On the Book Lady Chatterleys Lover - Research Paper Example

? Fidelity in Lady Chatterley’s Lover First published in 1928, D.H. Lawrence’s novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover was banned until the 1960s in both the UK and the US as immoral literature (Kohn 2001, 230). The controversy surrounding Lady Chatterley’s Lover was the perception that the novel promoted promiscuity and infidelity (McHale and Stevenson 2006, 79). Niven (1979) however takes an entirely different view of Lawrence’s novel. According to Niven (1979), Lawrence appeals to the sensitivity in human nature and invites his readers to empathize with “tenderness and fidelity in human relationships” (184). At first, the term fidelity does not appear to be consistent with the main plot in Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover. The title itself implies infidelity. The main plot centers around an adulterous wife, Connie Chatterley whose husband is rendered impotent as a result of an injury sustained in the war. Lady Chatterley, an aristocrat then takes up an affair with Mellors, the gamekeeper (Lawrence 2009). The question of fidelity arises in a way that challenges normative values existing at the time. While Lady Chatterley is unfaithful to her husband and breaks ranks with her own class, she is faithful to her lover (Niven 1979, 184). Although Mellors is complicit in Lady Chatterley’s adultery and is married himself, he himself is entirely faithful to Lady Chatterley. According to Gabriel and Smithson (1990), “Mellors seeks the approval of one woman only” (69). The lovers’ fidelity to each other however, calls for infidelity to their respective spouses. However, from Lawrence’s perspective, he was not concerned with what might be characterized as “photographic fidelity”(Wuchina 2009, 172). In other words, Lawrence was more concerned with feelings that commanded fidelity rather than a sense of detached duty. This message is communicated through Mellors who, reflecting on his intimate encounters with Lady Chatterley, observed that: The connection between them was growing closer. He could see the day when it would clinch up, and they would have to make a life together (Lawrence 2009, 142). Wuchina (2009) points out that Mellors has “no second thoughts, or guilt” (174). This is because, “in its essentials, the relationship, the mutual attraction, is essentially legitimate” (Wuchina 2009, 174). The legitimacy is founded on the fact that Lady Chatterley was in a loveless marriage and was making a particularly difficult sacrifice. In fact, Mellors observes of Lady Chatterley: She was nicer than she knew, and oh, so much too nice for the tough lot she was in contact with!..But he would protect her with his heart for a little while. For a little while, before the insentient iron world and the Mammon of mechanized greed did them both in, her as well as him (Lawrence 2009, 136). Mellors was obviously referring to the fact that Lady Chatterley was quite young. She was only 23 years old and was trapped in an unusual situation, one that she was too young and perhaps too naive to cope with. Lady Chatterley was for the most part confined to the companionship of her wounded husband and his circle of friends with whom she was essentially bored. As Daum (2008) observes, this is a situation that the young Lady Chatterley had to endure each day and it could not have been easy to cope with (3). Yet in this youthful innocence, the moral code of the times commanded fidelity from Lady Chatterley. Lawrence (2009) immediately draws attention to the fallacy of the moral code of the times. The novel opens with the caution “ours is essentially a tragic age” (5). Lady Chatterley was trapped in a time where, the First World War and its consequences were still fresh. She was therefore tethered to a marriage in which she could not find happiness and had yet to learn the meaning of life. As the plot moves along, a poignant issue necessarily arises. Is it fair to expect the young Lady Chatterley in the circumstances in which she finds herself to be faithful to her marriage and her life? Once Lady Chatterley falls in love with Mellors, the issue of fidelity becomes even more profound. Now that she has found true love and a chance at happiness, her fidelity is perhaps a question of being true to herself and her own feelings. In other words, there is a salient tension between fidelity as prescribed by society and fidelity as prescribed by one’s own feelings. Society’s prescription was more profound among the class structures. From Mellors’ perspective: There was a toughness, a curious rubber-necked toughness and unlivingnes about the middle and upper classes, as he had known them, which just left him feeling cold and different from them (Lawrence 2009, 142). Fidelity in Lady Chatterley’s Lover is therefore not merely a question of being true to one’s marriage. It is a question about being true to one’s own feelings and one’s own social caste. Mellors and Lady Chatterley cannot be true to themselves and their own feelings unless they turn their backs on class constructs and their respective marriages. Kermode, (2010) informs that Lawrence thus intended Lady Chatterley’s Lover to be realistic with respect to sexual relations (78). In many ways the novel was intended to act as some form of shock therapy (Kermode 2010, 78). Lawrence initially intended to title the novel Tenderness and by doing so, the novel’s title would reflect the underlying theme of the novel (Kermode 2010, 78). Fidelity and tenderness are intimately connected. In other words a relationship lacking in tenderness could hardly command and expect fidelity. As Kermode (2010) explains, Lawrence believed that tenderness “was to replace leadership as the quality most necessary to the health of the world” (78). Tenderness was necessary for attaining fulfilment, which was necessary for becoming whole. Niven (1979) expresses the view that Lady Chatterley’s Lover “concerns the attainment of wholeness of being” (184). Where there is mutual sharing, fidelity can be expected. Neither Mellors or Lady Chatterley are able to find wholeness in their respective social castes nor in their respective marital relationships. In fact, it is only in their betrayal of their social castes and their marriages are Mellors and Lady Chatterley able to find “their wholeness through the harmony of sharing” (Niven 1979, 184). Essentially, the fidelity commanded for marriage is based on the perception that marriage is based on harmony of sharing and mutual love and respect as well as tenderness. Fiction such as Lady Chatterley’s Lover demonstrates that fidelity is an issue and should be when the marriage is in crisis and is essentially not based on harmony of sharing, mutual love and respect and tenderness (Pradhan 2004, p. 175). Fiction such as Lady Chatterley’s Lover that challenge fidelity and the institution of marriage sends a message to society. As Pradhan (2004) maintains that message is essentially: Love laws cannot be framed by either the society or the State. The individuals should choose their own private act as per their spontaneous creative sexual desires, motivations and impulses rather than the cold, calculated, nervous, mechanical, dead erotic sex (176). Of course, Lady Chatterley’s Lover depicts an even colder reality in that Lady Chatterley, a young 23 year old woman is confined to a sexless marriage. Realistically, this marriage is essentially flawed. There can be no tenderness in the absence of intimacy between this married couple. A sexless marriage would have consequences for both parties and fidelity would obviously be a serious challenge. Through Lady Chatterley, the reader becomes aware of the strain of fidelity in a sexless marriage. The reality of a lack of intimacy is always there, even in social settings when: Clifford looked at Connie, with his pale, slightly prominent blue eyes, in which a certain vagueness was coming. He seemed alert in the foreground, but the background was like the Midlands atmosphere, haze, smoky mist. And the haze seemed to be creeping forward (Lawrence 2009, 52). In other words, the lack of intimacy shared in the bedroom is an on-going and pervasive problem for the marriage between Clifford Chatterley and Lady Chatterley. Through Lady Chatterley, Lawrence puts the marital problem realistically: …dimly she realized one of the great laws of the human soul: that when the emotional soul receives a wounding shock, which does not kill the body, the soul seems to recover as the body recovers. But this is only appearance. It is really only the mechanism of the re-assumed habit. Slowly, slowly the wound to the soul begins to make itself felt, like a bruise, which only slowly deepens its terrible ache, til it fills all the psyche. And when we think we have recovered and forgotten, it is then that the terrible after-effects have to be encountered at their worst (Lawrence 2009, 52). Lawrence (2009) is therefore describing the reality of a sexless marriage. The lack of intimacy is not merely a physical shortcoming. It infects the soul and as such infects the marital relationship and the expectation that the marriage should revolve around mutual sharing. The lack of intimacy has left the union between Clifford and Lady Chatterley rather cold and detached. Arguably it left the young Lady Chatterley frustrated as a core element of marital expectations was left unfulfilled. Realistically, she was young and married and could expect to have a fulfilling sex life and thereby fidelity could be expected and demanded of her. However, those marital expectations were not met and it would be entirely unrealistic to expect fidelity of her. Similarly, Clifford Chatterley was affected by the absence of intimacy in the marriage and this would only result in greater damage to the relationship. As observed through Lady Chatterley: Mentally, he was still alert. But the paralysis, the bruise of the too-great shock, was gradually spreading in his affective self” (Lawrence 2009, 52). Therefore the physical wound that prevented continued consummation of the marriage, was creating an emotional wound that would do irreparable harm to the marriage. As Lawrence informs his audience: And as it spread in him, Connie felt it spread in her. An inward dread, an emptiness, an indifference to everything gradually spread in her soul. In other words, the lack of intimacy in the marriage created a chain reaction, challenging both parties to a point where the only connection between the Chatterleys was the realization that they were growing farther and farther apart. Reeve (2003) is of the opinion that the detachment manifested in Clifford however, unfolds in such a way as to leave the reader with the impression that he would have been the same detached individual with or without the injury (87). Although Reeve does not provide a detailed explanation of how he came to this conclusion, it is easy to surmise that the fact that he had been exposed to a World War and was intricately tied to social constructs and his own circle of camaraderie could have accounted for his emotional detachment from his wife. The physical detachment only served to widen the gulf between them. According to Reeve (2003) the fact that Clifford’s attitude and demeanor was substantially what one might reasonably expect of him regardless of his injury, only served to justify Lady Chatterley’s infidelity (87). Even so, Lady Chatterley is not soulless. Indeed she realizes that pledging fidelity to Mellors means that she is betraying and thereby denying Clifford fidelity. The fidelity to Mellors is therefore aptly marked by the driving of a nail in a tree (Lawrence 2009, 79). As Reeve (2003) puts it, the act of driving the nail in the tree combines “killing” and: Fixing the heart permanently to one place, as though the two amounted to the same thing…(87). What can be taken from this is the fact that Lady Chatterley was in a difficult position. She was not comfortable with betraying her husband. However, the circumstances of her marriage left her incomplete and unsatisfied. She had found completeness and satisfaction with Mellors and therefore found that she could be true to him. Although it pained her to betray her husband, she could not find fulfilment with Mellors unless she betrayed Clifford. In the final analysis, Lady Chatterley’s Lover informs that sexual satisfaction and relationship fulfilment is entirely necessary for fidelity. These are very personal ambitions and feelings and cannot be prescribed by public morals. Public morals and normative values would have unrealistically expected Lady Chatterley to commit to a loveless and sexless marriage under the guise of fidelity. In order to comport with this public code, Lady Chatterley would have had to deny her true self and her true human feelings. This kind of fidelity would not be healthy for the individual as it leaves the individual empty and embittered. Lady Chatterley’s marriage therefore demonstrates that blind fidelity is unrealistic. It is only through her infidelity that she is able to find the fulfilment and satisfaction that successfully commands fidelity. When she falls in love with Mellors and is able to have a satisfactory sexual relationship, Lady Chatterley is able to be faithful to her lover. The underlying message is therefore that sexual connections are important to fostering emotional connections in relationships. Intimacy of the body corresponds with intimacy of the mind. It is entirely unrealistic to expect that a sexless marriage could make a union of two spouses complete. The relationship between Clifford and Lady Chatterley is demonstrative of the significance of physical intimacy in demanding fidelity. Likewise the relationship between Lady Chatterley and Mellors demonstrates that physical satisfaction is an important component of fidelity in relationships. Works Cited Daum, K. Civilisation, Marriage and Tenderness in D. H. Lawrence’s Novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Netherlands: GRIN Verlag, 2008. Gabriel, S. and Smithson, I. Gender in the Classroom: Power and Pedagogy. Detroit: University of Illinois Press, 1990. Kermode, F. “Lady Chatterley’s Lover (D.H. Lawrence)”, cited in Bloom, B. (ed) Bloom’s Literary Themes: The Taboo. NY: Infobase Publishing, 2010. Kohn, G. The New Encyclopedia of American Scandal. NY: Infobase Publishing, 2001. Lawrence, D. H. Lady Chatterley’s Lover. El Paso: El Paso Norte Press, 2009. McHale, B. and Stevenson, R. The Edinburgh Companion to Twentieth-century Literatures in English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006. Niven, A. D.H. Lawrence: The Novels. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979. Pradhan, P. “The God of Small Things as Expression of Social Structure”, cited in Ray, M. and Kundu, R. (Eds) Studies in Women Writers in English, Vol. 4. NY: Atlantic Publishers and Distributers, 2004. Wuchina, C. Destinies of Splendor: Sexual Attraction in D.H. Lawrence. NY: Peter Lang Publications, 2009. Read More