Story The Horse Dealers Daughter - Literature review Example

The Horse Dealer’s Daughter‘The Horse Dealer’s Daughter’ by D. H. Lawrence is a wonderful story that moves around a girl named Mabel. The story succeeds in taking the readers to the small European town that is clustered like smoldering ash with a heap of low, raw, extinct houses, and the reader feels the kind of eeriness that the town presents to both outsiders and insiders. The story presents the mere haplessness and the consequent inwardness and callousness a girl named Mabel develops during her stay with her three brothers who are astonishingly selfish.

In the story, they are being forced to leave their ancestral property because of the debts incurred by their dead father. In the first half of the story, the character of each of her brothers is revealed. Joe, the eldest brother feels ‘safe himself’ and he ‘did not care about anything’ (Larence). The next one, Fred Henry, too is eager and wants to get rid of her at the earliest. He loses his patience seeing the impassive face she keeps and even calls her ‘the sulkiest bitch’. The youngest brother Malcolm is only suggestive saying that she should go in for training for a nurse.

The stubbornness the girl keeps throughout the communication makes the brothers irritated but makes the readers aware of the intense mental agony she conceals in that silence. The ten years of housekeeping for her foolish brothers and the total isolation she faced there made her as hard as a stone outside. She decided not to tell anything to anyone as according to her ‘It was enough that this was the end, and there was no way out’ (Lawrence). Mabel is presented by the writer as a person of dignity.

She was tired of living a life of indignity as is evident from the statement that ‘She need not demean herself any more, going into the shops and buying the cheapest food.’ It becomes evident that she does not care to answer the queries of her brothers because she is well aware about the superficiality of their care. She is preparing to end her life as it would help her reach her mother and father; the only people who loved her and the only people whom she loved. Mabel is presented as a girl who finds no ray of hope in life as there is no one in the world to love or to take care of.

Her pride does not allow her to demean herself even in the pain and suffering. Instead, she keeps all the pain to herself, and puts on a callous face that seems irritating to her foolish and selfish brothers who are eager to get rid of her. However, the remaining part of the story shows how greatly she wants to be loved, and how intensely she desires to live even when preparing to die. It is at that juncture that Dr. Jack appears. He seems a man who is able to understand the reason for her ‘impassionate expression’, and hence, when Fred Henry says ‘you could bray her into bits, and that is all you could get out of her’ the way Jack responds is through a faint smile that is more disapproving than agreeing.

Thereafter, the callous and impassionate attitude of Mabel vanishes on the slightest hint of compassion shown by Jack. Even his attempt to rescue her from the suicide attempt is taken as a hint of love, and she goes mad on the realization that there is someone to love her. Thereafter, one can see the effort she makes to make sure that he loves her and this realization makes her face lit up and shine. In total, ‘The Horse Dealer’s Daughter’ by D. H. Lawrence reveals how greatly human beings need love and care, and how the lack of it can affect their life.

It also shows how a bit of compassion shown at the right time can bring people back to hope and life. Works CitedLawrence, D. H. The Horse Dealer’s Daughter. Classic Reader. Web 30 May 2011