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
Connie knows that her affair with Michaelis (or Mick, as some call him), is doomed, especially since his whole personality is built on his isolated, outsider status. Besides, there are now new regular visitors to Wragby: General Tommy Dukes, astronomer Charles May, and a man called Hammond, another writer. All of these men prioritize “the life of the mind,” believing that other things—money, love, sex—are secondary.
“The life of the mind” is a useful shorthand for the physically distant, talkative life Connie and Clifford share with each other. The commitment that Dukes, May and Hammond have to their mental pursuits reflect their privilege—only because they have money and sex at their disposal can they dismiss these necessities so easily.
Themes
Now, the men are arguing about the “sexual problem.” Hammond is still mad about the time May tried to flirt with Hammond’s wife, prompting Dukes to argue that Hammond sees women primarily as a means of bolstering his own reputation. May, on the other hand, believes that sex—like money—is a necessary evil if one is to truly have access to focused thought. May thus argues for promiscuity, annoying Hammond.
Just as Connie and Hilda articulated a utilitarian approach to sex when they were with their Dresden men, Hammond, May, and Duke now do the same thing, believing that intercourse is less about pleasure or intimacy than it is about material (or intellectual) gain.
Themes
Dukes begins to wonder if sex is just another form of communication, only using bodies instead of words. When pressed, Clifford will only say that he thinks sex can “perfect” preexisting intimacy; he is embarrassed by the whole conversation. Connie listens in, and though she never says anything, she knows the men depend on her presence for their conversation to really flow. She dislikes Hammond and May; she likes Dukes, but none of them compare to Michaelis.
Connie, too, cares about the life of the mind, even if she finds that these men put too much emphasis on it. On another evening, Dukes discusses the difference between mental prowess and real knowledge, which he argues stems from “your belly and your penis as much as your brain.” Dukes believes that severing the body from the mind is inorganic, like “a plucked apple.”
In this vital passage, Dukes emphasizes not only how “inorganic” or unnatural the modern way of life is—a common rallying cry in the novel—but also how many different forms of knowledge there really are. In Dukes’s formulation, the physical instincts of hunger and desire are just as key to truth and understanding as any theory or literature might be.
Themes
Literary Devices
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The conversation turns to Bolshevism, which Dukes believes is the most mechanical philosophy of all; in both Bolshevism and capitalist industry, Dukes feels, men become mechanized (“our deepest feelings we force according to certain ideas. We drive ourselves with a formula, like machines”). In his opinion, then, Bolshevist Russia is the only country that is honest about its human machinery.
At this moment, Bolshevism (a strain of Communism) was spreading through Russia; Bolshevists aimed for industrial production at grand scales and to erase all forms of human difference, whether of class or gender or religion. But while Bolshevism is one form of mechanized philosophy, Dukes (like the novel) knows that the mines outside Wragby are no less mechanical.
Themes
Dukes even reveals that he does not believe in love—not when it is concerned with property and success (as Hammond’s marriage is), nor when it is about sex between the androgynous-looking young people of the post-war era. Connie breaks into the conversation, arguing that there are still some nice women—and the men are frustrated that she has been listening in, despite the fact that she is sitting right there.
While the men argue about their less traditional views of sex and romance, their expectations of women are far from progressive—Connie is expected to be seen and not heard, even among these supposedly modern men.
Themes
