The Presentation of Power and Social Status within Women in Literature - Coursework Example

The Presentation of Power and Social Status within Women in ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ by D. H. Lawrence and ‘Jane Eyre’ by Charlotte Bronte of the Student] [Name of Course] [Name of the Institution] [Date] D.H. Lawrence has presented the themes of power and social status within women in his novel ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ to portray the struggle between the individual and society. On the surface, it may seem that social status plays a pivotal role in defining the power roles in relationships; but this is not the case. On the contrary, the self-discovery of Lady Chatterley places her in a more powerful role and enables her to challenge the conventions of society. In the first few chapters, Lawrence illustrates how Connie and Hilda received the best of education. As young and independent women, they enjoyed a great deal of sexual freedom over their lovers and thus exerted strong power over them. They were allowed to derive as much sexual pleasure and satisfaction from their lovers, as they wanted. They used their sexual prowess to control the men in their lives and this is what introduced the sense of being in power over men. “Certainly she could take him without giving herself into his power. Rather she could use this sex thing to have power over him.” (Lawrence 2011) However, Connie, later known as Lady Chatterley, could not use this power over her husband the same way. After he returned from war, he was crippled and thus they were deprived of having any form of sexual relationship. Though, the sex life of Lady Chatterley was literally over; yet she fulfilled her duties as a wife. She let her husband be her master for years and did not challenge the way their life was going. She did not wish to disturb the power share between her husband and herself. Therefore, she is presented as a devoted wife that has moulded herself according to her circumstances; while Sir Clifford Chatterley is presented as the symbol of power in the life of Lady Chatterley. Clifford is aware of the fact that he cannot bear children, which is a threat to his powerful position. In order to retain this power, he suggests to her once that she is free to have a child with another man under the condition that the child would be brought up by them. “I don’t care who his father may be, so long as he is a healthy man not below normal intelligence.” (Lawrence 2011)This way, he hopes for continual power over his wife and the child she would bear with another man. Lady Chatterley is equal to Sir Clifford on the basis of their respective social classes but she has a powerless role in her house. Being surrounded by the powerful figure of her husband and his legacy, there is not much that Lady Chatterley can do about her role. Yet, sometimes she musters up courage to at least speak up for what she believes in. She defends her views with confidence if not with vehemence- may it be her husband or his male chauvinist friends. Once she commented: "...but there are nice women in the world". (Lawrence 2011) as a response to a conversation between men who were satirizing women in general. When she meets Michaelis, an aspiring playwright from America, she feels that she is in power over him due to her high social class that was “…enough to give her a subtle sort of self-assurance, something blind and a little arrogant. It was an almost mechanical confidence in her own powers, and went with a great cheerfulness.”(Lawrence 2011) What she experiences with Michaelis is completely different from other men, who belonged to the same social class as hers. The sense of belonging to a higher social class gives her self-assurance and arrogance. It seems as if her sense of being in power is ignited by the mere presence of a man of lesser social status. Though Michaelis is rich and famous, yet he belongs to the striving middle class and thus her social status empowers her to think highly of herself and compels him to do the same. This is how D.H. Lawrence presents power and social status in the attitude of Lady Chatterley. Being in power is really important for her and it is for this reason that sex is not the only thing that Lady Chatterley enjoys in a relationship. To her, equality of achieving sexual satisfaction is as important as the relationship itself. What kills her relationship with Michaelis is that she realizes that he is not willing to give her the equality of having sexual satisfaction, which threatens her powerful position in their sexual relationship. Lady Chatterley once asks Michaelis: “But you want me to have my satisfaction too, dont you? she repeated. Oh, all right! Im quite willing. But Im darned if hanging on waiting for a woman to go off is much of a game for a man... (Lawrence 2011) As the power share in their sexual relationship is thrown off balance therefore, it ends abruptly. This means that she is willing to quit if she doesn’t have her equal power share in a relationship. Though she does not mind getting into a relationship with someone beneath her social class but she is utterly against being in a powerless role in a romantic association. Lady Chatterley is also aware about the power of money. Once she thinks to herself: “If you were young, you just set your teeth, and bit on and held on, till the money began to flow from the invisible; it was a question of power. It was a question of will; a subtle, subtle, powerful emanation of will out of yourself ...”(Lawrence 2011)She thoroughly believes in the will-power that could even do the impossible. She is convinced that sheer will-power could do wonders in one’s life and she does not think that there were any limitations to what one could achieve. Perhaps this is the reason why she stayed with Clifford Chatterley because he had the power of money. Ironically, she starts considering the game-keeper of her husband as someone special. : “But dont you think there is something special about him?’ (Lawrence 2011) She doesn’t realize that there are more things in life that are powerful than money, and once she falls in love with the game-keeper, we see the symbol of power being replaced by the game-keeper. The social status or the riches of Sir Clifford can do nothing to sustain his powerful role in the life of Lady Chatterley. Lawrence introduces a shift in the power quo in the novel and illustrates the strength she acquires as a consequence of love: “You, and RULE! she said. You dont rule, dont flatter yourself. You have only got more than your share of the money, and make people work for you for two pounds a week, or threaten them with starvation. Rule! What do you give forth of rule? Why, youre dried up! You only bully with your money, like any Jew or any Schieber!” (Lawrence 2011) The shift in her tone reflects her strength to speak up in front of Sir Clifford, something she never did all her life. She realizes that she has a life of her own and she has every right to live her life. She hires a nurse, Mrs. Bolton, and hands her over the duties of looking after her husband, so that she may spend her time with the game-keeper. She takes the risk of going to the hut and sleeping with the game-keeper. She, who never wanted to leave her husband alone was now planning a trip with her sister and preparing herself inwardly to confess her love affair with the game keeper to her husband. It is interesting to note that Lawrence always refers to Lady Chatterley’s lover as the ‘game-keeper’. The implication of using names with titles is to refer to the powerful stature of the relevant persons. Likewise, referring to the profession of the Lady Chatterley’s lover is done on purpose by the author to emphasize on his social status. Despite of his lowly social status than Sir Clifford Chatterley, he gains a powerful place in the life of Lady Chatterley. This shows that there is something powerful beyond a person’s social class that inspired a woman even like Lady Chatterley to consider somebody belonging to a lower social status, worthy of her love. Despite the fact that she believed that belonging to the lower social class“...were only half, only the grey half of a human being.”(Lawrence 2011). Hilda, her sister is presented in the novel to truly reflect the high class woman who uses her power to influence even men like Sir Clifford. She is the one who convinces him that Connie could not take care of him alone, as it was taking its toll on her health and she needed to go away for a break. It was true, Hilda did not like Clifford: his cool assurance that he was somebody! She thought he made use of Connie shamefully and impudently. She had hoped her sister WOULD leave him. But, being solid Scotch middle class, she loathed any lowering of oneself or the family. (Lawrence 2011) Even though, Clifford is against the idea of Connie going away yet he yields to the powerful appeal of Hilda. Clifford is inwardly afraid that he would lose his hold over his wife, if she physically goes far from her. It is for this reason that he is against the idea of his wife leaving him alone. To Hilda, it is but natural to mingle with people of the same social class; and such an outlook is ironical as she is a socialist. Hilda clarifies to Connie: “I may be on their side in a political crisis, but being on their side makes me know how impossible it is to mix ones life with theirs. Not out of snobbery, but just because the whole rhythm is different.” (Lawrence 2011) Thus, Hilda is presented as a symbol of the hypocritical high social class, who thinks about the working class and how to improve their lives; but she would never interact with them on a personal level. On the contrary, Mrs. Bolton depicts an average working woman of the middle class. Mrs. Bolton exudes a different kind of power over her master through her obedience, submission and humility. “It was Mrs Boltons talk that really put a new fight into Clifford.” (Lawrence 2011). However, her social class does not give her the opportunities in life like Lady Chatterley, to use her power for other things in life. Despite this fact, she could influence the thought process of her Master in her own ways. At one point, there seems to be a sort of power struggle between the lady of the house and the nurse, when Sir Clifford started to display more dependency upon the latter. “While she was the Magna Mater, full of power and potency, having the great blond child-man under her will and her stroke entirely.” (Lawrence 2011). Thus, in their servant-master relationship, she is the one with power and the great master is entirely under her control. The love affair of Connie with the game keeper challenges the conventions of her social status, as her passions and emotions overcame her. It also throws her off the balance when she thinks about losing power of her emotions in a sexual relationship. Though, she has always believed in equality in a sexual relationship, but giving in to her passions is really hard for her. It frightened her to realize that she lost control over herself when she yearned for her lover. The game-keeper has exclusive power over her feelings and body, and she willingly gives it all to him. “... she feared it still, lest if she adored him too much, then she would lose herself become effaced, and she did not want to be effaced, a slave, like a savage woman.” (Lawrence 2011). Lawrence uses words like: feared, adored, effaced, slave and savage- that speak of the power the game-keeper has over her feelings. Connie is afraid to lose herself to her lover because she either believed in being power over her sexual partners or at least be equal to them. This relationship demanded that she must give herself to her feelings, something she had never experienced in any relationship before. One finds the same feeling of fear in him, when she asks him: “Then why are you afraid of me?... Its the money, really, and the position. Its the world in you.”( Lawrence 2011). Yet, both of them overcome their respective fears and yield to the power of love by completely disregarding their social classes. “In Lady Chatterley’s Lover…Lawrence magnified sexual relations and minimized the socio-historical conditions…” (Scherr 2004) This is truly reflected in the case of Connie and the game-keeper that belong to different social classes; yet they overcome the social barriers over time. Though Lawrence has given the details of socio-historic conditions in the novel by giving details of the war, and the rapid industrialization; yet, sexual relations take precedence in this novel. It seems that the characters are more occupied with their inner worlds than the rapidly growing world outside. Thus, we see that power is not retained solely be those who are in a high social position but circumstances force the power to shift from one individual to another.“Lawrence turns against power, embodied specifically in this novel by Clifford… if not against all forms of guidance.” (Niven 1978) It is not Lady Chatterley’s love affair with the game keeper that is criticized by the novelist but the symbol of power Another novel, ‘Jane Eyre’ written by Charlotte Bronte also highlights the difference in social classes and power struggle within women. “…Terry Eagleton finds the novel the most conservative. He sees in Jane Eyre, as in all Bronte’s novels, a struggle between individualistic bourgeois values and conservative aristocratic values.” (Arac&Ritvo 1991) Just as in Lady Chatterley’s Lover, where Connie had to fight with her aristocratic values of having an affair with the game keeper of her husband; similarly, Jane, an orphan belonging to the bourgeoisies, falls in love with Rochester, who belonged to the aristocracy. Bronte presents the symbols of power and social status in the form of individuals like Mrs. Reeds and Rochester and institutions like the boarding school for orphans where Jane Eyre was sent away. Power is introduced to Jane at a very young age in the form of insults received at the hands of the family she lived in. Her cousin once tells her: “You are a dependent, mama says; you have no money; your father left you none; you ought to beg, and not to live here with gentlemen’s children like us, and eat the same meals we do, and wear clothes at our mama’s expense.” (Bronte 1897) This conversation reveals how power is strongly associated with social class. The circumstances in which Jane Eyre was brought up are completely in contrast with those of Lady Chatterley. However, both challenged the norms of society and tried to resist the power exerted by others on the basis of social status. Jane responded to the different forms of power in different ways. She was quite vocal in her childhood against the maltreatment of her aunt:“I will tell anybody who asks me questions, this exact tale. People think you a good woman, but you are bad, hard-hearted. You are deceitful!” (Bronte 1897) Jane learns at a young age that social status plays a huge role in defining the attitudes of people. Yet she challenges those in power and refuses to accept any harsh treatment made on the pretext of social class difference. Rochester, the owner of Thornfield is also an embodiment of power in this novel; but Jane responds to him in a different way than she responded her aunt. Jane learnt to survive in a society that believed: “…in hers I see all the faults of her class.” (Bronte 1897). To the high class women in Jane Eyre, women belonging to the middle class were all the same. In a way, they thought like Hilda in D. H. Lawrence’s ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’. Conversely, Jane is convinced that the gap between the high social class and her class can never be overcome, because her problem is she has breeding but no money so she does not fit in either class: “All their class held these principles: I supposed, then, they had reasons for holding them such as I could not fathom.” (Bronte 1897) As Jane helplessly falls in love with Mr. Rochester, she feels the power he has on her overwhelming. Yet, she thinks about Rochester that to “wed to one inferior to you—to one with whom you have no sympathy—whom I do not believe you truly love;” (Bronte 1897) These are typical reservations for anyone that belongs to the bourgeoisies but are not necessarily true. For Rochester loved her for whatever she was and not for her money. The unfortunate incident of her marriage smashes the power of Rochester. Yet, Jane Eyre retains the power to take her own decisions and she opens up a village school. Her marriage with Rochester demonstrates her power to make such a brave decision just like Lady Chatterley, who decides to marry the game-keeper at any cost. The issue of social class differences is also touched upon by John Keats in his poems. For instance, in ‘Isabella’, he narrates how the lover of Isabella is despised by her brothers for belonging to a lower social class. “That he, the servant of their trade designs,/Should in their sisters love be blithe and glad” (165-166)“Keats thus provides the motive for their murder of Lorenzo, that as their social inferior; Lorenzo gets in their way of their plan to marry their sister to ‘some high noble and his olive trees’”. (Ou 2009) Thus, despising people belonging to lower social class and using power over them seems to be part of human nature which is manifested in ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ by D. H. Lawrence and ‘Jane Eyre’ by Charlotte Bronte. Moreover, social class barriers have always existed for lovers belonging to different social classes. The phenomenon of power is handled in a different way by Keats who sometimes labels women lethal or adorable. In ‘Woman! When I Behold Thee Flippant’ he appreciates meek and submissive women as opposed to arrogant women: “But when I see thee meek, and kind, and tender,/ Heavens! How desperately do I adore/ Thy winning graces;” (9-11) Keats finds the gentle and submissive nature of women more tempting than any other thing. In these lines, it is clear that gentle manners of women exert more power on men in gaining their love than any other attitude. On the contrary, the mercilessness of women as illustrated in ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ is equally powerful over men that love them: “I saw pale kings, and princes too,/ Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;/ Who cried---"La belle Dame sans merci/ Hath thee in thrall!" (41-44) Thus, according to Keats, women regardless of their social status have productive as well as destructive powers. “The women tend to emphasize the themes of love (both human and divine) and sexual passion in a variety of guises: wicked siren, elusive object of male desire, seductress, fate, and the chaste virgin. In addition the range of female figures implies some complexity in female sexuality… a concept which energizes the later verse, especially Lamia and La Belle Dame Sans Merci.” (Blades 2002) Thus, in Keats poems, the themes of love and female sexuality are interrelated with power-roles that women tend to play in any relationship. Whether the power they exert on their lovers comes from their gentle and submissive nature or from their evil and seductive nature- it surely works well as it did in the cases of Connie and her lover in ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ and Jane and Rochester in ‘Jane Eyre’. Connie in ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ and Jane in ‘Jane Eyre’ are essentially not the types of women depicted in ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’, but they indeed have sort of complex sexuality that forces them to claim equality in a sexual/marital relationship. Both the women have had to challenge the conventions of society by marrying out of their respective social classes but both have the power to make such bold decisions and make things happen. Connie chooses to marry the game-keeper who was beneath her social class; likewise, Jane marries Rochester who belonged to a higher social class. The decisions taken by these women did not bring instant happiness in their lives; rather it posed new difficulties for them. Their feelings could be best explained by what Keats says in his poem ‘Ode to Autumn’: “Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?/ Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—“ (23-24) Thus, the women learnt to play upon the sad tunes of autumn and learnt to live their lives their according to their own ways. In ‘A Thing of Beauty (Endymion)’ Keats says: “Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth/ Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,/ Of all the unhealthy and oer-darknd ways” (Keats 8-10) In these lines, it is clear that he is highly critical of the social class barriers and subjugation of the lower classes by the feudal class. D. H. Lawrence and Emily Bronte have also emphasized upon the same themes in their respective novels ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ and ‘Jane Eyre’. In Endymion Book III, Keats explains how the feudal system plays havoc with the lives of the people belonging to the lower social classes. “There are who lord it oer their fellow-men/With most prevailing tinsel: who unpin/ Their baaing vanities, to browse away/ The comfortable green and juicy hay/ From human pastures; /” (1-5) Watkins (1989) remarks: “It is a poem that displays the disintegration of public hope and social possibility and at the same time seeks an alternative possibility of value in the mind and in transcendental redemptive powers.” Sir Clifford in ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ depicted the same feudal class that believed that nothing could surpass social barriers. Rochester on the other hand, in ‘Jane Eyre’ was forced by the love of Jane to overcome his class complex and propose marriage to her. The way the themes of power and social status are presented in ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ and ‘Jane Eyre’ evokes sympathy in the same manner as Keats does in his poetry. The worlds of Lady Chatterley and Jane Eyre were also ruled by oppressive and self-interested customs of the society against which they had to struggle and eventually succeed. “As in Endymion and Isabella, the apparent order and hierarchy of the feudal world is oppressive and self interested…Keats rejects the superstition, tyranny, violence and licentiousness associated with feudalism, portraying the development of the human mind from feudal ignorance to a more humane and sympathetic form of understanding.” (Fermanis 2009) Connie rejects the feudalistic mentality of her husband and her father by choosing to live her life with the game-keeper. Connie and Jane in their own ways rejected the ways of the feudal worlds they lived in and tried to develop relationships based on mutual understanding, love and respect rather than on power struggle and social status. Reference List Arac, J., &Ritvo, H. 1991.Macropolitics of nineteenth-century literature: nationalism, exoticism, imperialism. Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania press. Blades, J., 2002.John Keats: the poems. New York: Palgrave. Bronte, C., 1897. Jane Eyre: an autobiography. London: Service & Paton. Available at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1260/1260-h/1260-h.htm Fermanis, P.,2009, John Keats and the ideas of the Enlightenment. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Lawrence, H. D., 2011. Lady Chatterley’s lover. [Online] (Updated August 2011) Available at http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100181.txt Niven, A., 1978. D. H. Lawrence: the novels. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ou, L., 2009. Keats and negative capability.London:Continuum International Publishing Group. Scherr, J. B., 2004. D.H. Lawrence today: literature, culture, politics.New York: Peter Lang Publishing. Watkins, P. D.,1989,Keatss poetry and the politics of the imagination. Massachusetts: Associated University Press. Read More