Lady Chatterleys Lover A Sexual Love or a Spiritual Love英语

Lady Chatterley?s Lover: A Sexual Love or a Spiritual Love?

Abstract：Lady Chatterley?s Lover, a controversial book, since its first days of publication, had been banned for almost half a century. In the early days of its publication, people could not understand the deeper meaning of this book. What they saw was the over blank descriptions of sexual love. No one appreciated the true value of this book. The purpose of D. H. Lawrence was to wake up the people by what he called rebirth of human nature. But at that time, in the industrialized England, the ruling party would not let this happened. In the book, Connie gained self-rebirth in her sexual love with Mellors. What made Connie decided to elope with Mellors? Is it a pure sexual love? Or a pure spiritual love? Or both? This paper tries to discuss these from what the ordinary people was shame to talk about loudly: sex. Moreover, this paper studies the relationship of the two main characters, Connie and Mellors.

Key Words: Lawrence Connie Mellors sexual love spiritual love

Ⅰ. D. H. Lawrence and His Lady Chatterley?s Lover A. D. H. Lawrence’s Life Experience

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Sep.11th, 1985, David Herbert Lawrence, one of the primary shapers of 20th-century English fiction, was born in a coal miner’s house in Nottinghanshire, central England. Lawrence received education at Nottinghanshire High School, then he worked as a clerk and later as a pupil-teacher, and later he studied at Nottinghanshire University. After that, he found a teacher’s job. And his writing career began when his first book The White Peacock (1911) came into public. 1912, he met Frieda von Richthofen, and felt in love with her. Six weeks after they met each other, they eloped to Bavaria. July 13th, 1914, they got married. And they traveled in several countries in the final two decades of his life. During the First World War Lawrence and his wife were in strict control of the authority by the name of spying for the Germans because Frieda was a German. In the year 1919, they finally were permitted to emigrate and from then on their life of continuous and restless wandering began. At the age of 44, Lawrence died of tuberculosis in Vence, France on March 2, 1930.

In his early years, Lawrence mostly described his personal experience and the social environment which he was familiar with. He was unaware of presenting readers his life experience and the anguish of unharmonious marriage life. As he become mature in writing, he moved to the inspection of the relation between the two genders. He thought the establishment of a natural and harmonious relation of man and woman

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was the beginning of dispose of social problems. But Lawrence turned to explore the leader issue and primitive religions. He called on people to obey the orders of the leader. In the last period of his writing career, he turned back to explore the relation between the two genders for he was in question of his doctrines of leaders. Lady Chatterley?s Lover was his most important work in this time.

B. About Lady Chatterley?s Lover

In July, 1926, the Lawrence couple came back to Eastwood, the last time he came back to his hometown. At that time, the nationwide strike, which lasted for 5 months, was just over. The workers didn’t go back to work. In the mining district, what Lawrence saw was lifeless mine shafts, dejected miners, police who were keeping watch on and widespread hungry and violence. Lawrence thought the miners were more painful than those he saw in his childhood. He was deeply moved by the scene, feeling that he should do something to help. He decided to write a book about England. So we had the book Lady Chatterley?s Lover. In fact, this book had three versions. Now the book we see in used is the third version. Lawrence wrote this book because he wanted to wake up the people. He wanted to let them found the guilty nature of the bourgeoisie. He wanted to save the world. He hoped human nature could find permanence in perfect sexual love. He hoped by this way people could awake and begin

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to resist the bourgeoisie.

The story was a love affair between a wealthy, married woman and a gate-keeper, happened during the First World War. Connie, the leading lady, was married to Sir Clifford, a mine owner in Derbyshire. Three months after they got married, the First World War broke out and Clifford went to the front. Half year later, Clifford came back home paralyzed from the waist down, impotent. They return to the Wragby Hall. In the lifeless Wragby Hall, Connie felt isolated and became dejected in the longtime suppress of sex. She lived unhappily and she became wan and sallow. She had a brief affair with a young visiting playwright, Michaelis. One day, in their wood, she met her husband’s gatekeeper----Oliver Mellors. She was deeply attracted by his innate nobility and grace, his purposeful isolation, his undercurrents of natural sensuality. Then she entered into a passionate relationship Mellors. Gradually, she found herself fall in love with Mellors. And she could not bear the situation any more. She wanted to live with her lover; she wanted to live a new life. So she decided to go away with Mellors when she found herself pregnant. But Clifford refused to give a divorce and let them go. All they could do was to wait for a better time when they could be united.

Ⅱ. The Sexual Love Motive in Lady Chatterley?s Lover

In a sense, all Lawrence’s books were full of descriptions of sexual

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love. Lawrence’s frankness in describing sexual relations between men and women upset a great many people. The book Lady Chatterley?s Lover was the most typical one.

What is the underline meaning of his descriptions of sexual relations between Connie and Mellors in Lady Chatterley?s Lover? In the internal elements, the sexual love motive in this book is: “the theme of return of human nature to paradise under the sexual love motive and the artistic expression to it.” (Liang Chunhua, 2004) The basic idea of the sexual love motive of this book is to explore the relationship between sexual love and human beings. Lawrence thought modern civilization had worn away human’s primitive feeling about sex. It was why he chose a mining district as the background of the story. In this book, Lawrence attacked the persecution of industrial civilization towards sexual love. So Lawrence created a lost Garden of Eden for the people. The wood was the garden. Connie and Mellors found their true love and the true meaning of life there. Then, How to find the lost Garden of Eden? Lawrence meant to maintain the return of the dissimilated human nature: let human beings gain rebirth in perfect sexual love. By presenting Connie’s different feelings of her sexual love with Mellors, Connie gained rebirth of herself and found the lost Garden of Eden.

Ⅲ. Lawrence’s Views on Sexual Love

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We have to confess that, just like Lawrence criticized, we are shameful to talk about sex because we think it is not an honorable thing and we should not mention it all the time. To explore this book, first we have to see what sex in Lawrence’s eyes is. What is sex? Maybe few people would like to talk about it. Let’s see what Lawrence said. Though universally thought Lawrence was influenced by Freud, Lawrence had his own ideas about the nature and the function of sexual love. Lawrence's doctrines of sexual freedom aroused obscenity trials, which are still part of the relationship between literature and society. He saw sex and intuition as a key to undistorted perception of reality and a way unburden individual's frustrations and maladjustment to industrial culture. According to what Lawrence said in one of his essay Sex and Beauty: “sex is an instinct of human nature. Where there is life, there is sex. ……Sex and beauty are the same just like fire and flame. Hatred for sex is hatred for beauty. If you love the beauty that is alive, you respect sex deeply.” (姚暨荣，2006，P126-127)Lawrence thought sex should be respected. In his eyes, sex itself is value; sex is the only healthy power to oppose the morbid modern civilization. In most people’s eyes, sex is only the tool of birth. But Lawrence thought the function of sex is joy, instead of birth.

Ⅳ. The Sexual Love in Lady Chatterley?s Lover

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Lady Chatterley?s Lover was full of over blank descriptions of sexual love. The descriptions of sexual love also aroused debates of whether there was only sexual love between Connie and Mellors or there was still spiritual love. In fact, “Lawrence expressed his idea through Mellors’ mouth that the sexual love of human beings was healthy, natural and beautiful, which had essential difference from the sexual action of animal.”(Liu Yuli, 2003)

Connie already had sexual experience with a German young man when studying in Dresden. But that didn’t give her much impression. Both of them were clear that “love” had gone through them, the physical experience. When she married to Clifford, they only had a month’s honeymoon then Clifford came to the war and came back home impotent. She did not even have time to experience the real meaning of sexual love with her husband. After that, her desire for sexual love was depressed for a long time. Though she had a brief affair with a young visiting playwright, Michaelis, to someway, she was dead inside. She was a walking corpse.

In Chapter 6, P65, there was a scene describing Connie seeing Mellors washing himself half naked by chance:

Yet in some curious way it was a visionary experience: it had hit her in the middle of the body. She saw the clumsy breeches slipping down over the pure, delicate, white loins, the bones showing a little, and the

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scene if aloneness, of a creature purely alone, overwhelmed her. Perfect, white, solitary nudity of a creature that lives alone, and inwardly alone. And beyond that, a certain beauty of a pure creature. Not the stuff of beauty, not even the body of beauty, bur a lambency, the warm, white flame of a single life, revealing itself in contours that one might tough: a body!

This paragraph perfectly described the beauty of a human body. It was praise of human body. Human body was only beautiful when it was in nature. Connie was deeply drowned to Melllors. It was life! Alive! The muscle, the power! Her long-depressed sexual desire was awaken, strongly but unpredictably. Though she did not notice the change inside herself, it did happen silently and continuously. “The momentary sexual desire was unusually for Connie because it was an inspiration of life for the nature of human beings.” (Liu Yuli, 2003)

Mellors, the former subordinate of Clifford, “was a rebel against the industrial civilization. Though born in a lower class family, he was learned. Compared with Clifford, he was a man of strong physique. At the same time, he had experienced much than many people. So he had a deeper acknowledge of the real world.” (蒋家国，2003，P345) He left the army with great disappointment. He knew the great harm that the industrial civilization had done to the society so he didn’t want to serve the authority. He also knew that he could do nothing to help change the

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situation. So he chose to be a gatekeeper. The wood was his private sky. Seldom people could break the quietness. He was isolated from the real world. Nature was his best friend. And he believed in feelings. He thought human beings could gain the most happiness only in the nature. One day, his isolated life was broken by Connie. At first he wanted to be cold to her. But his heart melted when he saw Connie’ tear. Men were easy to be moved by the tear of women. This was the breakthrough of their relationship. On the soldier’s blanket, they had their first sexual experience. It was in Chapter 10, P115-126.

He drew down the thin silk sheath, slowly, carefully, right down and over her feet. Then with a quiver of exquisite pleasure he touched the warm soft body, and touched her navel for a moment in a kiss. And he had to come in to her at once, to enter the peace on earth of her soft, quiescent body. It was the moment of pure peace for him, the entry into

the body of the woman. This paragraph described the scene vividly. The actions, every action that Mellors did, were described so detailed. It also described the feeling of Mellors. It was totally a new experience to him. He had sex with his Ladyship! He enjoyed the sensorial pleasure. But that was all, no other thing. After that, he just went out the hutquietly.

The naked body was so beautiful that Mellors was afraid of damaging the beauty. He touched it so softly and so carefully as if it were an icon.

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“His finger caressed the delicate, warm, secret skin of her waist and hips. He put his face down and rubbed his cheek against her belly and against her thighs again and again.” (Chapter 10, P125) He appreciated it with strong worship. Before him, it was a perfect body. He did love it because the body could bring him the extreme happiness.

Though Connie couldn’t find the beauty of sexual love with Mellors at first, soon she found it under the leading of Mellors. In Chapter 10, P133, one afternoon after Connie visiting Mrs. Flint, she met Mellors on her way back through the wood. In a place where was a little space and a pile of dead boughs, they had sex again. This time both of them came off together:

“He too had bared the front part of his body and she felt his naked flesh against her as he came into her. For a moment he was still inside her, turgid there and quivering. Then as he began to move, in the sudden helpless orgasm, there awoke in her new strange thrills ripping inside her. Ripping, ripping, ripping, like a flapping overlapping of soft flames, soft as feathers, running to points of brilliance, exquisite and melting her all molten inside.” “The voice out of the utmost night, the life! The man heard it beneath him with a kind of awe, as his life sprang out into her.” Mellors was so proud that Connie came off with him this time. For a man, the greatest proud was not he himself enjoyed it, but at the same time he let his lover enjoyed it together.

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The most classical description of sexual love in this book may be in Chapter 15, when they made love in the rain. Lawrence used nearly the whole chapter to describe the whole process. Connie got into the rain with all her clothing off. At this time, Connie no longer felt abashed to be naked before her lover. Mellors was greatly encouraged by the behavior of Connie. He soon joined her. They were so happy in the rain because they could not feel any fetters. They were free to do anything they wanted. And Mellors couldn’t stand for the lure any more. He looked at her with hungry eyes like she was a delicious food. He decided to waste no time. She was nearly at the wide riding when he came up and flung his naked arm round her soft, naked-wet middle. She gave a shriek and straightened herself and the heap of her soft, chill flesh came up against his body. He pressed it all up against him, madly, the heap of soft, chilled female flesh that became quickly warm as flame, in contact. The rain streamed on them till they smoked. He gathered her lovely, heavy posteriors one in each hand and pressed them in towards him in a frenzy, quivering motionless in roaring silence of the rain, and shirt and sharp, he took her, short and sharp and finished, like an animal.

It was nature of all beings. Direct, strong, with no hesitation. Mellors helped Connie find the extreme of sexual love and no longer refuse it. It was also the praise of human reality. “What we can feel is only beauty, the beauty of human body, the beauty of vigor, and the beauty of life.

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((Liu Yuli, 2003)

Ⅴ. The Spiritual Love in Lady Chatterley?s Lover

Though there were many sexual love descriptions in Lady Chatterley?s Lover, sexual love was not the main link of Connie and Mellors' relationship. In stead, it was spiritual love that tied their hearts together. Sexual love was just the surface; the deeper thing Lawrence wanted to reveal was their true love.

Though impotent, Clifford was reluctant to give divorce. He wanted to bind Connie beside him. “He denied the value of human body, ignoring and destroying the vitality of Connie. He never cared the sexual desire of Connie as a woman.” (蒋家国，2003，P335) He thought that embrace, petting and coition were primitive and instinctive activities of human beings. In his talk with Connie in Chapter 5, P42, he said:

“What do the occasional connexions matter? ......If people don?t exaggerate them ridiculously, they pass like the mating of birds. ……It?s the life-long companionship that matters. It?s the living together from day to day, not the sleeping together once or twice. You and I are married, no matter what happens to us. We have the habit of each other. ……little by little, living together, two people fall into a sort of unison, they vibrate so intricately to one another. That?s the real secret of marriage, not sex; at least not the simple function of sex.” He tried to brainwash Connie,

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making her believe that their marriage life was good as those normal people. He would not mind who she had a love affair with; he would not mind who she had baby with, if she wanted. He thought that was his love for Connie. But this was not true love.

Connie was a sensitive woman. She thought her life should have love. So, even though Clifford was impotent, she didn’t leave him because he “loved” her. But soon she found herself disappointed with Clifford’s love. She turned to Michaelis. But she was disappointed again. Then, she met Mellors. At first, they were just talking and kept a distance from each other. Then, they had sex. The first time after they made love, Mellors was still a riddle to Connie. She felt she didn’t know the man. And this time the sex was the same as she had experienced before. She was so calm as if she were the third person.

But she knew that all have changed since they had sexual love. She knew that everything would be different. But she didn’t know what the change would bring about. So she wanted to run away from the wood. For a long time, she didn’t go to the wood.

Dodging from the wood couldn’t stop what would happen. As time went by, their relationship became closer and closer. Connie realized the beauty of sexual love gradually. Every time they made love, her feeling became deeper and deeper, with the other self awaken slowly. Unconsciously, her love to Mellors grew deeper and deeper. She learnt to

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enjoy with him, share with him, find the beauty with him, and go to the extreme crest with him. From lying still in the sexual course to enjoy the sexual love, it was her rebirth; it was the sublimation of Connie. In Chapter12, P176, she realized the beauty of a man’s body: A man! The strange potency of manhood upon her! Her hands strayed over him, still a little afraid.……And now she touched him, and it was the sons of god with the daughters of men. How beautiful he felt, how pure in tissue! How lovely, how lovely, strong, and yet pure and delicate, such stillness of the sensitive body! Such utter stillness of potency and delicate flesh. How beautiful! How beautiful! ……Beauty! What beauty! A sudden little flame of new awareness went through her. ……The roots, root of all that is lovely, the primeval root of all full beauty.

Because she loved the man, and she had long appreciated his power, his vigor, now, she was enchanted with his body. There was a saying that “man has love because of sex while woman has sex because of love”. It was true in this book. As they felt in love, Mellors would not only lie still after they made love. He would say something to her or do something that was no need to speak. And he cared about her. All his behaviors would make Connie feel warm. “He lay still, too. But he held her close and tried to cover her poor naked legs with his legs, to keep them warm. He lay on her with a close, undoubting warmth.” He asked Connie whether she was cold or not in a soft, small voice. (Chapter 10, P125-126)

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On the contrary, in the awaking of the other self of Connie, she found that she had fallen in love with Mellors deeply. She was no longer content with the touch of body. Every time after they made love, she always asked Mellors to say something to her or she would talk to him. She needed the communication by heart. She always asked if Mellors loved her:

?You love me, don?t you?? she murmured. ?Ay, tha knows!? he said. ?But tell me!? she pleaded.

?Ay! Ay! ?asn?t ter felt it?? he said dimly, but softly and surely. And she clung close to him, closer. He was so much more peaceful in love than she was, and she wanted him to reassure her. (Chapter12, P177)

Communication was ever important than before. The touch of body could no longer make Connie feel safe. Even though she knew Mellors did love her, Connie kept asking Mellors to speak it out as though that would make her feel safe and secure.

Women in love were unreasonable. Mellors knew this so he would feel annoyed for her request.

The deeper the love was, the more she wanted. Connie even began to plan going away with Mellors. Before going abroad with her sister Hilda, she talked to Mellors that she wanted to go away with him, no matter where to go.

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When Connie went with her sister Hilda to London, during their trip, they had talked a lot, discussing about Mellors. The first time when Hilda saw Mellors, she was angry because she thought that he was rude to her. And she thought Mellors wasn’t Mr. Right of Connie. He was lower class. So she kept persuading Connie to give up her lover. But Connie refused. She thought Mellors was her true love. Once she knew the real tenderness, or the real sensuality, with Mellors, her life changed. She found the true meaning of living in the world. Life would be completed only living with the one who she loved. She told her sister and her father her decision of going away with Mellors. Her father and Hilda were moved for they could felt the deep love of Connie to Mellors from her words. Finally they decided not to stop them. And they wished them from the bottom of their hearts.

When Connie found herself pregnant, the thought of going away with Mellors grew stronger and stronger. She wanted to have a family in normal sense: a healthy husband who loved her, her and their children. Now, she had a healthy lover, and se was going to give birth to their baby. The only step to a happy, normal family was to get divorce with Clifford. But Clifford would never be merciful to them. Though he knew his wife had betrayed him and was going to have a baby with other man, he would not give in. He thought if his marriage ended with failure, he would be the laughing stock of his class. Connie and Mellors had to wait, wait for a

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day that finally Clifford gave divorce to Connie. They were sure they could see the day coming because they love each other.

Ⅵ. Conclusion

Though Lawrence gave so many frank descriptions of sexual love in this book, the direct reason that led to Connie’s decision of going away with Mellors was that they loved each other. The so many descriptions of their sexual love were foreshadowing of their love. Woman would not casually have sex with other man only if she loves him. At the beginning, Connie was a woman inside herself already dead. But her other self was awaking in her sexual experience with Mellors. She found the true love. From the pure sexual love to the spiritual love between them, a new Connie was born. She found herself in the past was so foolish and meaningless. She found the true meaning of life. And she had finished the rebirth of herself. Their love made Connie decide to go away with her love, giving up her social status, the wealth, and a “happy” life living in Wragby Hall. She wanted the real happy life. So she decided to begin a new life with her lover.

In a word, hadn’t the sexual love, hadn’t their spiritual love. The sexual love was for the spiritual love.

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Bibliography

1. D. H. Lawrence Lady Chatterley?s Lover Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press 2004

2. 蒋家国 《重建人类的伊甸园 ——劳伦斯长篇小说研究》 湖南大学出版社 2003

3. Liu Yuli Lawrence? View on Sexual Love Reflected in Lady Chatterley?s Lover

Journal of Langfang Teachers College Vol. 19 No.3 2003.9

4. D. H. 劳伦斯著 姚暨荣译 《性与可爱》（A） 《在文明的束缚下 劳伦斯散文选》（M） 新华出版社 2006

5．Liang Chunhua The Niravana of Sexual Love: the Return of Human Nature to the Modern Paradise ----The Interpretation of the Sexual Love Motive in Lady Chatterley?s Lover

Journal of Nanning Teachers College Vol. 21 No. 1 2004.3

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