2
(p. 66)
“I should adore some oysters”:
Oysters are a symbol of sexuality Lawrence is establishing Pussum as sensual, linking her with the African sculpture. In other words, she is Gerald’s direct opposite, as well as Gudrun’s and Hermione’s.
3
(p. 72)
there were several negro statues, wood-carvings from West Africa, strange and disturbing:
A bohemian apartment such as Halliday’s is the appropriate place for these West African statues. Lawrence uses these as a symbol of sensual, instinctive primitive cultures, as opposed to the cold, industrialized, dehumanized culture of Europe.
4
(p. 74)
And yet the black looks of her eyes made Gerald feel drowned in some dreadful, potent darkness that almost frightened him:
Again Lawrence connects Pussum with the African statue and his assumption of the greater sensuality of darker people.
Chapter VII
1
(p. 75)
Totem:
As the chapter title suggests, this chapter establishes more fully the African sculpture as a theme and lays out its symbolism. The beauty of what Lawrence accomplishes here is that, in having this and the last chapter set in Halliday’s apartment, Lawrence loses none of the realism of his novel even while he works in abstract symbolism. African art became popular in the early twentieth century, when the French painter Maurice de Vlaminck (1876-1958) found an African sculpture on a Paris quay. The artists Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) and Georges Braque (1882-1963) popularized African art; its influence, combined with that of the work of Paul Cezanne (1839-1906), helped lead them to invent Cubism. After them, a whole host of artists got on the African art bandwagon. Philip Heseltine, on whom Lawrence based the Halliday character (see note 2 to chapter V), had several pieces of African art.
Chapter VIII
1
(p. 80)
Breadalby was a Georgian house with Corinthian pillars, standing among the softer, greener hills of Derbyshire, not far from Cromford:
Breadalby is based on Lady Ottoline Morrell’s Garsington Manor. Lady Morrell (see note 5 to chapter I) was one of the great hostesses and conduits for writers, artists, and intellectuals of the early twentieth century; her Garsington Manor was the setting for many of their gatherings. Lawrence carefully placed this chapter after “Totem,” opposing sensuality against will, order, rational consciousness, coldness, and violence.
2
(p. 80)
her brother, a bachelor, and a Liberal member of Parliament:
Alexander Roddice is based on Lady Ottoline’s husband, Philip Morrell (1870-1943).
3
(p. 81)
There were present ... a learned, dry Baronet of fifty, who was always making witticisms and laughing at them heartily in a harsh, horse-laugh:
Sir Joshua Malleson is based on the philosopher Lord Bertrand Russell (1872-1970). Lawrence and Russell met through Lady Morrell. At first Russell considered Lawrence something of a genius, but later he described him as “a positive force for evil.”
4
(p. 104)
Hurriedly, with a burrowing motion, he covered his head under the thick volume of Thucydides:
The Greek historian Thucydides, who lived in the fifth century B.C., wrote
The History of the Peloponnesian War.
The volume saves Birkin’s life. Lady Morrell gave Lawrence a copy of this same volume, a gift that increased speculation about the exact nature of their relationship.
Chapter IX
1
(p. 109)
Whilst the two girls waited, Gerald Crich trotted up on a red Arab mare:
Lawrence uses the horse as both a symbol of Gerald’s power and his abuse of it, his snow-destructiveness. Note this is a mare, a female horse. In the chapter titled “Water-Party,” Gudrun will taunt bulls.
Chapter XI
1
(p. 122)
An Island:
Lawrence uses the island as a symbolic paradise where Ursula and Birkin, a new Adam and a new Eve, begin to deal with the modern problem of love.
2
(p. 126)
“Look at all the millions
of people
who repeat every minute that love is the greatest, and charity is the greatest—and see what they are doing all the time”:
See the Bible (1 Corinthians 13:13). The hypocrisy of people who praise love and charity has made Birkin disown the word “love.” It has become a cliché.
Chapter Xll
1
(p. 133)
Carpeting:
In this chapter, which is Hermione’s chapter, carpeting symbolizes her attempt to impose her will on Birkin in the form of decorating ideas. This chapter is opposed by a later chapter entitled “The Chair,” in which Ursula and Birkin buy a chair together and then decide that they have no need of possessions.
Chapter XIII
1
(p. 149)
“I agree that the Wille zur Macht is a base and petty thing”:
The German phrase means “will to power,” an idea popularized by philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) meaning that all living things have an incarnate will to “grow, spread, seize, become predominant,” as Nietzshe put it in
Beyond Good
and Evil
. In
Women in Love,
Lawrence makes clear he is against the Nietzschean will to power, but in his later works, The Plumed Serpent in particular, Lawrence appears very much in favor of it.
2
(p. 149)
“Ah
—
Sophistries! It’s
the
old Adam”:
Ursula is saying that Birkin is falling back into the old, historical pattern of thinking that men should dominate women. Lawrence also wrote two stories, “The Old Adam” and “New Eve and Old Adam,” on this topic.
Chapter XIV
1
(p. 163)
So saying, having givenher word like a man, she and Ursula entered the frail craft,
and pusbed gently off:
Lawrence establishes here both the repressed condition of women, whose word is not ordinarily taken as binding, and Gudrun’s liberated ideas. Gudrun not only gives her word like a man but insists on rowing her own boat, an obviously symbolic action.
2
(p. 167)
Nevertheless, Gudrun, with
her
arms outspread and her face uplifted, went in a strange palpitating dance towards the cattle:
Gudrun’s dance symbolizes both her own liberation and her desire to dominate and even madden males, here symbolized by bulls.
3
(p. 170)
“You have struck
the first blow”:
Gerald’s is a prophetic statement, one that anticipates the end of the novel.
4
(p. 172)
“You mean we are flowers of
dissolution
—
fleurs du
mal?”:
This is another reference to a French Symbolist poet, this time to Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867), whose book
Les
Fleurs
du Mal
(
Flowers of Evil)
introduced both Symbolism and modernism into French poetry.
5
(p. 172)
“You know
Herakleitos says ‘a
dry soul is best’”:
The Greek philosopher Herakleitos, also spelled Heracleitus or Heraclitus (c. 540-480 B.C.), believed all things were in flux and therefore subject to constant change. He believed fire’s combustion was the origin of the cosmos, anticipating the “Big Bang” theory. In many sources, Herakleitos is quoted as having said, “A dry soul is the wisest and best.”
Chapter XV
1
(p. 190)
there was no
beyond, from
which one had to leap like Sappho into the unknown:
A legend that has grown up around lyric Greek poet Sappho (c.610-c. 580 B.C.) is that, in despair over an unrequited love, she took her own life by throwing herself into the sea. Ursula, unlike her sister Gudrun, shows herself to have deep feelings about love, though she does not accept the fact that it must come with “baggage.”
2
(p. 192)
There is complete ignominy in an unreplenished, mechanised life:
Lawrence here is saying that death is better than the mechanized love of meaningless routine. It sounds romantic and heroic, but it is unlikely that either Lawrence or Ursula would actually be willing to die rather than live a life of infinite boredom.
Chapter XVI
1
(p. 198)
The old way of love seemed a dreadful bondage:
This is further evidence that Birkin’s intent, like that of Ursula, and of Lawrence, is to reinvent love. This chapter, “Man to Man,” explores the idea of male love as an alternative to the old way of relating, a dominant theme throughout the novel.
2
(p. 206)
“You know how the old German knights used to swear a
Blutbruderschaft”:
The German word means “blood-brotherhood.” Birkin wants to evoke the old German ritual, which for Lawrence has latent homosexual undertones. Lawrence proposed a similar pact to his friend John Middleton Murry (1889-1957), which apparently Murry accepted after Lawrence browbeat him.
Chapter XVII
1
(p. 210)
The Industrial Magnate:
In Sons and Lovers, Lawrence explores the condition of miners in England largely from an autobiographical perspective. Here he covers some of the same material, but this time from the perspective of the mine owners.
2
(p. 230)
There was a new world, a new order, strict, terrible, inhuman, but satisfying in its very destructiveness:
Gerald symbolizes the mechanization of modern society and thus the destruction of humanity. At the same time, Lawrence is opposed to democracy, though not to individualism in society. This would appear to be a contradiction, but Lawrence does not appear to be troubled by contradictions.
Chapter XVIII
1
(p. 243)
“God be praised we aren’t rabbits....
—
All that, and
more. ”Her eyes looked up at him with shocking nonchalance:
This is a clear sexual suggestion that again shocks Gerald. The madness of the rabbit is linked by Lawrence with Gudrun’s taunting of the bulls and the subsequent smacking of Gerald.
Chapter XIX
1
(p. 244)
Moony:
This is the pivotal chapter in
Women in Love
. Most of the major themes are addressed or re-addressed here. As mentioned in note 1 to chapter I, the name Ursula is associated with the Norse moon-goddess of the same name. There is also the pun in the word “moony,” the idea of madness or delirium that superstitions attribute to the effects of the moon.
2
(p. 246)
“Cybele
—
curse her!
The accursed Syria
Dea!”:
Cybele is the Roman goddess of fertility, identified with the Great Mother. On the Day of Blood, initiates who worshiped the female principle in the person of Astarte, the Syrian moon goddess, or Syria Dea, often castrated themselves in sacrifice to her. This is Birkin’s lament on castrating women, which gets a rise out of Ursula.
3
(p. 253)
He remembered the African fetishes.... one, a statuette about two feet high, a tall, slim,
elegant figure_ from West Africa, in dark wood, glossy and suave:
The questions about art and culture posed in “Totem” are resolved. Lawrence identifies man’s primitive past with sensuality and blood-knowledge and Western Europe, especially northern Europe, with snow-destruction and death, of which Gerald is the symbol.
Chapter XX
1
(p. 266)
Gladiatorial:
Some psychologists claim that wrestling has a latent homosexual character. There is no question that this is the case in the Japanese wrestling between Birkin and Gerald. Lawrence was very advanced to view homosexuality as a possible alternative for the reinvention of love; the novel ultimately rejects it, while remaining extremely sympathetic. Evidently, Lawrence and his friend John Middleton Murry had sessions like these.
Chapter XXI
1
(p. 289)
“Love isn’t good
enough for you?:
The fact that Birkin insists on a contract of marriage, and at the same time finds love insufficient, certainly seems a contradiction, unless we remember that Birkin is speaking of the old way of loving.
Chapter XXII
1
(p. 293)
“suckled in a creed
outworn”:
This phrase comes from the poem “The World Is Too Much with Us,” by William Wordsworth (1770-1850).
2
(p. 295)
“You should have a man like the old heroes”:
Lawrence is contrasting the old love, symbolized by Hermione, who believes for all her own liberation in other areas that a woman should stand by her man, with the new love, symbolized by Ursula, who insists on being equal in every sense.
Chapter XXIII
1
(p. 303)
Excurse:
The excursion that is the subject of this chapter is that of Birkin and Ursula traveling out of their old lives and their old way of thinking. Before they can be truly in the new way of being, they must renounce the old. Thus, Birkin is forced to sever even his friendship with Hermione, and both Birkin and Ursula quit their jobs.
2
(p. 319)
His arms and his breast and his head were rounded and living like those of the Greek:
Lawrence identifies the Greeks with the brain and intellect and the Egyptians with phallic or body knowledge; it is the latter that Lawrence most values and the former that has doomed Europe.
Chapter XXIV
1
(p. 346)
“If there weren’t you in the world, then I shouldn’t be
in the world,
either”:
This is Gerald’s dilemma as ice-king; his love and passion are contaminated with death, yet he cannot live without them.
Chapter XXV
1
(p. 353)
“You are like Lord Bacon,
Gerald,”he said. “You argue it like
a lawyer
—
or
like Hamlet’s to-be-or-not-to-be”:
Lord Francis Bacon (1561-1626) was a lawyer and statesman, as well as a philosopher and a great essayist. Many of his themes and passages wound up in Shakespeare’s work virtually unedited. It is this fact that led some to believe that Bacon was really William Shakespeare. Actually, Shakespeare, like the artist Pablo Picasso in our time, was a great borrower—some would say a great thief—which the lack of copyright laws at the time made possible.