CONCLUSION
I have now read and re-read each of the three novels several times. I have found it very interesting to look at the way in which Lawrence has developed the theme, extending some parts, dropping others and even changing the overall aim of the story. I feel that Lawrence began TFLC with the intention of highlighting the differences between the classes. The complete lack of understanding between the middle and working classes, the resentments on both sides and, presumably, the way that a love affair between two members of these classes could flourish. The trouble is, it cannot flourish. The gap between them is non-existent when they are united in passion - but when consciousness returns there is a gulf. Lawrence tentatively introduces the four letter words in TFLC and I feel that they probably work best of all in this version. The author does not highlight the lovers' sexual relationship, though it is obvious they have one, and this 'drawing of the curtain' indeed suggests, as the author felt it would, something improper about a sexual relationship. I do not feel that there is much affection between Connie and Parkin in this novel.
In JTLJ, Lawrence has abandoned the bolshevism and communism, it is dismissed as just another panacea for the lack of humanity in society. Parkin is more sensitive than in TFLC, one feels that there is love between Connie and the gamekeeper and through the descriptions of their love-making the author is able to portray his belief in the necessity of good, sensual relationships. Both Connie and Parkin decry egoism, acquisitiveness and materialism and recommend that people take up a simple life, where human relationships are the most important thing.
LCL is quite different from either of the other two versions. The gamekeeper has become Mellors, an educated man and ex-army officer with all the self-assurance that these positions have given him. Lawrence portrays his life/ideas theory in many ways throughout the book, taking in Aunt Eva/Mrs Bolton and Tommy Dukes/Jack Strangeways as well as Mellors/Sir Clifford. The other large issue in this version is the relationship between tactile and verbal communication. Nowhere is this better demonstrated than in the passage I quoted in Chapter Three where Connie experiences the sequence of articulated thought transferred to feeling, bearing out what Mellors' says - that sex is only touch, "the closest of all touch." (LCL, 313) Mellors' several outbursts of venom against the world at large spoil this novel. These almost invariably make the gamekeeper seem hard and bitter, surely a contradiction of the author's intention. I feel that Lawrence, in his endeavour to voice his frustrations with life, creates an inconsistent character in Mellors.
I shall follow this very brief summary of the three books with some views which I have formed whilst studying the novels and other works about Lawrence.
Firstly, I would like to comment on Lawrence's depiction of the individual. Lawrence believed that the tender, aware man (or woman) is in mortal danger from the rest of society. These people, with an isolation apparent whether they are alone or in a crowd, are trampled underfoot by the materialistic, acquisitive masses. This, I believe, is as true today as it was seventy years ago. Weekly, it seems, one reads of teenagers who have committed suicide because they are bullied at school; these 'mis-fits' are too tender to live amongst the 'ordinary' people and there are even fewer places of refuge now than in Lawrence's day.
Mellors declares that people are so busy working for money, for things which they want but don't need, that they never have time to live, or look around them. When I see children, on expensive cycles and wearing designer trainers, roaming the streets because their parents are working to get money for holidays and games, I wonder if they are luckier than the child who is at home with an unemployed parent making papier mache models. In the same way, I reflect upon the New Age Travellers, those much maligned mis-fits of our day; are they, whose vacated site may be littered and soiled for months, worse than the architect who designs a concrete monstrosity which may stand for a hundred years? The points that Lawrence made in the nineteen twenties seem to me to be as relevant now as when he wrote them and I feel that, in a week when the western world has been horrified by the story of two ten year olds who stoned a two year old to death [the James Bulger case, 1993], his despair for the future of humanity was chillingly prophetic.
Whether or not Lawrence denigrates women (and I very firmly believe that he does not), he genuinely believed that women and men have clearly defined roles in a relationship - which is not to say that he thought women less important. He also believed that deviations from these roles would cause a breakdown in human relationships - and who is to say what has caused it? Hence, Mellors' remark that "it's because th' men aren't men, that th' women have to be." (LCL,248) I feel that I must stress that Lawrence's ideas about this male/female balance in relationships did not affect his opinion of women as independent people in everyday life. Ursula Brangwen (The Rainbow) is an independent young woman - going against her family to become a teacher. Lawrence's views on sex have caused much controversy and it must be said that he seems to have had a very narrow view of what constitutes desirable sexual performance. However, practicalities aside, the feelings behind Lawrence's prescriptions for sexual harmony are good. I believe that he is recommending tenderness for each other, a sharing of bodies - not for physical satisfaction but as an act of faith in each other. I feel that accusations of obscenity about these books are absurd. Lawrence's views are so obviously sincere that they cannot be misconstrued, even if one does not agree with them. He is not advocating anything which would harm anyone, he is calling for tenderness and a reversal of avariciousness. If these books are obscene then sex itself is obscene. I feel very strongly that an adolescent would gain a deeper understanding of, and a healthier attitude towards, sex from these novels than from the plethora of sex manuals available today, too many of which concentrate on the biological aspects of the sex act and the 'right' of each individual to expect satisfaction from the other.
When one compares the sex scenes in Russell's Lady Chatterley with a film which was released on video at about the same time, it is interesting to speculate on what Lawrence's reaction would have been. In the first five minutes one sees a man and woman apparently making passionate love; the (dominant) woman astride the man, who is tied to the bed-head. Suddenly she repeatedly stabs her partner with an ice-pick... in my opinion this is obscene; i.e. likely to deprave and corrupt; at least more so than Lawrence type of love.
Lawrence, never under a misapprehension about the reception his book would receive, was nevertheless hurt and angered by the public's view of him as a writer of 'dirty books'. In LCL, Duncan Forbes makes a speech which I feel comes straight from Lawrence's heart;
"'they'll never rest till they've pulled the man down and done him in... it's the one thing they won't let you be, straight and open in your sex. You can be as dirty as you like. In fact the more dirt you do on sex the better they like it... You have a snivel and feel sinful or awful about your sex, before you're allowed to have any.'" (LCL, 299)
Lawrence himself probably appeared in everything he ever wrote, but I find it poignant to consider that in the Lady Chatterley books he was both Clifford Chatterley and the gamekeeper. A man with a brilliant mind, he loved a furious debate with his 'cronies' and, by the time he wrote these books, almost certainly impotent due to ill-health he too longed for an heir. Set against this, he was an individual; he fitted in at neither school nor university. He lived close to nature, with few possessions and fewer ties and once he had found his mate he stuck to her faithfully.
As I stated at the beginning of this study, I enjoyed LCL when I read it for the first time but when I began to study closely the three versions for this work I was quite prepared to change my opinion. I have read several harsh criticisms of the novels, and in each case the author has put forth valid points. I feel that LCL does not stand up well to close reading; having read JTLJ, I find it difficult to maintain my original enthusiasm for the final version. With regard to the charges of pornography. Brenda Maddox says,
"The third Lady Chatterley is unquestionably the most pornographic of the three, its plot punctuated... by seven scenes of sexual intercourse...with much graphic undressing: the classic formula for writing intended to arouse."1 [my emphasis]
Whilst I accept her definition of pornography, I believe that there is another consideration which has to be made: male and female are about to make love, in many cases the male will enjoy watching the female undress - this is a part of sexual foreplay. Lawrence's aim is to portray the love-making of his couple; he needs, therefore, to describe what the lovers are experiencing, be it Connie's tenderness for the wilted penis or Mellors' arousal from visual stimuli. Lawrence's encompassing descriptions of their emotions and experiences allow us to be more than voyeurs.