Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Lady Chatterley’s Lover, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Intellect vs. Bodily Experience
Nature vs. Machinery
Class, Consumerism, and Money
Gender and Sexuality
Catastrophe, Continuity, and Tradition
Summary
Analysis
“Ours is essentially a tragic age,” Constance Chatterley thinks, “so we refuse to take it tragically.” But this is no small feat for Constance: World War I has just ended, leaving destruction in its wake, and Clifford Chatterley, the soldier Constance married in 1917, has come back wounded only six months after their wedding day. Though Clifford’s recovery was impressive, he is forever paralyzed from the waist down.
The novel begins with tragedy, both on a global scale (the mass death and poverty inflicted by World War I) and on an intimate scale (Clifford’s paralyzed body). Constance’s refusal to embrace the catastrophe around her immediately sets her up in contrast to her surroundings; unlike Clifford, whose every moment will forever be shaped by war, Constance is determined to continue on with as much normalcy as possible.
Themes
Literary Devices
Now it is 1920, and Clifford—having just lost his father—has returned to Wragby Hall, newly made a baronet. Wragby is in the Midlands, and Clifford is proud of the expansive, “melancholy” park he has inherited. Clifford has a mechanized wheelchair that allows him to move around his property, and he dresses expensively and with taste. But though he is proud of surviving and grateful to be alive, there is also something unfeeling about him, as if much of his emotional life was wounded along with his body.
As a baronet, Clifford is a low-ranking member of the British aristocracy; baronets were referred to as “Sir,” while their wives were known as “ladies.” The Midlands are a region in the geographical center of England, once famous in British folklore for its pastoral beauty. It is important to note that the novel treats Clifford’s emotional trauma with sympathy here, a perspective that will change as Constance gets more and more frustrated with her Wragby life.
Themes
Literary Devices
Constance, by contrast, is full of energy. She looks like a country girl and has a soft voice, though in actuality, her father, Sir Malcolm Reid, is a prominent R.A.; while Constance’s mother was alive, she traveled in prominent socialist circles. Constance and her sister Hilda were therefore raised on art in Paris and Rome, and on socialist politics in Berlin. When Constance was 15, she and Hilda were sent to Dresden, Germany to learn music. While there, the sisters would go into the forests with whatever young men pleased them
Even in her youth, Constance is associated with forests: she looks like a country girl (despite her city background), and some of her happiest memories take place in the forests of Dresden, where she spent her teenage years. The fact that Constance’s father is an R.A. (Royal Academician) suggests that he is one of the most respected visual artists in the nation, as only 100 artists at a time could ever be named to this prestigious position.
Themes
Literary Devices
The boys would play songs and debate, and eventually, Hilda and Constance slept with the boys whose eloquence most impressed them. For both sisters, “it was the talk that mattered supremely”; “love was only a minor accompaniment.” But the boys always wanted sex, so Constance would give in—even as she vowed to never give up her internal, free life to a lover. Constance thus makes sure to always allow her lover to orgasm before she does, as that way, she can “achieve her orgasm and her crisis while he was merely her tool.” Still, neither Hilda nor Constance feel that sex ever compares to conversation.
As a young person, Constance values “talk” over physical “love,” or sex; in many ways, the novel centers on the way this value system changes as Constance gets older. But in this moment, Constance particularly prides herself on her ability to maintain control during sex, using her partner as a “tool” for her own pleasure. In other words, while Constance’s philosophical conversations can be passionate and unrestrained, her approach to sex—arguably one of the most instinctive, natural human behaviors—is transactional, even almost mechanical.
Themes
Literary Devices
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Sir Malcolm and his wife knew their daughters were having sex—it made the women look softer and more rounded, just as it made their young male partners seem quieter and more inward. But neither parent did anything to stop it, so the affairs continued. Hilda and Constance were always able to manage their feelings, though the men they slept with would often bare their full souls during sex (only to resent their girlfriends afterwards).
Perhaps unusually for a man in the early 20th century, Sir Malcolm seems to have a relaxed, liberal attitude to his daughters’ premarital sex. The connection here between women’s rounded curves—which the narrative paints as an outward manifestation of femininity—and their sexual maturity will recur throughout the novel.
Themes
In 1914, soon after their mother died, Hilda and Constance rushed home to avoid war. Both of their German lovers died, and the sisters wept and then promptly forgot these lovers. Indeed, as soon as they were back in London, the girls started socializing with Cambridge students, who talked about anarchy and wrote philosophical essays. Hilda quickly married a man she met in this group, though he was ten years older than her.
On the one hand, this passage makes it clear how much the war has taken from Constance: not only did WWI leave Clifford profoundly wounded, but the fighting also killed Constance’s first love. On the other hand, the sisters’ ability to move on so quickly suggests that relationships founded on “talk” are never very permanent or meaningful.
Themes
Constance (or Connie, as she is often called) grew close with Clifford Chatterley, a young man only a few years older than her. Clifford, a minor aristocrat, had been studying the science behind coalmining when war interrupted. But Connie’s self-assurance and wide scope of knowledge impressed him, especially because she was able to function outside of the small, upper-class circles where they had met.
Just as Malcolm empowered Constance and Hilda to have sex when they chose to, he also gives his daughters full agency over whom they marry—so when Constance winds up with Clifford Chatterley, it is of her own accord. Clifford’s early interest in coalmining will become an increasingly vital part of his personality, though when Constance first meets him, Clifford is more enchanted by politics than technology.
Themes
Though Clifford embodied aristocratic values, he also scorned everything around him as ridiculous: his father, the government, even the deadly war itself. In 1916, Clifford’s older brother was killed, leaving him as the heir to Wragby and his father’s title—and this, too, felt ridiculous to Clifford. Clifford’s father Sir Geoffrey hated his son’s casual attitude, and he hoped Clifford would become more serious about Wragby and its traditional ways.
Clifford’s nihilism, or his sense that everything is ridiculous, was a common post-war feeling, especially among young men who returned from the fighting to broken economies and grieving nations. Clifford’s lack of investment in either the future or the past stands in stark contrast to his father’s pride in the nation, as epitomized by Sir Geoffrey’s connection to the centuries-old Wragby manor.
Themes
Clifford had grown up with his older brother and an older sister, Emma. At first, the three siblings had vowed to live together forever at Wragby, isolated from the rest of the country. But after his older brother’s death, Clifford married Connie (much to Emma’s chagrin), and the newlyweds set off on a honeymoon. Though Clifford and Connie did have sex on their travels, both of them viewed it as an afterthought, useful mostly for having children. But then Clifford went to war and returned home “smashed”—unable to conceive a child or even have sex. And soon after, Sir Geoffrey passed away, too.
Fascinatingly, this chapter contains more plot than almost the rest of the narrative combined. In ending this brief summary of Connie’s early life with a description of Clifford’s losses—his damaged legs, his “smashed” fertility, his dead father—the novel also shows how Connie’s life has been subsumed into her husband’s grief. In other words, despite Connie’s refusal to live “tragically,” tragedy has entered her life, nevertheless.
Themes
