Meeting in the Dark Solitude and Union in D. H. Lawrences Odour of Chysanthemums and The Horse-Dealers Daughter - Literature Essay Samples

A seemingly impenetrable solitude permeates human life in D. H. Lawrences two short stories, Odour of Chrysanthemums and The Horse Dealers Daughter. Inside Lawrences fictional worlds, the thematic isolation of individuals from one another (often compounded by a profound remoteness from ones own self) situates itself as a paradoxically separating yet potentially unifying force between people but firstly, as a thoroughly cumbersome facet of the human condition. Each of Lawrences stories conveys the essential tragedy of the human condition through the ever-present reality of inevitable death. In the lives of the central characters, a precarious divorce from any true comprehension of mortality works to further complicate their confused isolation; each individual struggles mechanically in an obscure world, steeped in the burden of his daily self (Horse 2665), or appearing as Mabel does to Jack as a small black figure moving in the hollow of the failing day (2666). In Chrysanthemums, the immense gap that lies between people on earth becomes a reality to Elizabeth Bates as the tragically overdue realization brought about by a death, while in Horse, Lawrence ambiguously portrays the possibility of making amends of traversing that gap and connecting with another before time runs out.Lawrence opens each story by introducing his characters as notably still subjects in a surrounding world of motion. In Chrysanthemums, Elizabeth and her son stand waiting amidst clanking, stumbling (2647) locomotives and trucks that [thump] heavily past (2648). The reader finds the storys subjects in a fast-paced, industrial coal mining village an environment whose busy, active atmosphere highlights the quiet solitude of the people it contains, isolated from the moving world and from each other. The activity that continues in their presence is described as inevitable movement (2648), a constant progression of civilization that underscores the apparent ineffectuality of humans like Eliza beth, a wife and mother who stands insignificantly trapped between jolting black wagons (2648). Similarly, a confused tramping of horses feet serves as the backdrop to the Pervin familys despairing silences, emitting a strange air of ineffectuality (Horse 2660). Not only does Joes opening question to Mabel, what are you going to do with yourself? (2660) signify the metaphysical stillness of Lawrences central characters, but this stillness forms a gap between the family members themselves. The narrator conveys this in lines such as, [Mabel] did not share the same life as her brothers (2660). The cavalcade of horses outside furthers the sense of disaster (2661) brought about the death of Mr. Pervin. While it is principally the trains perpetual motion in Chrysanthemums that encircles the stark existence of Elizabeth, the horses that both surround and define the Pervin family take on a more complex symbolism as Joe, in a stupor of downfall (Horse 2661), compares the militant yet unaware passage of the horses to his own human circumstance:Every movement showed a massive, slumbrous strength, and a stupidity which held them in subjection. The groom at the head looked back, jerking the leading rope. And the cavalcade moved out of sight up the lane, the tail of the last horse, bobbed up tight and stiff, held out taut from the swinging great haunches as they rocked behind the hedges in a motion-like sleep. ( 2661)The massive presence of these mammals pointedly reflects the apparent power of life itself, whether animal or human; however, the harnessed state of the horses reminds the reader that a related, though less definable, burden weighs on the Pervin family and, implicitly, on all living beings whose dramatic movements are pitted with inherent subjection. Lawrence peculiarly inverts his description of the horses movement (or lack thereof): while a more typical allusion to sleepwalking would perhaps have been satisfactory to convey a horses propensity to move without autonomy, the author invokes the rather unsightly notion of motion-like sleep, thereby suggesting that the beings he describes live in perpetual half-consciousness; not fully engaged in actions, nor receptive to the guidance of others; ones life may appear to be in motion but in actuality involves no trace of free will or self-determination.With this pervasive, metaphorical slumber, the frustrating dimness of the surrounding world stresses the characters inability to see the reality of their existence (assuming, that is, that human life may be clarified at all). Significantly, Lawrence reveals that the source of his characters vague sight comes both from within, and from without. Elizabeth, for example, struggles to conquer the oppressive atmosphere when she periodically look[s] piercingly through the dusk (Chrysanthemums 2648), just as Jack Fergusson demonstrates the rare success of detecting a person in the midst of such obscurity (Horse 2666); however, a number of Lawrences char acters, both alive and deceased, are plagued with compromised vision. The eyes of Mr. Bates corpse are not only half shut but glazed in the obscurity (Chrysanthemums 2659), and the reader of Horse cannot help but relate Mabels brothers glazed hopeless eyes (2661) to the look of the dead body in Chrysanthemums. Both stories are fraught with references to the enigmatic world in which humans live and breathe; each landscape continually marked by uncertain darkness (Chrysanthemums 2650) or dim, dark grey (Horse 2667) serves to accentuate Lawrences motif of solitude in the face of inscrutable surroundings.Before either narrative develops into a discussion of connections between individuals, Lawrence paints his characters in such a self-contained light that human life appears to be a relentlessly singular experience. Throughout the familys period of waiting for Mr. Bates return in Chrysanthemums, their faces [are] hidden from each other (2650), or appear transfigured by the flickering lig ht of the fire. As it remains rare for the characters in Horse to actually look each other in the eye, Mabel sits fixed and unnoticed amongst her brothers who had talked at her and round her for so many years, that she hardly heard them at all (2662). Each central characters isolated struggle to see clearly in their own story thereby evolves into concern over seeing others clearly another human being inevitably grappling with the same earthly uncertainty. For Elizabeth, the death of her husband provides the dose of lucidity that allows her to reflect on the complexity of human relationships; faced with the oppressive presence of her husbands heavy, naked corpse in front of her, Elizabeth is overwhelmed by the separateness of his being from hers:There lies the reality, this man. And her soul died in her for fear: she knew she had never seen him, he had never seen her, they had met in the dark and had fought in the dark, not knowing whom they met nor whom they fought. And now she saw , and turned silent in seeing. For she had been wrong. She had said he was something he was not; she had felt familiar with him. Whereas he was apart all the while, living as she never lived, feeling as she never felt. (Chrysanthemums 2659)Lawrences passage highlights the symbolic darkness that circulates in the world of his characters; in each story, this darkness obscures clear vision, signifies human boundaries, and comprises a concrete representation of the line that must be crossed before individuals can truly see one another and connect. However, Elizabeths reflections at the close of Chrysanthemums are less amenable to the plausibility of conquering solitude at all. She and Mr. Bates have had the luxury of finding each other in the dark, but continued to lack genuine knowledge of each others essence. Elizabeth is struck by the realization that a consciously formed marriage could in fact be sheer artifice that the bond one seeks to form in the world can be ultimately hindered by insuperable individuality, leaving one familiar with another yet always a stranger to his or her interior experience of life. Suggestive of the massive, slumbrous strength that characterizes animal life in Horse, the burdensome weight of Mr. Bates corpse expresses to Elizabeth the sharp boundaries of the physical body and, in turn, the true horror of human solitude: A terrible dread gripped her all the while: that he could be so heavy and utterly inert, unresponsive, apart. The horror of the distance between them was almost too much for her it was so infinite a gap she must look across (Chrysanthemums 2660). Chrysanthemums is thus ambiguous about whether Mr. and Mrs. Bates lack of oneness is specific to their circumstances, or a sign of a dark consequence of the human condition: the mortal impossibility of solidarity, empathy, or love.In Horse, Jack Fergusson peers into the thick, ugly falling dusk and sees Mabel positively enough (2666). Their mutual gaze invokes in each of t hem the feeling of being found out by the other (2665), insinuating the possibility that, in this case, two characters may understand each others plight, despite their explicitly different natures. While Lawrence portrays Jacks intrigue with the innermost body (2666) of peoples lives, Mabel is, until her brush with death, immune from the world (2665). Nevertheless, Mabels portentous look penetrates Jacks fretted, daily self (2665) from across the gulf of dusk light that separates them. Lawrence thus begins to restore the hope (absent in Chrysanthemums) that some universal thread ties humans together after all; the prospect of some greater, unspecifiable significance becomes especially imminent through the union of two people struggling in the same dim light. To a certain extent, Jack and Mabels new love places the two of them in the thick of the old problems; only now, their most deeply felt experiences are shared. Even during the passionate realization of Jacks love for Mabel, deat h and inertia continue to characterize their imperturbable natures. Jack remain[s] motionless, suspended through one of mans eternities as he fears the look of death (2669) in Mabels eyes.Although the somber message of Odour of Chrysanthemums emerges through Elizabeths grievous thoughts about death and solitude, the reader of The Horse Dealers Daughter finds that what develops between Jack and Mabel offers redemption for the human nature evidenced in Lawrences earlier story. While for Elizabeth Bates a meeting in the dark can promise no more than companionship between two innately self-contained people, Jack and Mabels discovery of each other is a triumph. At the close of Chrysanthemums, Elizabeth becomes aware that life is merely a momentary guide, and death her ultimate master from which she cowers with fear and shame (2660). It is only under these terms that Jack and Mabel communicate with each other, each conscious of their fear of death, shameful of their human limitations, and aware of the horror of solitude. United by a confused reality, even the first moments that Lawrences new lovers spend together convey the emotional weight that accompanies authentic participation in anothers life. Jack consciously chooses the difficult path of love, for he want[s] to remain like that for ever, with his heart hurting him in a pain that [is] also life to him (Horse 2669). Lawrences narrative suggests that such connections may provide a source of lifeblood both painful and desirable. Heartbroken in love, Jack and Mabel will continue to sustain themselves, as though the risk of loving and possibly of losing is a manifestation of the pain of living, and of dying.