The Horse Dealers Daughter by D.H. Lawrence - Research Paper Example

? Sebastian The Horse Dealer’s Daughter and the elements of the story In “The Horse Dealers Daughter”, D.H. Lawrence depicts the struggles of a woman who tries to cope with the collapse of her family and her strained relationship between her and her brothers. She does not feel loved and thus begins to feel insecure of her worth and purpose in life. Having so much of love to give and yet having no one to give it to, she looks for a way out. Through the use of characters, symbolism, language, style and description, D.H. Lawrence presents his theme of romantic love as an irrational force that is psychologically redeeming through the emotional development of the two main characters Mabel Pervin and Dr. Jack Ferguson. In their book, A Companion to the British and Irish short story, Cheryl Alexander Malcolm and David Malcolm maintain that the story’s opening “establishes the principal concern of the story: the emotional, physical and financial well-being of Mabel, whose place in society and sense of self has been deeply wounded by the family’s downfall”. She has nobody to love and care for except her dead parents - her mother who passed away when she was just 14 and her father who recently died. “And she lived in the memory of her mother, who had died when she was just fourteen, and for whom she had loved. She had loved her father, too, ……. feeling secure in him, ….. and now he had died and left them all hopelessly in debt” (Lawrence). When they could not afford a housekeeper, Mabel took on the household chores “keeping the home together in penury for her ineffectual brothers.” She did not mind it for “so long as there was money, the girl felt herself established, and brutally proud, reserved” (Lawrence). She did it for Sebastian 2 the love of her family. When her parents died, she has nobody to love to love her in return. Her brothers do not want her love. In fact, she never shared any feelings of love with her father or her brothers. She is angry with her father for marrying. In fact, her father and brothers “talked at her and round her for so many years that she hardly heard them at all” (Lawrence). She is often referred to by degrading terms such as “the sulkiest bitch that ever trod”, her brothers also teased her about being a maid or about her “bulldog” face. Mable is also pictured as sitting “immutable” and like “one condemned” when her brothers talk to her. Mabel’s brothers, Joe, Fred and Malcolm do not see to the welfare of their sister. After the death of their father, they decide to go their own way. Joe, the eldest, is set to marry a woman whose father would provide him with a job and therefore is not worried. Fred pretends to be concerned about his sister but this is a facade to avoid facing his own uncertain future. He has no control over his own destiny and often lashes out at Mabel’s unwillingness to decide what she wants to do. Malcolm, the youngest, seems more concerned but only offers his sister suggestions on what she should do. Thus, while Mabel’s brothers have more or less decided on their future plans, Mable is unsure of what the future holds for her. They have more economically viable options than Mable. As a woman, she does not have the same social mobility or economic opportunities as her brothers have. Her brothers decide to go in their own separate ways but Mabel has no place to go to. She has only a few options left open to her – she could go and live with her sister or become a servant. At the beginning of the story, her brother asks her, “Well, Mabel, what are you going to do with yourself?” She is forced by her brothers to find a new place. She tells her brothers that she is not quite sure where she is going only to be ticked off by her brothers that if she does not make a Sebastian 3 decision, then she would end up living in the streets “find yourself lodgings on the kerbstone”. Instead of encouraging and motivating her, they tease her and seem to make fun of her sense of hopelessness and loneliness. As Cheryl Alexander Malcolm and David Malcolm note, “… unlike her brothers, who seem content to throughout the story to follow [a] pre-destined course, Mabel – like so many of Lawrence’s spirited female protagonists – breaks the emotional bonds of her predicament and yearns for something more.” Unlike her brothers who had many friends, she “had no associates of her own sex, after her sister went away”. Mabel looks at her own predicament and considers the solutions to her problems. “Still she would not cast about her. She would follow her own way just the same. She would always hold the keys of her own situation” (Lawrence). Mabel, thus, contemplates on the only possible solution – a reunion with her dead mother. The only place that Mabel felt really secure was at her mother’s grave. “There she always felt secure, as if no one could see her, ……. She felt immune from the world, reserved within the thick churchyard wall as in another country” and she “seemed to feel contact with the world that her mother had lived” (Lawrence). Her brothers, however, were quite the opposite of her. The memory of their parents was only temporary and they spoke little of them and showed little emotion for them. Thomas H McCabe in Rhythm as Form in Lawrence: The Horse Dealer’s Daughter remarks that the short story opens in winter with the action of withdrawal as “the family pulls apart in separate direction in an atmosphere of death and the end of a living relationship with each other” (McCabe 66). It is interesting to note the animal imagery used to describe the characters is done for a purpose. The older brother, Joe, is referred to as a “subject animal” that is about to “marry and go into harness” while Fred Henry refers to himself as an Sebastian 4 “animal which controls”, Mabel is called “bull-dog” by her brothers. The narrator refers to Mabel and her brothers as four horses having no sense of direction. The animal imagery shows that the brothers have no respect or love for their only sister. While they have all made plans for their future, they neglect their sister and have no plans for her. They only suggest that she goes and puts up with their elder sister for the time being. However, Mabel has no such intention. Instead, Mabel decides to end her problems by drowning herself in the lake near the cemetery. As the Jeffrey Meyers in D.H. Lawrence and Tradition: “The Horse Dealers Daughter” observes, that Mabel finding “her money gone, her household destroyed, and her life shattered by the death of her father” (Meyers 346) leads her to contemplate suicide. More accurately, with her parents dead, her sister gone, her brothers about to depart, her money exhausted, her middle class pride destroyed, she finds solace with her dead mother and attempts suicide. In his essay, The Horse Dealer’s Daughter : An Interpretation, Clyde de Ryals explains that “Mabel is dead, spiritually dead. Differing from her brothers …. only in knowing she is dead [and] exists in a living hell” (154). Jack Fergusson is in the same situation as Mabel. He, too, has few friends including Mabel’s brothers. Although Jack Fergusson realized the stupidity of Mabel’s brothers and realized that they were coarse and vulgar, he considered them his friends. He had only his small circle of friends and his job as a doctor to keep him occupied. “Nothing but work, drudgery, constant hastening from dwelling to dwelling among the colliers and the iron-workers. It wore him out, but at the same time he had a craving for it. It was a stimulant to him…..” (Lawrence). Although Fergusson had a good job, he had no love in his life and therefore no enjoyment. Both Sebastian 5 Jack and Mabel had one thing in common – their loneliness and unhappiness. Apart from that, there is nothing that they share or have in common. As Michele St-Pierre in her essay The Marriage Plot in “The Horse Dealer’s Daughter” mentions “In the exposition, the author reveals the two future lovers as not being close at all. The doctor barely speaks to the young woman. He even looks intimidated when she answers his question.” Both the lives of Jack Fergusson and Mabel are consumed by darkness just like the town they lived in. This can be seen in Lawrence’s description of the town – “In the distance, across a shallow dip in the country, the small town was clustered like smouldering ash, a tower, a spire, a heap of low, raw, extinct houses”. Like the town, Fergusson and Mabel had become like “smouldering ash”. This image of darkness shows the emptiness in their lives. Moreover, Fergusson and Mabel had no feelings for each other. Lawrence uses the pond as a symbol to show the feelings of both these characters before and after the incident when Fergusson saves Mabel from drowning. The pond is described as lying in a “soddened hollow of fields”. The word “soddened” suggests a damp, dreary place that has no life in it. The pond’s hollow brings to mind a grave. The smell of the pond is “rotten” again suggesting that it smells like a dead, rotting thing. The water is described as cold, as cold as the feelings that Fergusson and Mabel have for each other. Before going into the pond, the relationship between them was dead and cold. The pond symbolizes the empty, meaningless life of both the characters. The association of the pond and water with death is established from the beginning of the suicide scene. After Mabel had clipped the grass from her mother’s grave, “she took an empty jar from a neighbouring grave, brought water, and carefully, most scrupulously sponged the marble Sebastian 6 headstone and the coping stone” (Lawrence). This work gives her great satisfaction as she feels a connection with her mother’s world. As Karen Bernardo notes in her essay An Analysis of D.H. Lawrence’s ‘The Horse Dealer’s Daughter’ that at this point of the story, we are introduced to “the possibility of Mabel going to her mother literally, through death, rather than just figuratively through a sense of unity with the departed one.” One afternoon, Mabel walks towards the pond and is watched by Fergusson. He watches her as she stands by the bank for a while, never raising her head. Then, she wades into the water towards the centre of the pond until the water rose up to her breasts and then he could not see her. When the doctor decides to go and save Mabel from drowning, the pond is again described in terms of death. His eyes penetrated the dead water and when he wades through the water, the water “clasped dead cold round his legs” and as he stirred “he could smell the cold, rotten clay that fouled up into the water” (Lawrence). The lower part of his body was sunk “in the hideous cold element”. He did not know how to swim and was afraid. He felt the “dead cold pond” as he searched for her and again when he lost his balance, he again went under the “foul earthy water, struggling madly for a few moments”. Then, he carried her “out of the clutches of the pond” and “out of the horror of wet, grey clay”. Although, initially afraid of the water, Jack plunges into the water to save Mabel because his job was to save lives. He was merely doing his job. As a doctor, he felt that he had an obligation to save her. Jack never had any romantic inclinations towards anyone including Mabel. Jack’s fear of going too deep into the pond and drowning represents his fear of falling in love. The description of the pond as being dead and cold, symbolizes that Jack has no romantic feelings for her. After resuscitating her, he brings her back to her house. When Jack went into the lake, he found Mabel. He also found love. He was afraid to go in deep because he was afraid of drowning. This Sebastian 7 represents his fear of falling in love. He was afraid of the water because he could not swim, and also because he was scared of love. (Planet Papers) He, then, proceeds to strip off her wet, stinking clothes and wraps her in blankets. The exchange that follows marks a turning point in the story. Once Mabel regains consciousness, she asks him if he was the one who pulled her out of the water and undressed her. Later, she asks him whether he loved her. She then convinces herself that he loves her. Mabel assumes that since Jack had saved her, he must love her. The fact that Jack has removed her clothes seems to seal their fates together. Perhaps in her mind, she sees Jack’s actions as the actions of a husband. However, Jack has no such intentions. “He had never thought of loving her. He had never wanted to love her. When he rescued her and restored her, he was a doctor, and she was a patient. He had had no single personal thought of her” (Lawrence). In a rash moment, Mabel gravitates towards him and clutches his legs, saying “You love me. I know you love me, I know”. And yet, he found her touch irresistible and he experienced a “horror of yielding to her.” Although the idea of love never occurred to him, he begins to realize that he does indeed love her. Suddenly, looking into his eyes, Mabel realizes that Jack does not love her. “I’m so awful, I’m so awful ….. You can’t want to love me, I’m horrible.” But Jack “had (already) crossed the gulf to her, and all that he had left behind had become void”. He reassures her “I want you, I want to marry you, we’re going to be married, quickly, quickly - tomorrow if I can”. In her article An Analysis of D.H. Lawrence’s ‘The Horse Dealer’s Daughter, Karen Bernardo maintains that Jack had no love or lustful intentions for Mabel. She argues that Jack felt free to undress Mabel because he was a doctor and not because he was consumed with lust. She insists that: Sebastian 8 Doctors do not look at naked women in the same way as, for example, a lover would; there is absolutely no reason to believe that he has ever looked at Mabel lustfully, or even lovingly, before. But Lawrence seems to argue that by plucking Mabel out of the water, by bringing her back into the world, Jack has assumed the responsibility for her. The most traditional way for a young unmarried man to assume responsibility for a young unmarried woman is to marry her. Consequently Mabel assumes that Jack must love her, since he has brought her back to the world of the living and purports to take care of her. Karen Bernardo’s contention is that Jack concedes to marry Mabel out of his sense of responsibility or obligation and not because of his feelings of love. Instinct is what drove him to save her. He would have resorted to the same course of action had it been for any other person. It was his sense of duty that he put aside his fears of the water and saved Mabel from drowning. Jack voices his intention of marrying Mabel at the first opportunity available. This is because he is afraid that he might change his mind if he waits longer. In the introduction to Major Short Stories of D.H. Lawrence – A Handbook, Martin F. Kearney comments: Readers, immersed in Jack’s psyche, share his agony as he battles a fear of drowning, a will-to-power, a desire to remain separate, a class consciousness, and a terrifying horror of commitment. But he crosses the gulf. He defers to Mabel. The doctor’s old self dies and he is delivered by the woman whom only moments Sebastian 9 before he had saved from suicide. ………… At last, with this alliance where the lovers have momentarily sacrificed themselves for the other, have willingly and completely given themselves to the other, there is cause for optimism (that) love can exist. (xxxvii) For Mable, her alliance with Jack offers her a new opportunity as well as security. Having lost her father who is the sole bread winner, she is at life’s lowest ebb. Thus, when the opportunity to marry and find security presents itself, Mabel grabs it. Mabel needs Jack for his money and a life of comfort that she once enjoyed. Similarly, Jack needs Mabel as he is most unlikely to find someone else to love. When Jack is about to leave Mabel to attend to his duties as a doctor, Mabel breaks down sobbing and tells him how awful she has been. Although Jack tries to convince her that he loves her, she does not believe him. In fact, she becomes more frightened. She realizes then that she does not really love him. Thus, the two characters experience what some critics refer to as a symbolic death and rebirth. Mabel tries to commit suicide and Jack who does not know how to swim and in fact fears water, saves her. Both come back from death’s claws. Mabel sees in the doctor an opportunity to solve her problems and stave of her depression. There is no indication in the story that Mabel loves the doctor. Mabel realizes that it is in her best interest to find a husband with a good job so that she can enjoy a comfortable life, like the one she had when her father was alive. He takes responsibility for her well-being. His expression of love is a desire not to hurt Mabel and not an expression of his inner true feelings. By marrying Mabel, Jack will not be alone again. By falling in love, they have only to gain. Meyers states that in Lawrence’s work, “the watery regeneration and archetypal rite of Sebastian 10 immersion, nakedness and new clothes as well as the transition from water to firm land, from death to life, from isolation to conjunction, from despair to delight, from indifference to passion, lead inevitably to emotional commitment and to the promise of new existence” (Meyers 349). E.W. Tedlock in his article D.H. Lawrence, Artist and Rebel: A Study of Lawrence’s Fiction, calls the story a “memorable, beautifully wrought development of Lawrence’s vitalistic death and resurrection theme” (Tedlock 114). He further describes the last scene as follows: “Her resurrection in life is accomplished by his full commitment to her. When she revives in nakedness, she feels that she is loved …. [and] through her touch he is drawn from his professional impersonality and fear” (Tedlock 114). In the end, when Mabel and Jack change their wet clothes and put on dry ones, they are starting new lives. Their old clothes were dirty because they had both gone into the pond and needed to be changed. Thus wearing new clothes represent a new outlook on life for both of them. Thus, in “The Horse Dealers Daughter”, D.H. Lawrence helps to establish his theme of romantic love as an irrational force that is psychologically redeeming although it has its share of pain and torment. It is romantic love that prevents Mabel from committing suicide and gives her security. It redeems her from the torment of poverty, suffering and depression. In a similar way, it redeems Jack Fergusson from his loneliness and gives him a life patner. Sebastian 11 Works Cited Malcolm, Cheryl Alexander and David Malcolm A Companion to the British and Irish short story. UK: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2008 Malcolm Meyers, Jeffrey. "D. H. Lawrence and Tradition: The Horde Dealer’s Daughter, Studies In Short Fiction . 26.3 (1989): 346-351. MLA International Bibliography . Web. 8 Nov. 2011 McCabe, Thomas H. Rhythm as Form in Lawrence: The Horse Dealer’s Daughter www.jstor.org/stable/460785. Web. 8 Nov. 2011 Ryals, Clyde de l. “ ‘The Horse Dealer’s Daughter’: An Interpretation.” Critical Essays on D. H. Lawrence. Eds. Dennis Jackson and Fleda Brown Jackson. Boston: G. K. Hall and Co. 1988. 153-158. Michele St-Pierre The Marriage Plot in “The Horse Dealer’s Daughter pages.usherbrooke.ca/rimstead-cours/ANG341/THDDD2.htm. Web. 8 Nov. 2011 Karen Bernardo An Analysis of D.H. Lawrence’s ‘The Horse Dealer’s Daughter’Horse Dealer's Daughter, www.essaylet.com/.../horse-dealers-daughter-the.html - United States Web. 8 Nov. 2011 Kearney, Martin F. Major Short Stories of D.H. Lawrence – A Handbook. New York. Garland Publishing. 1998 PlanetPapers - The Horse Dealer's Daughter www.planetpapers.com/Assets/2811.php. Web. 8 Nov. 2011. England, My England : The Horse Dealer's Daughter by D. H. ... www.classicreader.com/book/2772/9/ Web. 8 Nov. 2011 Read More