D. H.

LAWRENCE [1885–1930]
Group 5
1. Author 6. Themes
2. Setting 7. Symbolism
3. Plot 8. Style/ Tone
4. Characters 9. Consolidation
5. Point of view
 1. AUTHOR
• English writer, poet, playwright, literary
critic and painter.
• Born in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, into a
working-class family.
• Married Frieda Rosenthal in 1914, and
together they traveled throughout Europe
and Mexico.
• He died of tuberculosis in Vence, France, at
the age of 44.
 1. AUTHOR
Writing style
• Modern, bold, straightforward
• Writes sex, love, violence, human instinct.
• His works are often controversial because of their sexual content and
radical views on society.

Lawrence is also appreciated for his ability to explore complex aspects

of human psychology and important social issues.
S

1. AUTHOR

Typical
works
Odour of Chrysanthemums - 1911 The Horse Dealer's Daughter - 1922 The Fox - 1923 The Captain's Doll - 1923

Son and Lover - 1913 The Outsider - 1917 Women In Love - 1920 Lady Chatterley's Lover - 1928 The Escaped Cock - 1929
 2. SETTING - Time
During winter in the early
20th century

Associated with coldness, isolation, and

stagnation

Reinforces feelings of despair

 2. SETTING - Places
A small coal mining The graveyard
town in England
• represents harsh • liminal spaces, existing
working conditions and between life and death
poverty The Pervin family home • foreshadows despair
• reflects the Pervin • gloomy atmosphere, and potential suicide
family's struggles modest dwelling

• mirrors the emotional

state of the characters
and financial decline
 3. PLOT
Climax
Jack Fergusson decides to
jump into the pond to
rescue Mabel Pervin.

Rising action Falling action

Mabel visits her mother’s grave and
attempts suicide by walking into the pond.
Jack sees Mabel caring her mother’s grave,
and witnesses marble drowns herself in
the pond.
Dr. Jack Fergusson and Mabel Pervin return
to Mabel’s house after the near-tragedy at
the pond. Jack takes care of Marbel, and she
thinks that he loves her. Jack hesitantly
admits his love for Mabel.

Exposition Resolution
The Pervin siblings learn about Both Jack Ferguson and Mabel
their dire economic situation Pervin agree to marriage.
 3. PLOT
Internal conflict External conflict
Mabel Pervin’s struggle with
The Pervin siblings’ financial crisis
her identity and self-worth

Dr. Jack Fergusson’s struggle Jack’s witnessing Mabel’s

with his feelings for Mabel suicide attempt
4. CHARACTERS

MABEL PERVIN JACK FERGUSSON

Round Character
Round Character
Protagonist/Hero
Protagonist
Antagonist
 4. CHARACTERS

FRED HENRY PERVIN JOE PERVIN MALCOLM PERVIN JOSEPH PERVIN

Flat Character Flat Character Flat Character

Antagonist
Antagonist Antagonist Antagonist
 4. CHARACTERS
• Appearance
“The girl was alone, a rather short, sullen-
looking young woman of twenty-seven”
“... impressive fixity of her face, “bull-dog,” as
her brothers called it”

• Lonely and suffered with life

“She did not share the same life as her
brothers.”
“She had suffered badly during the period of
poverty.”
 4. CHARACTERS
• Inscrutable woman
“He pushed his coarse brown moustache
upwards, off his lip, and glanced irritably at his
sister, who sat impassive and inscrutable”.

• Hopelessly about life

“It was enough that this was the end, and
there was no way out”

The protagonist starts out as quiet and

apathetic about unhappy drudgery she suffered
 4. CHARACTERS
• Longing for love:
“ She went regularly to church, she attended to
her father. And she lived in the memory of her
mother, who had died when she was fourteen,
and whom she had loved. She had loved her
father, too, in a different way, depending upon
him, and feeling secure in him, until at the age
of fifty-four he married again.
 4. CHARACTERS
• Longing for love:
She then moved powerfully forward her
salvation

“Mindless and persistent, she seemed in a sort

of ecstasy to be coming nearer to her
fulfilment, her own glorification, approaching
her dead mother, who was glorified.”
 4. CHARACTERS
• Express emotions more intensely when almost finding happiness happiness,
contrasting with the initial impassive fixity toward everything:

“You love me,” she murmured, in strange transport, yearning and triumphant
and confident. “You love me. I know you love me, I know.”

“And I'm so awful, I'm so awful! Oh, no, I'm too awful.' And she broke into
bitter, heart-broken sobbing. You can't want to love me, I'm horrible.”
4. CHARACTERS
• Town Doctor
“…a young man entered... He was of medium
height, his face was rather long and pale, his
eyes looked tired.”

This detail foreshadows the emotional journeys

and transformations that both Jack and Mabel
undergo throughout the story.
4. CHARACTERS
• Compassion and Humanity
“...he hastened straight down, running over the
wet...pushing through the hedges, down into
the depression of callous wintry obscurity.”

• Transformation
“He never intended to love her. But now it was
over. He had crossed over the gulf to her, and
all that he had left behind had shrivelled and
become void.”
4. CHARACTERS
• Emotional Complexity
“Yes.” The word cost him a painful effort. Not
because it wasn’t true. But because it was too
newly true, the saying seemed to tear open
again his newly-torn heart.

• Determination and Sacrificial Love

“I want you, I want to marry you, we’re going
to be married, quickly, quickly — to-morrow if
I can.
 4. CHARACTERS
• Erect, clean-limbed, alert.

• Master of any horse.

• Most insistent → concern for her but also

desire to control.

• Plan to Northampton to seek employment

→ in contrast with Mabel’s despair
4. CHARACTERS
• 33 years old, broad and handsome, in a hot,
flushed way

• Marry and get a job from father-in-law

→ feels economically secure

• Cares more about losing horses

→ represents humanity’s primal instinct for life
 4. CHARACTERS
• Malcom, twenty-two, is the youngest
brother and has a fresh face and an
optimistic outlook.

• Common factor of the 3 brothers: They all

get irritated with Mabel. They all oppress her
and try to act like they rule her life.
 4. CHARACTERS

• An uneducated man.
• Ran a horse-dealing business: initially successful but began to fail.
• Married a second time for money, but her fortune was not enough
to save his business.
• He died leaving his children in debt.
 5. POINT OF VIEW
THIRD-PERSON POINT OF VIEW THROUGH DIFFERENT PERSONS’ PERSPECTIVE

• The first part of the story is narrated from all characters’ point of view.

• The second part is from Mabel Pervin.

• The third part is from Dr. Jack Fergusion.

• The last part of the story is from points of view of both Mabel Pervin and
Jack Fergusion.
 6. THEMES
Women have fewer choices than men in life decisions

The coldness from society can freeze the soul and kill the body of a person.

Love can revive a person.

Happiness comes simply from sincere care.

 7. SYMBOLISM

Pond Sky Clothes

 7. SYMBOLISM

Fire Horses
 7. SYMBOLISM
THE HORSES

• The four draught-horses, roped together, move

“floutingly” and “sumptuously” yet with "a
stupidity which held them in subjection".

→ The Pervin siblings’ own situation - moving

forward but with a sense of powerlessness.
 7. SYMBOLISM
• Symbolic of the Pervin siblings, describes the THE HORSES
brothers in terms of horses:

- Joe stands in "horsey fashion,”

- Fred Henry is an "animal which controls,”
- Malcolm has a "jaunty museau."

→ “animal pride“, the importance of the horses in

their lives
 7. SYMBOLISM
THE HORSES

• Pervins’ inability to control their own lives:

Horses being led by a rope = They lost freedom,

fortune and being led with a sense of
hopelessness into the future
 7. SYMBOLISM
Joe teased the dog with food → family’s business THE DOG
went down → more aware of food Elevate and
mock different characters:

• Mabel’s “bull-dog” face: Her stubbornness and

resilience, and brothers’ insensitivity and
misunderstanding towards her.

• Joe had “his tail between his legs”: ashamed,

timid.
7. SYMBOLISM
CHURCHYARD / MOTHER’S GRAVE
Mabel feels closest to her mother
The loss, loneliness that Mabel feels>< The
place where she finds comfort, guidance

THE DINING ROOM

“The dreary dining-room itself”, “heavy mahogany
furniture”, “waiting to be done away with” → gloomy,
dark = Pervin siblings’ situation: desultory , vague
about future → disintegration of the family and the
loss of family warmth
 7. SYMBOLISM
Mabel’s attempt to drown herself
THE POND
• humanity’s desire for death, feeling of being
trapped in a lifeless existence
• stillness and opaqueness = the peace and
finality
Dr. Jack Fergusson saved her
• new life and love emerge
• both characters confront their repressed
emotions and desires

→ A place of death to one of rebirth

 7. SYMBOLISM
THE SKY
Before Mabel drowned herself
• “gray, deadened, and wintry”
• “slow, moist, heavy coldness”
→ represented Mabel’s sad past, completely stuck

After Mabel was rescued by Jack

• “looked round into the dim, dark gray world”
→ represented her dark, unclear future
 7. SYMBOLISM
NORTHHAMPTON
A manufacturing town - during the early 20th
century.

Fred went to that city → seek for a job to change

his life, his condition.

→ human’s aspiration
 7. SYMBOLISM
• The sound of the horses’ steps: “echoing”
The successful past of Pervin family => no longer good.

• The dawn
A new beginning and the promise of a brighter future.

• The fire
Warmth, comfort, and life
 7. SYMBOLISM
• Clothes
Reborn, new beginning.

• The holy tree

- “see a cavalcade of shire horses” -> last horses -> loose hope.
- “save for the light of a street-lamp” -> the light at the end of the tunel.
 8. STYLE/TONE
Style
Dialogue
• “If I was her, I should go in for
training for a nurse”
• “I want you”
Vivid imagery
• "a grey, wintry day”
• “dark-green fields”
• “foolish restlessness”
Stream of consciousness
“Their eyes meet…he had drunk some
powerful drug”
Tone
Melancholic
The story mostly has a sad tone, with loneliness, loss,
and worry present throughout.
Desperate
The characters deal with challenges they can't
overcome and feel hopeless.
Hopeful
Mabel and Dr. Ferguson, despite their initial struggles,
find hope and create a better future together.
 8. STYLE/TONE
• SIMILE
“Mabel sat on like one condemned”

• METAPHOR
“Heart's painful kiss”
- Heart: the strong and sincere feelings that the doctor in the story feels towards
Mabel.
- Painful kiss: not just a gesture of affection but also carries the sense of a
complicated and painful relationship.
 8. STYLE/TONE
• IRONY

1. Mabel and Dr. Fergusson outwardly express love but internally face conflicts
and fears about the future.

2. Jack Fergusson: He is a doctor who can't heal his own heart, emotional issues.

3. 'I want you,' Mabel seeks happiness but fears it when it comes, contradicting
her desires.

4. Mabel suddenly fears Jack rejecting her more than anything, contrasting her
past indifference to relationship.
 9. CONSOLIDATION
Stream of consciousness:
The story has helped to delve deeper into the thoughts and emotions of the
characters. Through this, readers can understand more deeply and
multidimensionally the complexities in the psychological developments, as
well as the circumstances the characters are experiencing.

Social criticism:
Reflects society's imposition and standards of love, happiness and success
through the characters and situations

Open-ended story:
Reader draw their own conclusions and debate its meaning and outcome.