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
On Sunday, Clifford wants to go for a walk, though being in his wheelchair in the middle of springtime always frustrates him. As they walk, Connie wonders aloud if the miners are going to go on strike again. Clifford thinks even the suggestion is ridiculous and points out that the miners will starve if the mines close. He chides Connie for approaching the situation “like a woman.”
Clifford’s cavalier attitude about the strikes is a reminder that, while he profits from the mines, he does not depend on them to survive, a glaring example of class inequity. Whereas Mellors praises Connie for her femininity, Clifford still wields the word “woman” as an insult.
Themes
While the church bells ring, Connie presses Clifford on why he does not do anything to mitigate the wealth disparities that have led to conflict. Clifford feels that “somebody’s got to be boss.” When Connie snaps that she doesn’t think Clifford uses his power very well, Clifford retorts that Connie similarly does not take her duties as the lady of Wragby very seriously. Connie protests that she does not want to be a lady, but Clifford insists that it is her “fate.”
Increasingly, Connie is able to see the absurdity and arbitrariness of Clifford’s wealth and powerful title. But Clifford has only gotten more stuck in his ways, insisting that his status as “boss” is a matter of “fate” and his own essential, immutable character.
Themes
Connie feels that Clifford has taken “natural life and manhood” away from the miners, but Clifford insists that the miners were never men to begin with. Instead, he argues that “they are animals you don’t understand,” shocking Connie with his cruelty—even though she feels that there is something “devastatingly true” in it. Clifford boasts that his mind and his will remain strong, so he can continue to hold power—after all, he says, “I don’t rule with my legs.”
On the one hand, Connie detests Clifford’s classism; on the other hand, she agrees with Clifford that the participants in the mechanized mines are somehow less than human. Rather than depicting Connie as radical and Clifford as conservative, then, the novel suggests that they value different things; Clifford emphasizes ideas and material acquisition (“I don’t rule with my legs”), whereas Connie emphasizes “natural” skill, “manhood,” and physical strength.
Themes
While Connie continues to insist on a “common humanity,” Clifford asserts his belief that there is an “absolute” divide between people who rule and people who serve. At last, Connie refuses to argue any longer, so they continue in silence. Connie notices that Clifford’s wheelchair is squashing flowers as it wheels across the forest. Privately, she wishes that the natural life around her could exist within men like Clifford, who seem so “stale” inside.
This vital moment pits the novel’s most important symbols against each other. Clifford’s wheelchair, which—in a literary move that is widely considered to be ableist—signals his mechanized impotency, crushes the flowers, which represent natural vitality. This moment thus foreshadows the plot to come, in which Clifford tries to inorganically destroy Connie and Mellors’s passionate love for each other.
Themes
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When Connie and Clifford pass by the cottage, Connie is surprised to hear someone whistle behind her. Mellors appears, unseen by Clifford, to ask if Clifford plans to come to the cottage. Connie assures him that he does not. Clifford honks the horn on his wheelchair, summoning Connie—but before she leaves, Mellors touches her breast, just out of Clifford’s eyesight.
Again, Clifford is rendered literally as a machine—a honking out of sight—while Mellors shines with carnal charm. Mellors is getting braver in displaying his affection, perhaps his non-verbal way of displaying his commitment to Connie despite the consequences.
Themes
Once Connie and Clifford come to a well at the top of the hill, Connie draws some cold water for them to drink. As they sip, they admire the clouds and a nearby mole digging in the ground, which Clifford jokes about killing. Then they turn around, back down the hill towards Wragby. But this time, Clifford’s wheelchair starts and stops, then grinds to a halt.
Even Clifford’s jokes are about destroying nature, suggesting that he is aware of what his mining obsession is doing to his environment. The fact that the wheelchair ceases to move, however, hints at victory for Connie and Mellors’s way of life; the wheelchair may allow Clifford some measure of agency and control, but mechanization is no match for the elements.
Themes
Connie wants to push, but Clifford refuses: “what’s the good of the damned thing,” he exclaims, “if it has to be pushed!” Connie suggests that Clifford should call for Mellors to help fix the wheelchair; Clifford again refuses, instead fiddling hopelessly with the motor. A bird sings a birdsong until Clifford silences it with the horn on his chair. Mellors appears, and Clifford snappily explains the situation.
Clifford’s harsh, humiliated reaction here shows how much he has outsourced his masculinity to this wheelchair; the idea of having to be pushed deprives him of the little potency he has left. Again, the depiction of Clifford here as imperious and incoherent, instead of as legitimately struggling, perhaps reflects authorial biases around disability.
Themes
Mellors lies on his back under the wheelchair, trying to fix the motor, and Connie notes how pathetic all men seem to look in this position. Mellors, too, struggles to identify the problem, so Clifford tries restarting the motor. This doesn’t work either, prompting Clifford to get increasingly frustrated as he tries different levers on the chair. Constance thinks back to Clifford’s speeches only a few moments before, and scoffs at the idea that there is anything special at all about the ruling classes.
As frequently happens in this section of the novel, Clifford’s “life of the mind” is betrayed by physical reality; despite professing his superiority, Clifford’s weakness (both physically and mentally) is evident as he struggles, unreasonably, to force his chair to work.
Themes
Finally, Clifford’s brake gives out, and he laments that “it’s obvious I’m at everybody’s mercy!” Then Clifford collects himself and, with a tone of cold superiority, he asks Mellors to push him, in the wheelchair, back to Wragby. Mellors does so, though Connie sees what an extreme physical toll this labor is taking on him. Mellors’s face goes pale, and Connie, feeling worried for her lover’s health, angrily joins in the pushing.
The lack of empathy for Clifford’s plight is striking, especially given how much the novel pities Mellors for the slight physical discomfort he feels when asked to push the wheelchair. Clifford’s weakness now necessitates Connie’s strength, once more inverting the traditional gender roles at the center of the novel.
Themes
As Connie and Mellors work, Connie looks over at Mellors’s hand on the wheelchair. Though this hand has touched her many times, Connie has never seen it in the light. Now, she is overcome with a desire to clutch Mellors’s hand, just as he feels all his attraction to her come rushing back. With Clifford faced forward, Mellors takes this opportunity to hold hands with Connie. Connie secretly kisses Mellors’s hand.
Early in their courtship, Connie praised Mellors for seeing and perceiving her so immediately. Now, Clifford’s obliviousness signals that despite his protestations to real knowledge, he is completely (and sometimes even intentionally) unaware of the things that go on right under his nose.
Themes
For the first time, Connie feels real hate for Clifford, and this feeling frees and emboldens her. Connie no longer cares who notices her closeness with Mellors, and she feels that this moment of shared labor has brought them closer than ever before. Though Clifford tries to be polite, neither Connie nor Mellors will really engage with him.
Connie’s behavior almost verges on self-destructive, as if she is daring Clifford to notice the affair and try to do something about it. Again, the narrative aligns its own perspective with this moment of desire between Connie and Mellors, while continuing to leave readers at a satirical remove from Clifford’s point of view.
Themes
At lunch, Connie lashes out at Clifford for treating Mellors so poorly. Clifford expresses no guilt, believing that because he pays Mellors he has a right to “rule” him. Connie is disgusted by this thinking, and each spouse accuses the other of being improper with their language. Connie storms off, frustrated that Clifford thinks he can simply buy people.
In addition to their different views of class hierarchies, the couple now splits on the very definition of what constitutes proper language. Connie and Clifford have never been able to communicate physically; this scene marks the moment in which they are no longer able to communicate with each other linguistically, either.
Themes
That night, Clifford tries to engage Connie in a conversation about Proust, but Connie feels only that Proust is “self-important” and “dead.” Though she does not want to fight with Clifford, preferring instead to disentangle herself from him, she cannot shake her rage. After dinner, while Clifford and Mrs. Bolton gamble, Connie slips out of Wragby and heads, secretly, towards Mellors’s cottage.
Marcel Proust, a French writer and contemporary of Clifford’s, is not at all the author Connie makes him out to be. In fact, Proust prioritized the use of stream of consciousness in writing, a focus on the present moment that might actually appeal to Connie and Mellors. But at this moment in her life, any literature seems “dead” to Connie, who wants only physical intimacy.
Themes
