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
Clifford no longer invites guests to Wragby, preferring instead to listen to the new, high-tech radio he has installed. Clifford’s fascination with the radio, like his interest in mining technology, terrifies Connie—especially because the shrewder Clifford becomes in matters of industry, the more idiotic he becomes in his emotional life. Indeed, Connie feels that Clifford is only getting more and more dependent on her, treating her as an idol to worship and fear.
The radio, a technology that took off in the post-war years, allows Clifford to further separate himself from his bodily reality. Connie’s resentment of Clifford’s new toy again shows her frustration at his deviation from the natural world she so craves.
Themes
In the hopes of getting some of her own freedom back, Connie again raises the topic of having a child. Clifford confirms that he is all right with Connie having another man’s baby, as long as it does not transform her “love” for him. Clifford even believes (deludedly) that he might one day regain his potency and father the child himself. To Connie’s horror, Clifford confesses that she is the sole purpose of his life: “I live for your sake and for your future,” he tells her, “I am nothing to myself.” Connie feels so alienated from Clifford that she can no longer even bring herself to hold his hand.
Clifford’s logic here is disturbing for several reasons. First, he confuses his new technological power with natural potency, believing that his industrial productivity could translate into biological production (although he has been told such thing is an impossibility). Moreover, just as Clifford’s desire to make Connie part of his family’s unbroken “chain” dating from centuries earlier, his focus on Connie as his sole future disturbs her; in both cases, she just wants to be alert to the sensations and experiences of the present.
Themes
Feeling that she might die if she spends too much in the house, Connie starts going to the hut in the woods more and more often. Mellors still keeps his distance from Connie, blaming his lingering cough for his lack of socialization. Connie notices Mellors’s intense blue eyes, and she appreciates that he has tidied the hut for her.
In small ways, Mellors and Connie are each discovering their attraction to the other (and leaving little hints that the feeling is mutual). That none of this is happening with language is particularly important, another contrast between Connie’s life with Clifford and this new flirtation.
Themes
Literary Devices
One day, Connie notices that the hens in the chicken coops have laid eggs. She is overcome with grief, comparing her own “forlorn and unused” plight with the hens’ “brooding female bodies.” Connie tries to feed them, but they peck at her, protective of their eggs. Still, Connie starts coming to the coops every day, as it is the only activity that brings her any pleasure: Mrs. Bolton has started to frustrate Connie, and even letters from Michaelis now disgust her. Spring begins, and the flowers start to grow. But Connie only resents the life around her—it is warm outside, but everything within her is “cold-hearted.”
This passage is laden with symbolism, all of it juxtaposing the vitality of the natural world with Connie’s sense of marital death. The hens’ new eggs are particularly upsetting to Connie because they remind her of her own childlessness (not to mention Clifford’s careless, distorted view of a potential future heir).
Themes
Literary Devices
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Soon enough, the eggs start giving way to chicks. Connie is at once charmed and upset, the “pure, sparky, fearless new life” in the chicken coops reminding her of her own “agony.” In one of her jaunts to see the chickens, Mellors shows her how to hold the baby birds, who attack Connie but seem more peaceful in his hands. Mellors notices that Connie is crying, and her vulnerability with the birds arouses him.
When Connie first encountered Mellors bathing (and when she saw him taking apart the chicken coop), she was attracted to his strength; here, Mellors is drawn to Connie’s fragility. That these contradicting qualities attract reflects the novel’s insistence that siloed, oppositional gender roles lead to better sex and more fulfilling romance.
Themes
Almost against his will, Mellors lays a hand on Connie’s knee to comfort her. As soon as he does so, Connie starts sobbing; Mellors takes her in his arms and then, slowly, begins caressing her entire body. As if “submitting to fate,” Mellors leads Connie inside the hut, where he instructs her to lay down on a blanket. While she lies passive, Mellors strokes her body, undressing her and penetrating her.
Connie’s submissiveness here stands in stark contrast to her earlier sexual experience; with her Dresden lover and with Michaelis, Connie was calculating, at once withholding and determined to control her own sexual pleasure. The use of the word “fate” here suggests that Connie’s lack of agency is in some ways destined, the result of letting nature take its course.
Themes
Literary Devices
Though only Mellors orgasms, Connie cannot help feeling that this moment has “lifted a great cloud from her and given her peace.” She wonders if this moment has been “real” and reflects that she has a deep-seated desire to be “had for the taking.” When Mellors draws away from her and gets dressed, Connie is surprised by her own sense of abandonment.
Though modern audiences might wonder if this sex scene is meant to be read consensually, the narrative is firm that Connie’s submissiveness is a product of her own desire to be “had” during sex (instead of being an active participant in the encounter). Indeed, the novel even suggests that Connie’s lack of orgasm is what makes this encounter so pleasurable, because it signals that she has truly given up any control.
Themes
Literary Devices
Connie is worried that Mellors regrets their encounter, but Mellors explains that he is just worried that Clifford might find out. As Mellors walks Connie to the gate of the park, he muses that he has “begun again” to feel “life.” Mellors kisses Connie goodbye, and they promise to meet again. As Connie walks away, Mellors feels bitter that she has disrupted his existence of peaceful alone-ness. He walks home through the woods, but even there, the lights and sounds of the mines disrupt his feelings of privacy.
The fact that this encounter has taken place in the woods—where “life” grows up out of the ground—is a sign that Connie and Mellors’s affair is natural and healthy, as promising as the spring flowers under their feet.
Themes
Then again, Mellors does feel warmly towards Connie—he mostly blames his anger on the engines and electrical lights. “All vulnerable things,” he predicts, “must perish under the rolling and running of iron.” Mellors cannot help but think that Connie has the tenderness of a flower, so unlike the other women of her era.
The sounds from the mines, encroaching on this most private moment, foreshadow how difficult it will be for Connie and Mellors to find lasting peace together. Mellors’s metaphoric imagery—in which the “flower” of his sexual life with Connie is “run” over by metal machines—will take on more literal meaning in a later scene, wherein Clifford crushes flowers by “rolling” over them with his wheelchair.
Themes
Mellors gets home, starts a fire, and eats his simple dinner. Though he tries to read a book about India, he is only able to think about Connie. He feels lingering desire for her, but he also feels a sense of foreboding—wanting Connie somehow makes him feel more vulnerable to the mechanized threats of the mines. To calm himself down, he goes out into the woods with his gun, basking in the quiet night.
Like Clifford, Mellors tried—to a lesser extent—to numb himself to the world, but his intense new feeling for Connie makes his existential anxieties seem more intense as well. Mellors’s gun is another symbol of his physical strength and dominance (and the explosive gun itself has some phallic undertones).
Themes
When Connie gets home, Mrs. Bolton remarks on her lateness. Connie gets through dinner in a haze, listening to Clifford talk (as always) about mining before running upstairs to her room. At last, Connie can think about what has just happened. She feels that though Mellors is not very kind to her when they speak, he is “kind to the female in her,” which no other man has ever been.
Back in her Dresden days, Connie prioritized conversation above all else, viewing sex as a silly afterthought. Now, even though she sometimes struggles to converse with Mellors, she embraces him because of their physical connection—and because he pays attention to the things that define her as a woman. In the novel, the defining traits of femininity seem to be a curvy body and a sort of tender, submissive, fragility.
Themes
The next day, Connie goes again to the woods; she can almost feel spring “in her own body, the huge heave of sap in the trees, upwards, up, up to the bud-tips.” She goes to the clearing, but Mellors is not there; when she returns home for lunch, Clifford is just listening to the radio. Connie thus goes back into the woods, sitting in front of the hut to get out of the rain. She feels that she was “born to wait,” and she marvels at the life that is pulsing around her.
Connie’s sexual desire ties her even more deeply to the woods, as she extols (in almost orgasmic prose) the very tree “sap” that Clifford’s words try to “suck” away. Connie’s joy is also evident in her new experience of time. Just a few months ago, time passed quickly and with no distinction, but now, Connie is attuned to every detail of every second, each moment made worthwhile in her “wait” for Mellors.
Themes
When Mellors finally arrives, he speaks to Connie in dialect, wondering aloud if her frequent visits to the hut will rouse suspicion. Mellors thinks she will feel “lowered” by sleeping with one of her husband’s servants, but Connie asserts that she does not care about her status—especially because she has some money of her own that her mother left to her, a guarantee of financial security. Connie presses Mellors to admit that he is projecting his own anxieties about class onto her. He admits it, then kisses her.
Just as Mrs. Bolton draws a line between the gentry’s mannerisms and their material wealth, Connie now distinguishes between status (which she does not care about) and financial prosperity (which she does care about). Connie’s financial independence could potentially clear the way for her and Mellors to be together, even as he seems to find her wealth emasculating.
Themes
Mellors touches Connie under her dress, and Connie is awed by the “beauty” Mellors finds in her body. Connie feels simultaneously afraid of her desire and filled with a physical yearning for sex—but when Mellors does penetrate her, she feels as if she is still “waiting” for something to begin. Connie feels “a little left out” from Mellors’s ecstasy, even though she knows she is partly responsible for her own feeling of “separateness.” Unlike with Michaelis, Connie has no interest in having an orgasm after Mellors finishes.
All of the sex featured thus far has been penetrative, but for the first time, Mellors explores a different kind of physical contact, one that is more about appreciating the “beauty” of Connie’s body. Again, Connie’s feelings about sex have shifted dramatically; she now resents being “separate,” blaming herself for the detachment she once prided herself on. Connie’s refusal to pursue her own orgasm shows how much more submissive she is with Mellors (perhaps the result, at least in part, of Michaelis’s cruel comments).
Themes
Mellors tries to keep Connie warm with his legs, worrying that she is cold. When she insists she is not, he gets up and starts speaking in dialect again. As they walk back across the park, Connie is conflicted: she knows that Mellors wants her deeply, yet they spend so little time actually talking to each other. Connie even finds that she resents his dialect. Before Connie goes through the gate, Mellors touches her under her dress again, saying that he wishes his touch could “stop time.”
Mellors’s use of dialect, paired with his continued touching, once more emphasizes physical contact over intricate language. Yet even as Connie yearns for this physical connection, she still cannot make sense of the dialect—perhaps another vestige of her classist disdain. Importantly, Mellors’s wish to “stop time” contrasts him with Clifford in a new way; whereas Clifford focuses on the past and future, Mellors wants desperately to hold on to the current moment.
Themes
Connie does not go to the wood the next day. Instead, she goes to visit Leslie Winter, Clifford’s old, wealthy, godfather. Winter is an old-fashioned man; years ago, he was close with King Edward himself (and now, he finds Clifford’s modernist short stories silly). Though Connie normally likes spending time with Winter, she finds she cannot think about anything other than her affair.
Connie’s decision to spend time with Winter, one of the more traditional and stable characters in her life, is likely an attempt to distance herself from the turmoil of this burgeoning affair. Winter’s close friendship with King Edward also signals just how powerful the Chatterley circles really are.
Themes
Connie does not go to the woods on the following days, either, overwhelmed by Mellors’s desire. When she gets bored, she decides to take a walk in the opposite direction, to a little farm called Marehay. There, she is greeted by Mrs. Flint, one of the Chatterleys’ tenants. Mrs. Flint is excited to have Connie over (though she is embarrassed by the state of her house). As Connie enters, Mrs. Flint rushes to tidy up, making Connie a cup of tea and showing off her baby.
Though Connie comes from much more privilege than Mrs. Flint, the novel depicts Mrs. Flint’s cozy, domestic life as superior to an isolated existence at Wragby. Like Mellors’s mother, Mrs. Flint seems to feel some measure of shame at her relative lack of wealth.
Themes
Connie picks up the chubby baby, admiring the child’s “female dauntlessness”; holding the baby brings Connie great happiness. Connie likes the tea (which is better than the tea at Wragby, though Mrs. Flint does not believe her) and the beautiful flowers. After about an hour, Connie starts to head home. As she goes, Connie notices an empty milk bottle—which Mrs. Flint fills for Mellors to pick up most mornings.
Every detail of Mrs. Flint’s life seems more pleasurable and authentic than the life Connie and Clifford share; the flowers do not wilt so quickly here, and even the tea (though presumably less expensive) has more flavor.
Themes
On her way home, Connie feels some jealousy of Mrs. Flint’s motherhood. Before she can get lost in her thoughts, however, she is stopped by Mellors, who embraces her tightly. Mellors wonders if Connie is giving him the “slip,” and he insists that they have sex in the woods. Connie relents, but she feels that in doing so she is “giving way” and “giving up.”
In this moment, Connie’s submission to Mellors feels less agentic and more like “giving up”; she has been purposefully trying to avoid him, and now he forces her to have sex in the middle of the forest. Many feminist critics of the novel point out that what the story romanticizes as appealing male dominance might in fact be something closer to sexual assault.
Themes
As they have sex, Connie has a new feeling: instead of forcing her own orgasm (as she had with Michaelis), she is overwhelmed by sensation, and she realizes that she can “only wait” for Mellors to withdraw and enter her again. Both of them orgasm at the same time: and then “they lay and knew nothing, not even of each other, both lost.” It takes a few minutes before the pair can regain their bearings and start getting dressed.
In their obsession with “the life of the mind,” Clifford and his friends pride themselves on certainty. But in succumbing to physical sensation, Mellors and Connie become “lost”; their instincts introduce the very confusion that Clifford works so hard to keep out.
Themes
Now, Mellors remarks on their shared orgasm (“we came off together”); he believes that this is a rare phenomenon, something that many people may never experience. Connie is shocked at the strength of her desire for him, which she feels is “the loss of herself to herself.” As she walks home—alone—Connie cannot help feeling that there is a new, more childlike existence within her. Suddenly, she is overcome with the need to have a child with Mellors.
This shared moment of orgasm, so different from Connie’s previous sexual experiences, will prove essential to Mellors’s conception of intimacy. Connie’s “loss of herself to herself,” in which she gives her conscious brain fully over to bodily sensation, shows how firmly she is grounded in the present moment. But fascinatingly, being present in this way—giving in to her childish impulses—makes her crave a new future, namely a child with Mellors.
Themes
At the same time, Connie feels that the real power belongs to her, and that Mellors is merely “the phallos-bearer” she needs to access her true depths. She thinks of the women in the Bacchae, and she imagines running through the woods and tearing Mellors to pieces. When she gets home, she tells Clifford only about Mrs. Flint and the baby. Clifford seems vaguely jealous (even if he cannot put his finger on why), and Mrs. Bolton is clearly aware of the fact that Connie is having an affair. Mrs. Bolton feels happy for Connie, though she cannot place who this new lover might be.
Connie’s reference to the Bacchae—the sexually voracious mythic women who destroyed men and worshipped Bacchus, the god of pleasure—seems to contrast with her submissiveness only moments ago. By juxtaposing these two sentiments, the novel suggests that a woman’s true power comes from her lack of sexual agency, once more reiterating the strict, regressive gender norms at the heart of the novel’s message.
Themes
Connie refuses to bathe that night, wanting instead to keep Mellors’s body on her. Clifford finds Connie’s new mood intoxicating, and he wants to read Racine to her while she sews. But though this ritual used to bring Connie great joy, now, she does not hear a word of the reading. Instead, she of thinks herself “like a forest,” and the desire within her like “a bird,” awakened by Mellors and asleep with Clifford. When Clifford asks what she is sewing, she explains that she is making a dress for Mrs. Flint’s baby. Privately, Clifford thinks Connie spends too much thinking about children.
Now, the thematic opposition between “so many words” and nature comes even more clearly to the fore: while Clifford reads aloud from inside the thick walls of Wragby, Connie focuses on the feeling of her skin, comparing herself to the plants and animals growing outside Wragby’s walls. Clifford’s pained reaction to Connie’s sewing demonstrates his own insecurities about being unable to bear a child.
Themes
Clifford then cruelly opines that (as Racine shows), “emotions that are ordered and given shape are more important than disorderly emotions.” Connie knows the comment is meant to hurt her, but she excuses herself without engaging, not even kissing Clifford on the way out. Clifford wishes that he had spent the night listening to the radio. As he falls asleep, he is consumed with anxiety and anger at Connie for being “callous”; he does not know why she does not respect him for his remarkable recovery.
It makes sense that Clifford would be drawn to the French author Racine, who embraced organized, Neo-classical principles of style, and who depicted most sexual desire as ill-placed and doomed to tragedy. But while Racine appealed to Connie before her time with Mellors, she now embraces the “disorder”—the sense of being “lost”—that intense physical connection brings to her.
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Instead of lying restlessly all night, Clifford calls Mrs. Bolton to his room. Though she is half-asleep, the nurse plays chess and piquet with Clifford. Mentally, Mrs. Bolton drifts to thoughts of Connie’s lover and of her own dead husband. Later in the night, Clifford wants to play cards, so they do, even gambling with real money.
This strange scene suggests that both Clifford and Mrs. Bolton try to swap out people in their lives like parts in a machine: Mrs. Bolton uses Clifford to imagine her way into Connie’s shoes, even as Clifford uses Mrs. Bolton to reenact the routines he used to do with Connie. The use of real money in the gambling once more complicates and confuses the normally strict class separation between Clifford and his employee.
Themes
Connie is fast asleep, but Mellors is awake. He thinks about his “brutal” wife (Bertha Coutts), whom he has not seen since he joined the army in 1915, even though she lives just three miles away. He reflects on his war years in India, where he bonded with a colonel and was thus promoted. After the war, Mellors no longer wanted to social climb, so he returned to working-class life—but now he also finds the working class distasteful. Though everyone is always concerned with the “wage-squabble,” Mellors thinks this obsession is pointless. But he also knows that for poor people, money is a question not of philosophy but of survival.
This passage, the first time the book has dwelled solidly in Mellors’s perspective, demonstrates just how different his values are from Clifford’s (and from those of Tevershall as a whole). Though Mellors is one of the few working-class men who has had meaningful options to advance through British society, his refusal to do so shows just how little he cares about wealth, status, and accumulation.
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Worst of all, Mellors knows his situation with Connie is hopeless: they will only get closer and closer, even though there is no feasible way for them to be together. To calm his thoughts, he walks around the woods with his dog. Though it is quiet and still in the woods, the lights and sounds of Stacks Gate continue, even at two in the morning.
Though Mellors does his best to find calm in his natural environment, the mechanized world he detests is always encroaching, both literally and figuratively. Again, the mines disrupt even the natural progression of time, brightening the night and ending its quiet.
Themes
Even after his walk, Mellors cannot sleep—he wants nothing but to have Connie with him. So he walks over to Wragby hall itself, where he sees that Sir Clifford’s light is still on (he does not know what room Connie sleeps in). Mellors also does not notice Mrs. Bolton peering out of her own window—though Mrs. Bolton sees him. With a start, she realizes that Mellors must be the man Connie is having an affair with.
Even to himself, Mellors does not use language to process the extent of his feeling for Connie; instead, he just trusts his bodily impulses, instinctively following his feel to ending up outside her window.
Themes
Mellors, frustrated that Connie is not coming to him, turns around and heads home. Meanwhile, Mrs. Bolton reflects on her own youthful crush on Mellors. At the time, she was only 26 and he had just gotten a scholarship to a prestigious grammar school. Now, Mrs. Bolton knows that Mellors has been through a great deal: his marriage to the horrible Bertha Coutts, his time in the war. But still, she approves of Connie’s decision. Absentmindedly, Mrs. Bolton wishes she could tell this news to her dead husband.
Mrs. Bolton was married to her husband for only a short time, but the lifelong impact of that relationship seems to reverberate throughout every aspect of her current life. As the novel continues, Mrs. Bolton’s short-lived marriage will come to parallel the intense connection Connie and Mellors share with each other.
Themes
