Lady Chatterley’s Lover

One morning in February, Clifford and Connie go for a walk through the park. A haze of sulfur hangs over the forest, and most of the birds have been killed off during the war. Still, Clifford loves these old oak trees, which have been around since Robin Hood’s time. With Connie guiding, Clifford rolls his wheelchair up a hill, coming to a clearing; this is one of the areas that Sir Geoffrey deforested to provide “trench timber.” The chopped-down trees always make Clifford angry.

While Connie listens to the sounds of a nearby mine, Clifford muses that his forest is “really the heart of England.” Clifford admits that being in the forest, with its mysterious links to old England, always makes him want a son. Clifford desires continuity, seeing himself as “a link in a chain” of old traditions, though Connie does not like to view herself in this way. Still, Clifford presses on, even suggesting that Connie could have a child with another man if she would be willing to raise it as Clifford’s own.

Connie is surprised that Clifford would condone an affair, but Clifford explains that what matters is “what endures”—the “lifelong” marriage they share, not an “occasional spasm.” Connie lets her mind wander to Michaelis. Though she is deeply attracted to him, she has never entertained the idea of leaving Clifford for Michaelis; now, she wonders about conceiving a child for Wragby with the Irish writer.

Clifford pushes Connie to agree that casual sex is less important than years-long matrimony. But while Connie sees the logic, she struggles with the idea that she will be “pinned down” forever by her thoughts in a single moment. Just then, a brown spaniel runs by, followed by a man with a gun. The man surprises Connie, like “the sudden rush of a threat out of nowhere.” Connie learns that this is Oliver Mellors, Clifford’s new gamekeeper. 

Though Mellors has been at Wragby for eight months, this is the first time he and Connie have met. When they make eye contact, Connie feels shy; there is something about Mellors that is difficult to pin down. Sometimes he presents himself as a gentleman, and sometimes he speaks with the broad dialect of country people. Connie cannot tell if Mellors is teasing her.

Mellors begins pushing Clifford, in his wheelchair, back towards the house, and Connie runs ahead to open the gate. Though Clifford does not notice that anything is wrong, Mellors immediately sees how tired Connie looks. Connie is amazed by how Mellors seems to see “everything”; unlike Clifford, he is “aware of her.”

At lunch that day, Connie asks Clifford about Mellors. Clifford explains that Mellors was a blacksmith in town before joining the army during World War I. Connie asks if Mellors is married, and Clifford informs her that Mellors was married before his wife ran off with another man to Stacks Gate, a nearby village. Connie is disturbed that as he speaks, Clifford’s eyes mirror the atmosphere outside, “his mind filling up with smoky mist.”

Slowly, Connie realizes, the physical trauma Clifford suffered in the war is taking its mental toll. Though Clifford can sometimes seem sharp,  “the bruise of fear and horror” is spreading within him—and worse, Connie feels that it is beginning to spread to her, too. Connie also sees this bruising in the colliers at Tevershall, who are threatening to strike not out of passion but out of despair. “It was words, just so many words,” she thinks; “the only reality was nothingness.”

Connie begins to resent that Clifford’s obsession with “the bitch-goddess” of success has worked out so well for him: he is now a well-known intellectual, with his picture appearing in papers and his bust appearing in an art gallery. But Connie feels that it is all a “display,” that there is nothing substantive behind Clifford’s short stories or his ideas. Even Michaelis, who has begun to write a play in which Clifford is the central character, seems to lack substance.

When summer rolls around, Michaelis returns to Wragby with Act I of his new play. Everyone loves it, but Michaelis is unsatisfied—in part because Connie takes a while to come to his room, and in part because he craves even more effusive praise from her. Michaelis also wants Connie to divorce Clifford. But though he promises her a life of jewels and jazz clubs, Connie cannot feel anything but frustration that these men are “all the same,” each as self-absorbed and obsessed with success as the others.

That night, Connie finally does come to Michaelis’s room, and he is more excited than ever to have sex. But after Connie orgasms, Michaelis becomes cruel, criticizing her for orgasming after he has finished instead of at the same time as he does (and thus making him work to keep his penis erect). Connie is hurt by this sudden brutality, which she feels is “one of the shocks of her life”; “it killed something in her.” After this encounter, Connie feels that the only thing left for her to do is accept the total “nothingness” of life.