There are several points in this novel where Lawrence uses the language of writing and printing to describe sexual processes. The first of these is a simile, and it happens when Lawrence explains Constance’s early sexual experiments. While living in Dresden, Constance and her sister Hilda get into deep philosophical discussions with their male counterparts, which tend to escalate:
And if after the roused intimacy of these vivid and soul-enlightened discussions the sex thing became more or less inevitable, then let it. It marked the end of a chapter. It had a thrill of its own too: a queer vibrating thrill inside the body, a final spasm of self-assertion, like the last word, exciting, and very like the row of asterisks that can be put to show the end of a paragraph, and a break in the theme.
Here, the narrator describes sex as the “inevitable” end of a conversation between male and female people. Connie isn’t disturbed by this as a reader might expect a young woman of the early 20th century to be. Her bohemian upbringing has made her believe that sex is a process like the others she is learning about in Dresden: making friends, playing music, and understanding art. The simile in this passage argues that sex for the teenage Connie is not about achieving orgasm or even getting pleasure. It is more like getting the “last word” in an argument, a way to assert control over others. When the “soul-enlightened” discussions end and the sex begins, it starts a new cycle of these intellectual discussions followed by sex. It seems to Connie as though the sex act just punctuates the beginning of the next “chapter” of her time in Germany. Its “queer vibrating thrill” is not the satisfaction of orgasm, but the happiness she gains from getting the upper hand.
The “row of asterisks” Lawrence refers to here is the centered line of asterisks that sometimes signal the end of a chapter or section in a novel. Like these asterisks, sex behaves as a way to signal that a “break in the theme” is to follow. Sex moves Connie from one chapter to the next. Connie enjoys the power that this gives her, as it’s a difficult commodity for women to come by. It isn’t until she has sex with Mellors that she begins to think of the act as something other than an argument to be won.
Lonely, sexually frustrated, and depressed, Constance’s interest in her life wanes in the early chapters of the novel. In Chapter 3, Lawrence employs a smile to describe how ineffectual she feels:
Vaguely she knew herself that she was going to pieces in some way. Vaguely she knew she was out of connexion: she had lost touch with the substantial and vital world. Only Clifford and his books, which did not exist... which had nothing in them! [...] But it was like beating her head against a stone.
Connie feels that there’s nothing she can do to feel emotionally or sexually satisfied. Trying to change things is like “beating her head against a stone.” Just as a person would suffer physical pain and achieve no positive results by beating their head against a rock, Connie feels that her efforts to try and make “connexions” are all in vain.
This short passage gives the reader a sense of just how exasperated Lady Chatterley feels with her life at Wragby. The opening phrase about her "vaguely" knowing that she's "going to pieces" sets the passage’s tone of confusion and despair. As it’s used here, the word “vaguely” would conventionally be followed by a comma. Instead, the vagueness of her feelings bleeds directly into the rest of the phrase. "Vaguely" is also repeated twice, suggesting a fuzzy disconnection from reality and a lack of clarity as the language doubles back on itself. The sensation of "going to pieces" that Lawrence evokes here is palpable. The repetitive, despairing diction of the passage reflects the speed at which Connie is breaking down.
Further to this, the assertion that she "had lost touch with the substantial and vital world" points to the depth of her feelings of isolation. The world she once knew and her hopes for a happy marriage are distant and unreachable to her now. Indeed, her relationship with Clifford is primarily characterized by detachment. He is so cut off from feeling, and she is so disinterested in him sexually, that it is as though he and his books "did not exist." Connie is so restless in this chapter that even her father tells her she should “get herself a beau”—find a lover who isn’t her husband— to cheer herself up. Although she quickly does find another sexual partner when Michaelis comes to stay, this arrangement is also an impermanent solution.
Lawrence makes it clear from the outset of Connie and Clifford’s postwar relationship that Lord Chatterley's views on marriage, love, and intimacy have changed. As he tries to explain that he wants her to have meaningless sex with anyone she chooses in order to provide him with an heir, Clifford uses a simile to clarify his position:
It’s what endures through one’s life that matters; my own life matters to me, in its long continuance and development. But what do the occasional connexions matter? And the occasional sexual connexions especially! If people don’t exaggerate them ridiculously, they pass like the mating of birds. And so they should. What does it matter? It’s the life-long companionship that matters. It’s the living together from day to day, not the sleeping together once or twice.
As he tries to persuade her to find a lover, Clifford articulates his belief that fleeting sexual encounters are unimportant to him. He wouldn’t feel that it was disloyal of Connie to “sleep together once or twice” with someone else. He describes sexual encounters as being essentially meaningless, likening them to the primal, thoughtless "mating of birds" through a simile. This comparison underscores that Clifford views sex as an animalistic act devoid of deeper meaning or intellectual depth.
His emphasis on "life-long companionship" over "occasional sexual connexions" emphasizes his certainty in the superiority of “mental” bonds in a relationship. Clifford's sentiments tap into the book's broader theme of the importance of mental and physical connections to truly loving partnerships. While for some people, like Clifford, physical intimacy is far less important than mental communion, for others, like Connie, it's an essential aspect of genuine connection. Rather than persuading her that his viewpoint is the right one, Clifford merely illustrates their incompatibility with each other.
Lawrence uses a simile in this early passage to emphasize the entrapment Connie feels as she rambles around the estate with Clifford in his chair. The simile compares their life to being "inside an enclosure," suggesting her sense of confinement in her limited existence at Wragby:
The hard air was still sulphurous, but they were both used to it. Round the near horizon went the haze, opalescent with frost and smoke, and on the top lay the small blue sky; so that it was like being inside an enclosure, always inside. Life always a dream or a frenzy, inside an enclosure.
At this point in the novel, Connie feels that everything in her is struggling against her and her husband's limitations. The sky, typically a site where novels locate freedom and boundlessness, is instead portrayed as being like a lid that shuts her in. Connie feels so trapped in her marriage that the sky isn’t an open space, but the roof of an enclosure that she is "always inside" and in which she must endure a "frenzy." Although they are surrounded by natural beauty, “opalescent frost and smoke” and the very beginnings of spring, she can’t enjoy it. The language in this passage emphasizes her feelings of restriction and limitation. Even the air she breathes is “hard” and “sulphurous,” as if it’s thick and unpleasant to move through.
As Constance walks through the woods at Wragby in spring, she feels that the rejuvenation of the earth after winter is lining up with her own sexual and emotional reawakening. Lawrence uses metaphor and simile in this passage to draw parallels between Connie and a world breathlessly close to being in bloom:
She went to the wood next day. It was a grey, still afternoon, with the dark-green dogs-mercury spreading under the hazel copse, and all the trees making a silent effort to open their buds. Today she could almost feel it in her own body, the huge heave of the sap in the massive trees, upwards, up, up to the bud-tips, there to push into little flamey oak-leaves, bronze as blood. It was like a ride running turgid upward, and spreading on the sky.
Lawrence’s language in this passage illustrates a profound connection between Connie and her surroundings. This is a stark departure from her previous discontentment and loss of “connexion” with nature. Connie is surrounded by flowers waiting to bloom and burst. Instead of feeling distant from them, though, she feels aligned with their "silent effort." The metaphor of sap rising through the trees in spring also suggests that there’s a direct interplay between the external world’s changing seasons, and the sexual thaw Mellors has started in Connie.
Describing the spring rush of sap into the forest, Lawrence details the process of "the huge heave of the sap in the massive trees, upwards, up, up to the bud-tips, there to push into little flamey oak-leaves, bronze as blood." This complex sentence evokes a sense of powerful, irrepressible energy that mirrors Connie’s own sexual awakening. The sentence’s repetition and short, punchy diction make it feel as if it is itself “rushing.” The oak-leaves, about to open, are as "flamey" and "bronze as blood." This evokes the idea of blood rushing through the body, coloring the leaves like Connie’s blushes of excitement and arousal.
In the simile that follows, Lawrence likens the sap to "a ride running turgid upward, and spreading on the sky." This further emphasizes the idea that Connie and the world are both experiencing intense renewal and excitement. The choice of the word "turgid" here is important. When something is “turgid” it is engorged with liquid. It’s a term that is often associated with an erect penis. Here, the trees themselves seem to be “erect” to Connie, and the sap that thumps through them is about to burst through, “spreading on the sky” like ejaculating semen. Everything, including the end of winter and the return of life to the “hazel copse” has taken on an exciting, erotic tinge for Lady Chatterley.
As Connie and Mellors have sex, Lawrence explains the intensity of Connie’s feelings through tactile imagery and a series of similes:
Rippling, rippling, rippling, like a flapping overlapping of soft flames, soft as feathers, running to points of brilliance, exquisite, exquisite and melting her all molten inside. It was like bells rippling up and up to a culmination.
The similes in this passage refer to Mellors attempting to bring Connie to orgasm. Mellors’s touch and the sensations she is feeling are like “flames” and “feathers,” things that are almost too soft and delicate to be stimulating. This simile gives an impression of many tiny touches building and repeating themselves into something greater, "flapping" and "overlapping" upon each other. The narrator explains further when they say the feeling is like “bells rippling up and up to a culmination.” Connie is ascending toward a climax and can only understand it in the terms of ascensions and buildups she’s already familiar with.
Connie is feeling so many sensations that her sense of touch almost blends into her sense of sight. The tactile imagery of the passage is somewhat confusing because it reflects the newness of this experience for this character. Connie is confused and overwhelmed, and so the imagery is confusing and somewhat overwhelming. The sensations are new to her, so they all blend together into a riot of energy and feeling. Mellors’s body makes her feel as though feathers or flames are running all over her to “points of brilliance,” as though she can feel their heat “melting her all molten inside.”
After arguing with Connie, Mellors is unable to keep himself away from her, and hobbles over to her as if pulled by natural forces. Lawrence uses a simile likening his desires to a storm to depict this:
He looked up, because of the silence, and saw her wide-eyed and lost. And as if a wind tossed him, he got up and hobbled over to her, one shoe off and one shoe on, and took her in his arms, pressing her against his body, which somehow felt hurt right through. And there he held her, and there she remained.
Although Mellors is exceptionally angry with Constance, he can't physically keep himself away from her. The argument they were having before this passage centered around their differing views on the role sex plays in relationships. Mellors is so frustrated that he tells her to leave his house, but her "wide-eyed and lost" reaction to this demand immediately makes them reconcile. The two have become so physically and emotionally enmeshed by this point that his body "hurts right through" as hers does.
There's a sense throughout the book that Oliver and Constance's relationship is like a powerful natural event. Just like she can't prolong the season when Wragby is covered in flowers, Constance can't immediately change her circumstances or the feelings that make her wish for change. Oliver is in a similar predicament. The "wind" that "tosses" him toward her is his love for her. He is scared by the power and depth of his feelings for Constance, which is why being "tossed" alarms him and also why he was so angry previously.
As Connie and Mellors share a quiet moment together amidst a storm, the narrative employs an allusion and a simile to depict the atmosphere in Mellors's house:
She sat and ruminated. The thunder crashed outside. It was like being in a little ark in the Flood.
In the Christian Bible’s first book Genesis, there’s a section that describes how in ancient times the Earth was drowned in an enormous “Flood” as a punishment for the sins of mankind. Noah and his children—the one family that were spared—received instructions from God to build an enormous boat. They floated on this boat until the floodwaters drained away. This “ark” has become a common reference in English for anything that provides salvation and protection during a catastrophe. Connie thinks of Mellors’s house as being like an ark because it’s a refuge from the societal (and literal) tempest outside.
This allusion, which Lawrence uses as a simile in this passage, illustrates the sense of safety and isolation Connie feels in this small dwelling. While she’s there, she’s detached from the external world and its chaos. Moreover, when Lawrence likens her enclosure with Mellors to being in an “ark,” he’s also implicitly comparing the pair to the biblical boat’s other inhabitants.
The Bible says that Noah was told to find one mated pair of every animal on the earth to shelter on the ark. He was supposed to do this so that the world could be repopulated after the flood. In this scene, Mellors and Constance are a “mated pair” of animals, sheltering from the flood and waiting to see the results of the tumult they’ve caused. Lawrence emphasizes this comparison with wordplay. As Connie is pondering her situation, she isn't thinking, but "ruminating." This word means to "chew over" something. When it's used to describe a human, it refers to someone going over complicated ideas in their mind. However, in the literal sense, "ruminating" is the process of regurgitating chewed grass and re-chewing it. It's what cows do to get all the nutrients out of their food. Connie isn't just thinking in this scene, then—she's specifically thinking like an animal.
In this passage, the author employs two metaphors to depict the cumulative impact sex with Mellors has on Connie. The metaphors describe Connie as being "pierced" during sex and shaken to her "foundations." Lawrence also uses a simile comparing sensuality and desire to "fire," since during this encounter Connie has the following experience:
[...] she was a little startled and almost unwilling: yet pierced again with piercing thrills of sensuality, different, sharper, more terrible than the thrills of tenderness, but, at the moment, more desirable. Though a little frightened, she let him have his way, and the reckless, shameless sensuality shook her to her foundations, stripped her to the very last, and made a different woman of her. It was not really love. It was not voluptuousness. It was sensuality sharp and searing as fire, burning the soul to tinder. Burning out the shames, the deepest, oldest shames, in the most secret places [...]
The metaphor Lawrence uses here—Connie being "pierced" during her sexual experiences—serves to illustrate the profound impact that her emotional connection with Mellors provokes. Their connection is “different, sharper, more terrible” than mere pleasure, making her feel vulnerable. All of the references to “piercing” here refer to the act of penetrative sex, where Mellors “pierces” her vagina with his penis. However, Mellors is also symbolically “piercing” her personality, which feels transformative. Connie’s sense of self is being penetrated and altered as her body is. Sex here isn’t just burning or “piercing” but functions like a force of nature. When the author describes Connie as being shaken to her "foundations," he likens her to a structure enduring an earthquake or a bombing. The “reckless, senseless” intensity of their sex leaves her no room to hide. She’s exposed.
The simile in this passage makes another comparison of Connie and Mellors’s relationship to "fire." While this “fire” often references their fragile, forbidden bond—a flame they must nurture—here it’s a destructive, cleansing force. Sex with Mellors puts Connie in a crucible, where she’s reduced to her most basic elements. This encounter "burns" away her inhibitions and shame, leaving her stripped down, purified, and renewed.
