworld--"the hugest, oldest of beasts". 'Elephant' disclosesthe ironic situation of such a beast being subjugated by a "palefragment of a prince".''The "pale little wisp of a Prince ofWales" is "diffident" and his motto is Ich dien. The poet holdsthat the prince being diffident, does not deserve to be aloft theelephant; he lacks the pride of power. Lawrence pities theplight of the elephant which has to obey the "pale lad". Thepoem reveals how man is increasingly becoming superannuated foranimals. This same grievance seems to underlie, perhaps on amilder note, the three poems about the elephants that perform ina circus. 8 178~awrence*s one odd poem on the horse "The White Horse" istoo brief to elicit any substantial point regarding the equinebeast. See The Complete Poems, p. 683.7 9 ~ . ~ Lawrence, .The Complete Poerng, p. 388.80idem.81"Elephants in the Circus", "On the Drum" and "TwoPerforming Elephants". The - Complete- - Poems, - -. pp. 425-426.
"The Elephant is Slow to Mate" is overtly didactic in tone.The poem describes the slow process of the elephants awakeninginto desire. The last three stanzas seem to be an indirectattack on the dog-like social beings who lack privacy and discretion:So slowly the great hot elephant heartsgrow full of desire,and the great beasts mate in secret at lasthiding their fire.Oldest they are and the wisest of beastsso they know at lasthow to wait for the loneliest of feastsfor the full repast.They do notsnatch, they do not tear;their massive bloodmoves as the moon-tides, neB5, more near,till they touch in flood.The last poem to be discussed in this 'chapter is "Kangaroo".The animal in the poem and that which figures in Lawrence's novelare quite dissimilar in nature.James Reeves is alone in recognizing the poem to be one ofthe best of Lawrence's,He writes:It is a remarkable feature of Lawrence's expressionismthat, even when--as in "Kangaroo"--he intellectualizesthe experience, the occasion of the poem is alwaysphysically present, with an acute, sometimes uncomfortableactuality. "Kangaroo" is, indeed, one of themost completely successful of Lawrence's animal-poems.8 2 ~ , ~ Lawrence, .The Complete Poems, p. 465.
It expresses a wonderful sensitivity to the physicalactuality of the animal. The 'philosophy' may or maynot be nonsense, but if the kangaroo has a 'meaning',surely Lawrence came nearer to regjizing it thanany other writer could have done.Divested of its allegorical burden, the same animal thatappeared in the novel Kangaroo, enjoys an air of friendliness.Lawrence has nothing disparaging to say of the actual animal.Although Lawrence still intends the animal to be a corrective forthe over-intellectualized man, the animal is pictured as it is,without any distortions by the poet. The poem gospels covertlythe need to be down-to-earth.T!ie antipodal kangaroo belongs to the earth. And Lawrencedoes not call the animal by its name till the eleventh line ofthe poem. The suspense is maintained throughout the first ten linesof the poem which do not directly refer to the name of the beastwhich is nonetheless elaborately described; only the title of thepoem gives away the animal. Significantly, Lawrence substitutesthe word ' 1 if e ' for kangaroo.In the northern hemisphereLife seems to leap at the air, or skim under the windLike stags on rocky ground, or pawing horses, orspringy scut-tailed rabbits.83~ames Reeves. "D.H. Lawrence", in A. Banerjee ed. D.H.~awrence's "Poetry": "Demon" Liberated: A Collection -- of Primaryand Secondary Mzterial, - p. 1 / 1.
Or else rush horizontal to charge at the sky'shorizon!Like bulls or bisons or wild pigs.Or slip like water slippery towards its ends,As foxes, stoats, and wolves, and prairie dogs.Only mice, and moles and rats, and badgers, andbeavers, and perhaps bearsSeem belly-plumbed to the earth's mid-nave?.Or frogs that when they leap come flop, and flop tothe centre of the earth.But the yellow antipodal Kangaroo, when she sits up,Who can unseat her, like t41iquid drop that is heavy,and just touches earth.The most striking features in the above-quoted lines rein-force the down-to-earth and dynamic physical living of the kanga-roo. The analogues used by Lawrence to picture the kangaroo areall earth-bound and non-winged. All their movements are de-scribed invariably to be horizontal. And thirdly, the polariza-tion of the animal's belly is to the centre of the earth.The very effort on the part of the poet to picture vividlythe actuality of the kangaroo necessitates the varied and therather numerous similes. And the phrases like "finely lined"face, "drooping Victorian shoulders" and the "great muscularpython-stretch" of the tail of the kangaroo add to make the poemmore picturesque. 8 584~.~. Lawrence, The Complete Poems, p. 392.85 ibid.. p. 393.
With "all her weight, all her blood, dripping sack-wise downtowards the earth's centre'86 the kangaroo carries alone theundelivered message of the animal life in spite of its "havingwatched so many empty dawns. ,18786~.~. Lawrence, The Complete Poems, p. 394,*' ibid., p. 393.
CONCLUSIONThe appearance of various animals in Lawrence hints hispreference of the 'quick' to the stale and static. Animals areused to serve, primarily, as correctives for degrading humanvalues. His ideology assigns the various animals their respectiveslots with his metaphysic of opposites. It was Lawrence'schoice of the quick against the dead that makes him say: "Bettera live dog than a dead lion."Hence, Lawrence's animal imagesare almost always intended to fix upon the mind of his reader theimportance of life that is spontaneous and instinctive.The most obsessive of the animals that recur in Lawrence isthe cat. The cat is invested with the qualities essential forLawrentian ideal living. Lawrence's cat is aloof. It exhibitsan instinctive drive to retain itself unviolated. Its intrinsicbeing is never threatened into compromise. And its fidelity toits innermost nature remains unshaken; hence, the feline creaturefor Lawrence is the closest to approximate his ideal of infallibility.'D.B. Lawrence, 'Why the Novel Matters?", Phoenix, p. 534.
The untamed nature of a cat is what makes it a representa-tive of wild and predatory animals in general. The uncompromis-ing and seifish cat becomes an epitome for that which is abso-lute. The cat comes to stand for the Flesh thus, which isimperative in Lawrence.Among the short novels of Lawrence, The Captain's Doll, - TheVirgin and the Gipsy, The Ladybird and St Mawr have cat-likecharacters in them. Captain Hepburn stands for the Flesh thatdefies the Word; the gipsy represents the ever-changing aspect ofthe Flesh; Count Dionys is cat-like in that he lives a life ofunpredica~ability and spontaneity; Lewis the horse-groom is "ahuman tom-cat", and he contemptuously rejects the tame and cere-bral.Thus, it is evident that all these characters, likened toa cat, stand apart from others in Lawrence. They are distinctand aloof from the commonplace, the run-of-the -mill.The canine animals in Lawrence have a similar significanceto the feline. However, the dog is singled out by him from thewolf and the fox to symbolize the "social being". The dogbecomes the antithesis of the cat in that it does not preserveits individuality; the dog is self-conscious; it easily sacrificesits private being. The dog lacks a personal, secretive life.Even its mating is openly done. These aspects of the dog make
Lawrence parallel a soclal bei?g to it. A social being also, forhim, lacks personal dignlty. His llfe is lived In the lighr. Herelinqulshos t2o readily hls personal self for the convcnt~ons ofthe society he belongs to.~aivrence's wolf, or fox, is not far different from the cat.The untamed canine beasts retain their essential nature unlikethe domesticated, household d3g. Therefore, like the felineanimals, the wolf a?d the fox also represent the dynamism of theFlesh. The wild canines are eabodiments of relentlessness. TheVirgin and the Gipsx and The Fox are the short ~ovels that showthis.The horse is one of the major animals that belong to theLawrentian Weltanschauung, Contrary to his avowed views on thehorse-symbol in his expository writings, his fictional works seemto use the horse as a symbol for female sexuality. The equinebeast is inextricably connected with its master or rider. Whileizhe beast stands for the sexual yearnings of a woman, the malerepresents the master of the horse. If the master of the horseis inefficient, the horse is rendered useless and, thereby,becomes malevolent. "The Rocking-horse Winner", St Maur, TheRainbow, Tho Boy in the Bush and The First Lady Chatterley illustrate,contextually, this significance of the horse-image inLawrence.The marsupial animal, kangaroo, in Lawrence becomes a symbolto connote the all-embracing, generalized feeling of love. Thehuge animal is allegorized to foster certain ideals in its pouch.
Ben Cooley in the novel Kangar3o is the maternal kangaroo whonurtures an idealized, indiscriminating love for mankind in his"tummy". This symbol of the kangaroo is not far different inIessence from the dog in Lawrence's poem "Bibbles": Bibbles exhib-its an indiscriminating love as the Kangaroo, Ben Cooley does inthe novel. The symbolism involved in the kangaroo is too logicalto make it a powerful symbol in the Lawrentian mataphysic.Moreover, the wholly op2osite treatment of the animal kangarooin his poem of that title, reaffirns the observation that,unlike the dog, the allegorized marsupial of the novel is notfirmly rooted in the animal kingdom of Lawrence. For nothing inthe actual animal incites a similar contempt as does the allegoricalbeast of democratic love. By contrast, the dog's mating onthe pavement, publicly, is as contenptible in itself as thesocial being's luxuriating in the light forever. Thus, thesymbolism of the kangaroo is not adequately realized as that ofthe dog is.Apart from these animals, however, there are others thatappear in Lawrence's poems. And these animals bear more overtconnections with Lawrence's metaphysic of the Flesh than thosethat appsar in his prose fiction.The pervasive use of animal images in Lawrence seems to havea close connectim with two other features of his writing. Thecultural primitivism detected in Lawrence surfaces through, among
other things, certain animal symbolism. And secondly, the essentialistphenomenologist in him manifests itself clearly whenLawrence, through his exemplars, deplores the limits of languageand shows it to be a mere tool for co~mun~cation.Michael Bell discusses the primitivism of Lawrence in hisilluminating book on this subject.2 He holds that the mythicalimagination and the treatment of tlme almost as "a homogeneouscontinuum9' in The Rainboy distinguish the novel from Lawrence .slater works where the primitivism is more czmscious: "Lawrence ...seems to have derived his later primitivism largely fromreflection on the nature of his own sensibility". 4While Michael Bell undertakes to show the conscious primi-tivism of Lawrence through an analys~s of The Plumed Serpent, itcan be held that Lawrence's short novel St Mawr also revealstraces of the presence of a similar motif.... it is almost impossible for us to realizewhat the old Greeks meant by God, or theos.Everything was theos, but even so, notc at, thesame moment. At the moment, whatever strucky3u was God.'~ichael Bell, Primitivism (London: Methuen &1972).Ca. Ltd.,5 ~ . Lawrence, ~ , Apocalypse, pp. 52-53.
It is not very difficult from this short quotation then tosee that Lawrence intends his horse, St Mawr, in the short novelof that title to be such a god. Lou Carrington, the protagonistof St Mawr, is said to perceive thatSt Mawr drew his hot breaths in another world. ...perhap8 the old Greek horses had lived in St Mawr'sworld.And significantly, Lawrence evolves subtly, through a dis-cass~on by his characters in this particular short novel, thegreat god Pan to be the momentary god that the Greeks referred toby 'theos'.Pan means all, Lawrence observes, and hence Panis seen in the stallion, St Mawr, by ~ o u . Moreover, ~ when Law-rence mourns the superannuated state8 of the horse here, theunderlying nostalgia is inescapable.Similarly, the cat in Lawrence also inheres a certain primitivistsensibility of his. The aloofness of the cat and thesociety-shunning feline heroes in turn, attempt in a way to reestabishthe primeval world of man. The behavioral pattern ofthe Lawrentian feline characters does demonstrate a distrust ofthe external world and, concurrently, a longing for a pre-verbal age.6 ~ . Lawrence, ~ . The Complete Short Novels, p. 292.7ibid., pp. 325-326.
The second important aspect in Lawrence that is reinforcedby his animal imagery is the phenomenological essentialism ofLawrence. And to say that the contradictions or inconsistenciesin Lawrence are charactristics of the phenomenological. predilectiondetected in his metaphysic is only logical.The short novel The Captain's Doll illustrates this clearly.~awrence's upholding of the Flesh corresponds to the phenorticnologist'srestoring of the subject at the centre of the world,while his dogmatism parallels the authoritarianism that is naturalto phenomenology. 9In addition, it can be said that Lawrence's belief ofthe intrinsic self is not far from the phenomenological 'reduc-tion'.As such, Lawrence also maintains that language is second-ary. He considers language to be an instrument. The idea thatlanguage is limited is voiced by Lawrence as follows:. . . there's always a tom-cat, a black tom-cat ,that pounces on the white dove of the Word ....The frequent use of multiple similes to describe an objector a thing by Lawrence in itself is one of the best attestationsof the fact that he is an essentialist phenomenologist.'Terry Eagleton, Literary Theory: An Introduction (London-Basil Blackwell Ltd., 19861, pp. 55-65."D.H.Lawrence. "The Novel", Phoenix - 11, p. 418.
BIBLIOGRAPHYPrimary SourcesLawrence, D.H. Aaron's Rod. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd.,1980.--------. Apocalypse. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd., 1980.--------. The Boy in the Bush. Harmondsworth: Penguin BookLtrl., 1981.--------. The Collected Short Stories. New Delhi: Rupa & CO.,1984.- - ------. The Complete Poems. Harmondsworth: Penguin BooksLtd., 1980..- ------ . 'l'hc Complete Short Novels. Fiarmonds~vortl~: PcnquinBooks Ltd., 1984.--------. "Fantasia of the Unconscious" and "Psychoanalysis andthe Unconscious". Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd., 1986.-------- . The First Lady Chatterley. Harmondsworth: PenguinBooks Ltd., 1987.--------. Kangaroo. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd., 1977.--------. The Lost Girl. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd.,1980.--------. "Mornings in Mexico" and "Etruscan Places".Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd., 1981.--------. Phoenix: The Posthumous Papers. Harmondsworth:Penguin Books Ltd., 1987.--------. Phoenix 11: Uncollected, unpublished and Other ProseWorks. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd., 1978.Lawrence, D.H. The Plumed Serpent. Harmondsworth: PenguinBooks Ltd., 1982.- .- - - - - - . 'l'i~c, l(dlnbow. Ll;lrmondsworth: I'enguln 13ooks 1,t
- - - - - - - - . The Trespasser. Harmondsworth: Psnguin BooksLtd., 1986.------ -- . The White Peacock. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd.,1982.- - - - - - - - . Women in Love. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd.,1986.Secondary Sources(1 BooksAbrams, M.H. A Glossary of Literary Terms. New Delhi: MacmillanIndia ~tdT, 1981.I v . "D.Ii.Lawrence: The Slngle Shte of Kin", Stt'w,lrtisI'xcellence: Studles - In -- Modern Engllsh - and Amerlcan Poets.hew York: Gordian Press, 1971.Benerjee, A. D.H. Lawrence's "Poetry": "Demon" Liberated: ACollection of Primary and Secondary Material. London: TheYacmillan Press Ltd., 1990.Bell, Michael. Primitivism. London: Methuen &1972.Co. Ltd.,Black, Michael. D.H. Lawrence: The Early Fiction.Macmillan Press Ltd., 1986.Lon~3~~1;: TheBurns, Aidan. Nature and Culture in D.H. Lawrence. London: TheMacmillan Prsss Ltd., 1980.Cavitch, David. D.H. Lawrence and the New World. New York:Oxford <strong>University</strong> Press, 1969.Cha.nbers, Jessie. D.H. Lawrence: A Personal Record.Cambridge <strong>University</strong> Press, 1980.London:Clarke, Colin ed. "The Rainbow" and "Women in Love": A Casebook.L3ndon: The Macmillan Press Ltd., 1982.Clcmen, Wolfgany . The Development of Shakespeart. 's lii1~\~)~31 \ .London: Methut?n & Co. Ltd., 1977.Coffman Jr., Stanley K. Imagism: A Chapter for the Histor\, ofModern Poetry. Norman: <strong>University</strong> of Oklahoma Prsss, 1031Cmmbes, H. ed. D.H. Lawrence: A Critical Anthology.Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd., 1973.Daleski, H.M.The Forked Flame: A Study of D.H. Lawrence.
Daleski, H.M. The Forked Flame: A Study of D.H. Lawrence.Madison: <strong>University</strong> of Wisconsin Press Ltd., 1987.iDraper, Ronald P. D.H. Lawrence. London: The Macmillan Pressittrl. , 1976.ilarj1c.i orl, 'Pt'r ry. T,~terary Theory: An Introduction. London:Uasil Uldckwell Ltd., 1989.Ford, George H. Double Measure: A Study of the Novels and Storiesof D.H. Lawrence. New York: Norton, 1969.Gornme, A.H. .ed. D.H. Lawrence.1979.Sussex: The Harvester Press Ltd.,Goodhcart, Eugene. The Utoplan Vision of D.H. Lawrence.Chicago: <strong>University</strong> of Chicago Press, 1963.flarvey, Sir Paul. The Oxford Companion t.o Classical T,it.~ratur+?.London: Oxford <strong>University</strong> Press, 1969.Hobsbaum, Philip. A Reader's Guide to D.H. Lawrence. London:Thames and Hudson, 1981.Hough, Graham G. The Dark Sun. New York: Octagon Books, 1983.Inniss, Kenneth. D.H. Lawrence's Bestiary.Co., 1971.The Hague: Mouton &Xermode, Frank. Lawrence. Suffolk: Fontana, 1979.TJalrd, Holly A. Self and Sequence: The Poetry of D.H.Lawrence. Charlottesville: <strong>University</strong> Press of Virglnla,1988.Leavls, F.R. D.H. Lawrence: Novelist.Books Ltd., 1978.Harmondsworth: Penguin- - - - - - - - . The Great Tradition. Harmondsworth: Penguin BooksLtd. 1980.Lewis, C. Day. The Poetic Image. London: Jonathan Cape, 1968.l,or.kwoo(l, M.tT. A-.-?JLIQ---OF thf? i'or5t;.ty-;:f---?AI ..-- J~'!~-~~;.L;I?J-L>:'I'iilnkinq irl I.'oetry. New York: St. Martin s Press, i!)U7.blandell, Gail Porter. The Phoenix Paradox: A Study of KenewalThrouqh Chanqe ln the "Collected Poems" and "Last Poems" ofD.H. Lawrence. Carbondale and Edwardsville: SouthernIllinois <strong>University</strong> Press, 1984.bloy~l,~l~an, ,Tul.lan. 'The Deed oT Lifc: 'She Novcls and 'l'alcs 01D.H. Lawrence. Princeton: Princeton <strong>University</strong> Press, 1972.
Preston, Peter and Peter Hoare eds. D.H. Lawrence in the ModernWorld. London: The Macmillan Press Ltd., 1989.Pritch,3rd, R.E. D.H. Lawrence: Body of Darkness. Lgndon:Hutchinson & Co. Ltd., 1971.Ruderman, Judith. D.H. Lawrence and the Devouring Mother: TheSearch for a Patriarchal Ideal of Leadership. Ralegh IhGrthCarolina]: Duke <strong>University</strong> Prezs, 1984.Sagar, Keith. The Art of D.H. Lawrence. London: Cambridge<strong>University</strong> Press, 1978.- - - - - - - - . ed. A D.H. Lawrence Handbook. Manchester: Manchesrer<strong>University</strong> Press, 1982.- - - - - - - - . D.H. Lawrence: Life into Art. Athens: <strong>University</strong> ofGeorgia Press, 1985.Sale, Roger. Modern Heroism: Essays on D.H. Lawrence, WilliamEmpson and J.R.R. Tolkin. Berkely: <strong>University</strong> of CaliforniaPress. 1973.Salgado, Gamini. A Preface to Lawrence. London: Longman GroupLtd., 1982.- - - - - - - - . ed. "Sons and lovers": A Casebook. London: LongmanGroup Ltd., 1982.Slade, Tony. D.H. Lawrence. New York: Arco Publishing Co.,Inc., 1970.Spilka, Mark. ed. D.H. Lawrence: Collection of Critical Essays.Englewood Cliffs [New Jersey]: Prentics-Hall Inc., 1963.- - - - - - - - . The Love Ethic of D.H. Lawrence. Bloomington: Indiana<strong>University</strong> Press, 1955.Spurgeon, Caroline F.E. ~hakespeare's Imagery: And What It Tells- Us. London: Canbridge <strong>University</strong> Press, 1965.Unterecker, John. A Reader's Guide to W.B. Yeats London: Thamesnncl liudson, 1982.W13rncr, Klngsley. The Art of Perversity: D.N. Lawrcncc's Sl~orrt'rrict ion?. Seattle: Un~vcrsity of Wash~nqtnti Pr '.;e, lC)6?.Worthen, John. D.H. Lawrence and the Idea of the Novel.London: w he Mac mill an Press Ltd.. 1979.Williams, Bernard. Descartes: The Project of Pure EnquiryHarmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd., 1985.
(2) ArticlesBlanchard, Lydia. "Women in Love: Mourning Becomes Nsrcissism".Mosaic 15.1 (1982): 105-118.Brown, Keith. "Welsh Red Indians: D.H. Lawrence and StMawr". Essays in Criticism 32. (1982): 158-179.-Cox, Gary D. "D.H. Lawrence and F.M. Dostoevsky: Mirror Imagesof Murderous Aggression". Modern Fiction Studies 29.2(1983): 175-132.Doherty, Gerald. "A 'Very Funny' Story: Figural Play in D.H.Lawrence's The Captain's Doll". The D.H. Lawrence Review18.1 (1985-86): 5-17.Gidley, Mick. "Antipodes: D. H. Lawrence's St Mawr" . Ariel 5.1(1974): 25-41.Greiff, Louis K. "aittersweet Dreaming in ~awrence's The Fox: A. Freudian Perspective". Studies in Short Fiction 20.1(1983): 7-16.Jones, Lawrence. "Physiognomy and the Sensual Will in TheLadybird and The Fox". The D.H. Lawrence Review 13.1(1980): 1-29.McLaughlin, Ann L. "The Clenched and Knotted Horses in TheRainbow". The D.H. Lawrence Review 13.2 (1980): 179-186.Rosenwsing, Paul J. "A Dsfense of the Second Half of The Rainbow".Its Structure and Characterization". The D.H. LawrenceReview 13.2 (1980): 150-160.Schleifer, Ronald. "Lawrence's Rhetoric of Vision: The EndingTl?c Rainbow". 'ril(. D.11. T,nwrc~ncc~ Rr'vir'w 13. 2 ( 1980) : 16 1 -178.Schneider, Daniel J. "Psychology and Art in ~awrence'sKangaroo". The D.H. Lawrence Review -- 14.2 11981): 156-171Stewart, Jack F. "Primitivism in Women in Love". The D. H.Lawrence Review 13.1 (1980): 45-62.. "Th? Vital Art of Lawrence and Van Gogh". Ths D.H.Lawrence Review 19.2 (1987): 123-148.
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