The Horse Dealer's Daughter

During 1996 The Rananim Society received a number of requests for help with studies of "The Horse Dealer's Daughter" - this page contains some of the replies that our members have sent. Please feel free to write to us with your comments :-)

If you make use of this resource please acknowledge the person's help in your work and perhaps send them an e-mail thanking them.

The Horse Dealer's Daughter

From: ccagle@mail.pittstate.edu (Charles H. Cagle)
Subject: Religion in Horse Dealer's Daughter
Date: Mon, 15 Jul 1996 12:18:44 +22318332 (CDT)
To: rananim@rananim.prestel.co.uk

Lawrence was not religious in the orthodox sense (not a church goer), so it would be a mistake to look for conventinal Catholic or Protestant theology in his work. However, he was full of his own personal mysticism about life, and I believe the following may be helpful to you in understanding the symbolism of The Horse Dealer's Daughter: Mabel is "dead" because she has not fulfilled herself as a woman (she is a loveless virgin, more interested in loving her dead mother than a living man). When her home environment is destroyed, she decides to kill herself to join herself to the dead love for her mother.) She is prevented from doing this by Jack, the young doctor. He saves her life by doing a foolish thing: going into deep water when he can't swim. This act of illogical, emotional compulsion is exactly what love is to Lawrence. We can't logically explain emotion; it is instinctive and "right" to be goverened by our emotions. When we start thinking and analyzing our acts, we get into trouble and are unhappy. This is exactly what happens to Jack and Mabel after she is saved from drowning. When they THINK, they get into trouble. One connection this would have with orthodox religion is the idea that faith is superior to reason in making us happy. Lawrence wants to make the reader aware at the end of the story that the couple, Jack and Mabel, may have a difficult time ahead if they marry. A male/female union is a struggle and a battle for domination of one over the other. Lawrence said the opposite of hate is not love, but individuality. One other interesting point about this story: Lawrence originally called it "The Miracle," since the water symbolism produces a miraculous "baptism" or rebirth of love out of death. Hope this helps a bit!
Charles Cagle

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Date sent: Thu, 17 Oct 1996 19:33:22 -0400
To: rananim@rananim.prestel.co.uk
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
Subject: "The Horse Dealer's Daughter"

This is one of my favorite Lawrence stories.

What attracts you to it?

Here are some sketches on why I find it... manipulative and more. I recently helped someone with a Marxist interpretation of it, which was fun! Lots of master/servant themes going on.

A family (former masters) has fallen on hard times. Are they now kind of like the horses they used to trade? Vulnerable, open to the cruel capitalist economy which is driving this whole part of the world into economic depression.

But the daughter seems to do OK, doesn't she! Funny about that. And maybe that's what I mean by the manipulative part.

Do you think she was faking that suicide attempt?

Do you think the doctor (who is described as a slave, at one point) really wanted to marry her, or was he just rescuing her to be a nice guy? If it's a trap, you have to admire her skill, at least!

-Randall Albright

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Date sent: Sat, 05 Oct 1996 18:07:08 -0700
From: Kim <cliff@icom.ca>
To: The Rananim Society <rananim@rananim.prestel.co.uk>
Subject: "The Horse Dealer's Daughter"

In one of the posts, an English teacher mentioned discussing this story as well as "Rocking Horse Winner". "The Horse Dealer's Daughter" has been on my mind lately because of a verse I came across in Hebrews.

Hebrews 11:35 reads "Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection."

I would like to toss (gently) the following into the pond: The Water - deliverance to the first resurrection The Doctor - the better resurrection Mabel - one of the 'others'

When Mabel regains consciousness after being in the pond, she has to verify with the doctor "What did I do?" After he answers her, she tells him that he saved her from the water because he loved her, thus setting her on a path to a different resurrection. This is the more torturous path because he finally answers her "with that terrible intonation which frightened her...lest he should not want her."

The problem for me with this theory is that it goes against what I originally thought of the pond scene. When Mabel walks into the murky, clay-filled water, I thought of the water as earth (clay). When she goes under the water, she then goes under the earth, or underground. If I look at this scene with reference to mythology, underground is one of the places where Chaos or Hades is thought to exist. This was further reinforced for me when Lawrence described the pond as "dead water." The doctor may then pull her from the underground, but that does not actually save her any more than Zeus was able to save Persephone from Hades. Mabel may be above ground but will, like Persephone, be doomed to return to the underground for half the year, hence her horror at the end of the story. By thinking of the scene in this way, the Doctor is not truly Mabel's lover.

Thank you.

Kim

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To: The Rananim Society <rananim@rananim.prestel.co.uk>
Subject: re: Horse Dealer's Daughter
From: philipis@mindspring.com (Philip Demarco)

......Thank you for your comments, (which are being read in the initial onslaught of Hurricane Lilly. Darn. We just got over Hurricane Fran.)

Well.......the Master/servant issue is not inviting to me. It does seem though that there are two themes here existing in an atmosphere of sexuality as tangible as a foxe's run. One is the social descent experiences by the family, over that ten year period and the other is the reversal into animalism. The opening symbol of the four Drays being led off away from the Business is stark and the resultant likening of the siblings to animals is great....endorsed by the introduction of the Doctor's assistant, with his almost spanial like visage. As to the suicide.....not sure yet...I know that Lawrence used the idea of drowning over and over, and the water is always dirty or tainted and filled with weeds. I think poerhaps that if I acccept the water as a symbol for life, then it is notable that is slowly embraces the body in descent. Oh well.........time fr coffee.

Philip Demarco.

WYSIWYG.

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Date sent: Fri, 18 Oct 1996 20:22:31 -0400
To: rananim@rananim.prestel.co.uk
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
Subject: Re: re Horse Dealer's Daughter

Hey there, Phil. Sounds like you're on to some good stuff.

One is the social descent experiences by the family, over that ten year period and the other is the reversal into animalism.

Yes, Darwin is another key into Lawrence. And things aren't always in ascent, are they? You've seen the slums of East London, for example. Or just forget Darwin, and call it LIFE.

The opening symbol of the four Drays being led off away from the Business is stark and the resultant likening of the siblings to animals is great....

Yes.

endorsed by the introduction of the Doctor's assistant, with his almost spanial like visage.

And what does that "spanial like visage" mean?

As to the suicide.....not sure yet... I know that Lawrence used the idea of drowning over and over, and the water is always dirty or tainted and filled with weeds. I think perhaps that if I accept the water as a symbol for life, then it is notable that is slowly embraces the body in descent.

But water is just... water, isn't it? It's no more a symbol of life than a symbol of timelessness that embraces both life or death. So the question is: what is Lawrence using it for? What is Mabel using it for? Maybe she went in at first to cleanse her soul, having left the flowers at her mother's grave. And then maybe the deeper she went, the more she wanted to forget EVERYTHING.

Water can be used to drown yourself, so although death may be a purification... wouldn't a Knight in Shining Doctorhood be even better to save her? We know that he will miss her and her entire family, although... was he going to miss them anymore than others who had been packing up from this imploding economy? How does the water look as she submerges? Is it just luck that Ferguson is there? Maybe she would have just taken a mucky bath if he hadn't shown up, right?

One thing we know about Mabel is that money makes her feel good.

"But so long as there was money, the girl felt herself established, and brutally proud, reserved."

Brutally proud... almost as if you get more animal like, definitely the more free, with the more money you have. Ferguson may be just the ticket for survival.

Mabel asks, "Do you love me?" But in response, "He only stood and stared at her, fascinated. His soul seemed to melt." But he doesn't kiss her. Mabel is "passionately kissing his knees, repeating over and over that "You love me..." but something about this is "very distasteful to him... It was horrible to have her there embracing his knees.... He revolted from it violently. And yet-- and yet-- he had not the power to break away." "Was she perhaps mad?.... Yet something in him ached also."

How would you describe Mabel and Dr. Ferguson?

Ella turned to Cinders? Charming Prince who doesn't make a great deal of money, but is still... a Prince? Do they save each other? And if it isn't a two way street, what could that imply for their future?

Do you think they'll make a good match?

And the rest of the family: are they just... history, now?

Just things to ponder. It's a very rich story, from a number of views.

-Randall Albright

http://world.std.com/~albright/

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To: rananim@rananim.prestel.co.uk
Subject: Jack and Mabel
From: Charles Cagle <ccagle@pittstate.edu>
Date: Wed, 05 Feb 1997 11:56:53 -0800

Lawrence had mystical ideas about love and sex. He believed we should follow our instincts (heart) instead of trying to be logical about things (head). Thus, when Jack (who can't swim) follows Mabel into the dark water he is acting instinctively to save her. Common sense should have told him he might drown himself. But in saving her he is united with her through love. But don't underestimate Lawrence. This isn't a boy-gets-girl romance. By the end of the story both Jack and Mabel are NOT acting instinctively, but logically; so their momentary, mystical-magic happiness begins to fade.
Cagle

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To: rananim@rananim.prestel.co.uk
Subject: Re: Jack and Mabel
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
Date: Sat, 8 Feb 1997 12:56:54 -0500

Nice piece, Charles. But don't you think that Mabel is acting instinctively, at the end, as she realizes that beyond merely being saved from drowning, literally, she can reel Jack in with marriage and thus save herself from drowning, financially? Did Jack logically move from simple rescue to... love and marriage? And isn't Jack reacting instinctively, like out of guilt, perhaps, that he needs to take responsibility, that he CAN fill this void for her and... why not? I would argue that instinctive feelings go on through the end of the novel, and perhaps you do, too. But then, I know at least one Rananim member who has been known to throw brilliant curve balls.............

:-)

Scarlett O'Hara: "I'll never go hungry again."

Mabel is a survivor. Jack is her lifeline.

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To: rananim@rananim.prestel.co.uk
Subject: Jack and Mabel -Reply
From: Pradosh Mohapatra <pmohapatra@novell.com>
Date: Wed, 05 Feb 1997 20:48:29 -0700

Cagle, I don't think Lawrence always believed we should follow our instincts, not the logic as far as maintaining a relationship is considered. As part of the basic human nature, the first thing which happens in love is through instincts only i.e. we become feeling, not judging. But then we seem to think about it again and again whether we should continue with the relationship or not.

If we refer to _Sons_and_lovers_, Paul and Miriam could not develop a steady relationship because they became logical about things (head). If they had just gone ahead with the instincts, things would have been totally different.

Pradosh

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To: The Rananim Society <rananim@rananim.prestel.co.uk>
Subject: Feb 5 - Rananim (HDD & RHW)
From: gavriel <106024.1131@compuserve.com>
Date: Thu, 06 Feb 1997 09:29:50 GMT

Re: "The Horse Dealer's Daughter" and "The Rocking Horse Wiinner" The kind of polarities Lawrence works through with metaphysical passion in "Study of Thomas Hardy" are typical of his -- in theory -- balanced view of men and women equally capable of and in need of salvation. In his art Lawrence actually presents women as having some mysterious inner being stronger than that of men. Thus, in the story Ferguson is the more desperate figure because Mabel has her strange (more-or-less Jungian) psychic oneness in a return-to-the-mother. Some of the material relevant to the reader's question is found in the passages that contrast the doctor's "intension" with the deeper levels of being released in fire and water imagery. As for the question about "TRHW" the reader is confusing psychic and physical incest. The former is a literary-mythic theme of immense resonance, the latter a problem of sociologists and criminologists (OK, it does come up in art, but comparatively rarely, I'm thinking of a movie by Louis Malle about 25 years ago "Un Souffle de Couer").

As this is my introductory comment on Rananim (celebrations, ecstacies) let me add that I have taught (Tel Aviv and Hebrew univerisites) and written about Lawrence ("The Moon's Dominion," various articles), but hope my academic activities won't be held against me.

Best,

Gavriel Ben-Ephraim

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To: rananim@rananim.prestel.co.uk
Subject: MY instincts tell me...
From: Charles Cagle <ccagle@pittstate.edu>
Date: Mon, 10 Feb 1997 08:54:27 -0800

Randall: As I've said before, Bertie's mystical sagas are even more open to interpretation than the Koran, even--Yahwah help us!--the true word of the real god, Freud. However, I do believe that Mable and Jack begin to doubt themselves at the end of the story because they start using their brains in a logical manner (didn't Adam and Eve screw up the same way?). Otherwise, the story is rather mundane. Lawrence orginally called this story "The Miracle," and I think he meant sexual instinct rules all, if only we will let it. So, see, sex-mad serial killers are just plain folks! Cagle

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To: rananim@rananim.prestel.co.uk
Subject: Instincts and the Ever Enigmatic Source Text
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
Date: Mon, 10 Feb 1997 13:24:41 -0500

Why, Charles! How can you call this, one of my favorite stories by Lawrence, "mundane"! I guess that's what makes a horse dealers' race.......

I did note recently to Rananim that it was included in a collection of "greatest love stories of all time", which I found amusing, because it has so much more to it than just Prince Charming and Ella turned to Cinders.

But you know what? I really appreciate talking with you, Mr. Cagle! You are funny, you are sensitive to Lawrence, to reader's rights, and...

Here's more on my side of the story:

Let me pull out the Almighty Source Text to see how that glorious story ends:

For one thing, if I were casting this in a film, I would tell the actor playing our swashbuckling doctor that he's really a self-repressed gay guy. I mean, he loved the WHOLE family, folks! There had been nothing special in his eye toward Mabel until that rescue, had there? And when he heard they were leaving (hey, it's a Darwinian world. Maybe they don't need horse dealers like they used to. The whole town seems like it's getting washed up as time moves on into lovely new places like... Beldover!), it was sadness that yet another mere bunch of people-- perhaps those to whom he was closest?-- check your source text, folks!-- were leaving.

But there's something about Mabel, isn't there, after that rescue? Jack gets her back to his home:

"But still he had not the power to move out of her presence, until she sent him."

Jack wants to be straight, folks.

The absurdity of her question, "Do you love me, then?" to a simple rescue attempt only continues HIS lifeline to possibly *changing* and becoming straight for her. Thus, "He only stood and stared at her, fascinated. His soul seemed to melt."

More paragraphs include phrases like "strange, convulsive certainty" on her part... (She thinks she can nail him, doesn't she, folks!) Or how about: "passionately kissing his knees, through the wet clothing... as if unaware of everything." All pointing to intuition for me, not logic.

And why would a straight man be "amazed, bewildered, and afraid" of what she's up to? Seize the day, Jack!

"He had never thought of loving her... When he rescued her and restored her, he was a doctor, and she was a patient."

But the fact is, Jack is a bachelor in this little town, isn't he? He has a chance to SAVE this woman in a far greater way than he has already done, as the magic continues to reveal...

"Was she perhaps mad?" thinks Jack! (No, but intuitively clever.) "He had a horror of yielding to her. Yet something in him ached also."

So it is with "an inward groan (that) he gave way, and let his heart yield towards her." It isn't logic, but Mabel's power, that draws him in. Of course, to admit it "cost him a painful effort", because it means he's going to have to sacrifice his true sexual orientation to do it! But it is possible. I mean, look at Thomas Mann, Lenny Bernstein for awhile... And of course he's bitter, with a BROKEN heart, not fulfilled, that "he should be ripped open in this way"! But now a broken man, broken by powers beyond his logic I might add, he does say that he loves her. And, yes, it's in this moment of weakness that he says it in a "soft, low vibrating voice, unlike himself."

Hmmmm... unlike himself. Well, Actor, you have your directions.

Mabel's going to rearrange Jack's life. "I don't like you in those clothes" isn't exactly a nice way to thank your rescuer, your virtual fiancee, who really ought to go back to surgery, but is held in a kind of spell, now, is it! Thank God he does go, but the magic of Mabel's manipulation endures.

And isn't this a classic way to end it? She apologizes (for what? everything? or merely forcing herself on him?), and he intuitively says "No...", in my direction to the actor, and use the lines "blindly, with that terrible intonation which frightened her almost more than her horror lest he should _not_ want her" to show the complicated matter of his true feelings..........

Thanks, Charles! Oh, and of course this all ties in with my view on why the story was originally called "The Miracle"... which I hadn't known until this Cagle post! Thanks for that bit of information, CC!

-Randall Albright

http://world.std.com/L1.html

D.H. Lawrence
A man with a mission
A prophet of love
A very funny, self-effacing fellow......................... --------------------------------------------------------------------------

To: The Rananim Society <rananim@rananim.prestel.co.uk>
Subject: Gay Jack?
From: Charles Cagle <ccagle@pittstate.edu>
Date: Tue, 11 Feb 1997 12:34:28 -0800

Randall: Gay deconstructivness (pun intended?) is fun, isn't it. Of course, those are awfully hunky brothers Mabel has: Joe, the stallion, "handsome in a hot, flushed way,"; Fred Henry (there's that Hocking name again!) "erect" (oh, my), "clean-limbed, alert," with a bit of "sang-froid"; and Malcolm, the "baby," with a "fresh, jaunty museau." Obviously, Jack and Fred Henry are lovers who frequent straight bars as a cover, but rendezvous in a cozy corner at the Moon and Stars (how romantic!) pub. I wonder if Jack is aware that Malcolm has a crush on him, that he got excited and even "craned his neck" to see Jack when he first arrived. It must be Jack's self-guilt depression over his perversion, his sickness (these are Edwardian times, after all, and it was Edward as Prince of Wales who said, upon hearing about Oscar Wilde, "I thought men like that shot themselves") that drives him to commit suicide by drowning, to join lez Mabel in some sort of soap-opera tragedy. Then he thinks better of it. Why not MARRY plain-jane Mabel, and that way he can at least see stud Joe, hunky Fred Henry, and marvelous Malcolm when they come over on Sundays for fried chicken. It's all right there in the story.
Cagle

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To: rananim@rananim.prestel.co.uk
Subject: Re: Gay Jack?
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
Date: Wed, 12 Feb 1997 11:19:07 -0500

Charles:

"A brilliant interpretation" is all I can say. Thank you for the mah-vuh-luss own view on this way to read the story. The guys, folks, described in the beginning, once masters, now virtual slaves, are MUCH more erotic than poor Mabel. Check your source text.

Yes, Charles. It truly was a miracle. Mabel saved Jack from his self-repressed gayness. He can just keep that in the closet the rest of his life, close his eyes and think of her brothers as they make love. And Jack saved Mabel not only from suicide but from financial destitution. And don't you think he'll be a great brother in-law to those foxy guys?

;-)

And of course, that's ALL there is to the story!

Other views?

---Randall Albright

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To: The Rananim Society <rananim@rananim.prestel.co.uk>
Subject: re: Horse Dealer's Daughter
From: philipis@mindspring.com (Philip Demarco)
Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 08:17:36 GMT

On Thu, 13 Feb 1997 20:33:02 -0500, philipis@mindspring.com wrote:

Charles: "A brilliant interpretation" is all I can say. Thank you for the mah-vuh-luss own view on this way to read the story. The guys, folks, described in the beginning, once masters, now virtual slaves, are MUCH more erotic than poor Mabel. Check your source text. Yes, Charles. It truly was a miracle. Mabel saved Jack from his self-repressed gayness. He can just keep that in the closet the rest of his life, close his eyes and think of her brothers as they make love. And Jack saved Mabel not only from suicide but from financial destitution. And don't you think he'll be a great brother in-law to those foxy guys?
;-)
And of course, that's ALL there is to the story! Other views?

Well.......apropos the above.....I covered this story in class last year. I found it to be filled with the starkest imagery and possessing a sensuality that was almost tangible. (Gasp.)

I suspect our friend was having fun with his "gay" slant on things. No suggestion of it in there for me. Hey......I kinda was blown away by the power of Mabel's repressed sexuality. It was as though there was a wilderness of animalism in her that was stifled and longing to be set free.

Best,

Philip Demarco.

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To: rananim@rananim.prestel.co.uk
Subject: re: Horse Dealer's Daughter
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 10:20:38 -0500

Thanks, Philip DeMarco, for sharing your view!

It really is one of my favorite Lawrence short stories, on a number of levels. And, yes, I was having fun with my interpretation. And, yes, I see much more going on that what I pointed out.

-Randall Albright

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To: rananim@rananim.prestel.co.uk
Subject: My Two Cents on "The Horse Dealer's Daughter".....
From: LawBrown74@aol.com
Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 09:54:10 -0500 (EST)

Enjoying the comments on this short story. This is a very sad and depressing story in my estimation. True it ends in marriage and love (?) but it is really so pathetic. I don't know who is heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual in this tale..........what strikes me is that what we have here are a couple of asexual losers who find themselves together in the end in some solance for their self frustrations. True , the healthy farmer boys are getting on with their lives, and Mabel just decides to walk into the depths. But didn't she really REALLY maybe have an eye out to see if young lonely desperate Jack was strolling around before she took the plunge? Jack, miserable in this small farmer town and gaining his sustainance only by trying to help others all the time? Wasn't he a easy catch for her? And what were her first lines to him after the saving and cleaning and warming up but.............."Then you love me? Do you love me?". This seems to be a pretty big jump to me, but ole Jack was roped in and crossed the patient /physician line. You don't find alot of joy in either of these folks, they just marry and exist together for a little companionship and a kind of living death. Maybe Mabel should have just pulled Jack down with him into the murky waters? Maybe she did.

"Oh listen and I will tell you a secret....a great great secret!!!!!....these words are quite simple but they are always fatal words to a man........"Help Me". "

............................Lawrence.

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To: rananim@rananim.prestel.co.uk
Subject: Re: Another Two Cents on "The Horse Dealer's Daughter".....
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright) Date:
Fri, 14 Feb 1997 14:36:28 -0500

Dear LawBrown74@aol.com:

Thanks for your side of the story on "Horse Dealer's Daughter". You make me once again pick up that endlessly fascinating, powerful piece.

First, Lawrence DOES say that Mabel "would have been goodlooking, save for the impressive fixity of her face, 'bull-dog', as her brothers called it."

What's THAT all about? Could it be that Scarlett O'Hara tenacity to which I've alluded before, pulling up the carrot in _Gone With the Wind_ and swearing to God that "I'll never go hungry again!"

Then we come on the descriptions of the three brothers, and it IS interesting to me how... let's go through them:

1) Joe is "broad and handsome in a hot, flushed way." But he looks on the horses "with a glazed look of helplessness in his eyes, a certain stupor of downfall." Is Joe getting on with his life?

Interlude: the horses themselves. What are they? TIED UP! And the imagery of these beautiful animals... could there be a reflection BACK into what has now happened to this family? True, people aren't "stupid" like Lawrence correctly says horses are (hey, I love horses, but let's face it, pigs beat 'em for brains, hands down...), but...

More bad Joe description. His life is OVER, "he would be a subject animal now." Until... he realizes the dog is going be in even worse shape than himself!

2) Fred Henry. What's the scoop on him? Once again, "erect, clean-limbed, alert" indicate a hot dude. "If he was an animal, like Joe, he was an animal which controls, not one which is controlled." Sure. But there's a problem for Fred Henry, too, isn't there? He's "not master of the situations of life" at this point, either!

3) Malcolm has a fresh, jaunty museau. Maybe he'll survive, right? And he has practical advice for Mabel: become a nurse!

But time is ticking away in that "marble clock" for this family, isn't it? And although Joe *says* that he'll "get a move on", what does he do?

"He pushed back his chair, straddled his knees with a downard jerk, to get them free, in horsey fashion, and went to the fire."

He's not leaving that room, folks! He wants to know what the others are going to do... or say... because he hasn't the foggiest idea, himself!

In other words, from these first three pages, I get a sense of dread inertia... "a silence of futility..." and more. But the miracle hasn't happened yet, LawBrown!

And, commenting on YOUR comments, LawBrown, which I think add great insight:

This is a very sad and depressing story in my estimation.

Really? I think it's tragic in many ways, but strangely seductive and funny at the end!

True it ends in marriage and love (?)

Good point to but a question mark after "love"!

what strikes me is that what we have here are a couple of asexual losers

Is Jack a loser? And doesn't Mabel know how to turn on the sex (and guilt) appeal to reel him in?

But didn't she really REALLY maybe have an eye out to see if young lonely desperate Jack was strolling around before she took the plunge? Jack, miserable in this small farmer town and gaining his sustainance only by trying to help others all the time? Wasn't he a easy catch for her?

Absolutely! I think there's a very good basis for your view. Clever Mabel! A planned, fake suicide attempt, knowing he'd be walking by...

And what were her first lines to him after the saving and cleaning and warming up but.............."Then you love me? Do you love me?". This seems to be a pretty big jump to me, but ole Jack was roped in and crossed the patient/physician line. You don't find alot of joy in either of these folks, they just marry and exist together for a little companionship and a kind of living death. Maybe Mabel should have just pulled Jack down with him into the murky waters? Maybe she did.

Well, we don't know what they'll turn into as man and wife, do we? I can conjecture that Mabel will be the "controlling" one, though, like Fred Henry... a natural controller by birth. And I can conjecture, by the way Jack has acted throughout the whole story, with compassion but... a kind of fated sadness?... that he'll be easily controlled by her.

This is all a great view, LawBrown:

"Oh listen and I will tell you a secret....a great great secret!!!!!....these words are quite simple but they are always fatal words to a man........"Help Me". "

Absolutely. You see it in movies all the time. You see it when a girlfriend cries, which oddly stops as rapidly as it began when you do her bidding... and it can sometimes be for something as trivial as...

Which is why, perhaps, Camille Paglia prefers boys during that hot and horny state between Mom and Wife, when they're temporarily free of the ball and chain in those college years where Paglia so often teaches them. But that's a reductionist stereotype, Camille! Hey, but at least it's a shot in the dark!

Randall Albright

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To: <rananim@rananim.prestel.co.uk>
Subject: HDD thoughts
From: "Pete Bolejack" <st109456@ppp.kcc.edu>
Date: Wed, 9 Apr 1997 00:04:46 -0400

To Whom it May Concern:

I first want to say that I am far from a person who read these stories, and can analyze them. I am just a college student who had to do a research paper on this specific story. However, I am confused on the evaluations that have appeared on this page.

I don't want to offend anyone with what I am about to talk about. The issue has to do with the "gay" issue that a few individuals have mentioned in your thoughts. I see in no way in the world how you can say that Jack is a "self-repressed gay guy".

First, what ever happened to good old fashion unconditional love. It is possible for someone to have a love for someone, or something that has nothing to do with passionate hunger. For ex. you love your father, does that mean you want to be sexually oriented with him?

Jack just could of been a man with a big heart for everyone. He is a doctor. You have to care for individuals somewhat if you are in that vocation.

The story states they live in a small farm town. Don't you think a guy would know everyone in a small town to become good friends with them? Especially the town's doctor! Jack knew about the families situation before he got there.

Next, to the story... In the beginning when Jack was talking to Fred Henry, Jack was "watching her interestedly all the while." when she folding up the table cloth. Then after she leaves, Jack continues to ask what Mabel was going to do. Later, Jack was supposed to be attending to some outpatients from surgery "some mystical element was touched in him." when he spotted Mabel in the churchyard. The next paragraph explains his feeling after making eye contact; "There remained distinct in his consciousness, like a vision, the memory of her face, lifted from the tombstone in the churchyard, and looking at him with slow, large, portentous eyes. It was portentous, her face. It seemed to mesmerize him. There was a heavy power in her eyes which laid hold of his whole being, as if he drunk some powerful drug. He had been feeling weak and done before. Now the life came back into him, he felt delivered from his own fretted, daily self." How in the world can this man be accused of being gay? This man has fallen in love!

After he rescued Mabel from the pond, Jack was asked if he loved her. How can you answer that if this single doctor has never fallen in love before? Second, At this time, Jack needed to be revived more than Mabel did. If a naked woman, who is all wet, semi wrapped up in a blanket, that has been thought of all day, asks if you love her after kissing you....how could Jack say no?

Yes, I agree that it is extreme that the two fall in love so quickly, but I think it is more extreme to say that Jack is a gay man.

--Pete Bolejack

-----------------------------------

To: rananim@rananim.prestel.co.uk, "Pete Bolejack" <st109456@ppp.kcc.edu>
Subject: Re: HDD thoughts
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
Date: Wed, 9 Apr 1997 18:20:06 +0100

Dear Pete:

I thank you for continuing this thread on "The Horse Dealer's Daughter". After all, as DHL warned about _War and Peace_ just before he threw it away, the worst thing that an happen to a piece of art is to have it all "summed up"!

I am the author of both the barely sketched in Marxist and Darwinian views of HDD, as well as the "gay theory" version, which was buttressed by Charles Cagle under what he properly termed "gay deconstructionism". Am I correct in assuming that, in your staunch defense of Jack as "straight" that YOU are straight, find the idea of Jack being gay repugnant, and want to defend Jack in that role which I would suggest DHL merely cloaked him in?

Believe me, you don not offend me by taking the 90+% heterosexual viewpoint of this as one of the greatest love stories of all time! Oppression is something that DHL had to deal with in order to get a story like "The Horse Dealer's Daughter" INTO collections of "greatest love stories of all time", and he was a master of disguise at times!

First, what ever happened to good old fashion unconditional love.

Nothing! That's why it's included in a collection of good old fashioned love stories that I saw recently. That's why I didn't have the heart to tell my mother-in-law what I see as REALLY going on... she almost burst into tears, she found it so... tender! And I find it so... manipulative!

It is possible for someone to have a love for someone, or something that has nothing to do with passionate hunger. For ex. you love your father, does that mean you want to be sexually oriented with him?

Absolutely! I mean, for one thing, my parents are in the wrong generation! But in a "marriage", you do think that sexual orientation is going to come into play!

Jack just could of been a man with a big heart for everyone. He is a doctor. You have to care for individuals somewhat if you are in that vocation.

Good point. But he may have TOO big a heart, and not know how to defend himself against Mabel's pernicious, money-grabbing, hard-scraping ways!

Yes. And, as I've said before, this isn't the first family he's seen go down the tubes. It's a dog eat dog world, isn't it, Mr. Darwin? But Mabel is going to come out of this on TOP, isn't she!

Next, to the story... In the beginning when Jack was talking to Fred Henry, Jack was "watching her interestedly all the while."

Does that sound as sensual as the description of her brothers? Mabel COULD have been beautiful except... what was that flaw of hers in the Source Text, my friend?

Then after she leaves, Jack continues to ask what Mabel was going to do.

Jack is perhaps aware that Mabel, a woman, is going to have less options to fend for herself in a male chauvinist world. Is that a legitimate way to read why he's asking after her?

Later, Jack was supposed to be attending to some outpatients from surgery "some mystical element was touched in him." when he spotted Mabel in the churchyard.

And what does that MEAN, my friend? That... he realizes he could save her? That she could... save HIM?

The next paragraph explains his feeling after making eye contact; "There remained distinct in his consciousness, like a vision, the memory of her face, lifted from the tombstone in the churchyard, and looking at him with slow, large, portentous eyes. It was portentous, her face. It seemed to mesmerize him. There was a heavy power in her eyes which laid hold of his whole being, as if he drunk some powerful drug. He had been feeling weak and done before. Now the life came back into him, he felt delivered from his own fretted, daily self." How in the world can this man be accused of being gay? This man has fallen in love!

Because he's DRUGGED! Honestly, poor Jack... he feels pity for a woman, and is now being manipulated for her selfish ends. Is this a good basis for marriage?!?!

After he rescued Mabel from the pond, Jack was asked if he loved her. How can you answer that if this single doctor has never fallen in love before?

And how audacious of Mabel to even ask it, except that she is revealing her ulterior motives to both Jack and at least to me, the reader, to be so bold! Isn't the MAN the one who usually poses the question? Talk about pulling the Center into the Fringe, role reversal and... well, Jack NEEDS that role reversal, I think!

Second, At this time, Jack needed to be revived more than Mabel did.

I would think so! Imagine, if you're gay, the trauma of having to realize (and most gay guys DID marry in those days, and STAY married, too!)... OK, this is it! Conversion time! Gulp! Take a deep breath!

If a naked woman, who is all wet, semi wrapped up in a blanket, that has been thought of all day, asks if you love her after kissing you....how could Jack say no?

Well... obviously, he doesn't!

Yes, I agree that it is extreme that the two fall in love so quickly, but I think it is more extreme to say that Jack is a gay man.

Extremity is what makes the world go round. Looking beneath the surface of the text to see what's going on as subliminal code is important, too. But you know what? You could be right! It's just A STORY! And I may be just offering this one-- to you, is it disgusting? and if so, what does that say about you, my friend?-- way of viewing it to show the elasticity of interpretation.

I thank you for referring to the source text, but nothing that you have shown disproves my personal theory. Nor do I really care to disprove you, either. I simply note that you may be homophobic in not allowing for this possibility!

Other gay short stories in which Lawrence excelled include "You Touched Me", also known as "Hadrian". The historical Hadrian was a gay emperor whose lover Antinous drowned and he built statues of him throughout the Roman Empire while also accomplishing great civilizing achievements like re-building the Pantheon in Rome and pouring money, time, and effort into the the then-provincial-backwater Athens. See if you agree with Michael Ball, who wrote the Introduction to "England, My England" and other stories, who says that this is a story of love between a daughter and her father! To me, it is a love between a father and his adopted son. And show me some textual proof that Hadrian has any interest that one could call "love" for that woman, even though this one is "good", unlike the conniving Mabel! I'd be interested, because he seems like yet another gay guy... although this one is cunning, unlike poor Jack!

Honestly, D.H. Lawrence WAS great at pulling the wool over the eyes of the oppressors, wasn't he! He even wrote against his own minority (it's a term we in the business call "Self-Hate") in the most appalling terms at times! "Monkey-Nuts" is another great self-exposing story tht he probbly didn't even realize as he wrote it. For longer works, check out _Sons and Lovers, _The Rainbow_ and _Women In Love_.............. the list goes on and on.

You can fool some people some of the time, but the center will NOT hold. Why? Because there IS no center, except those to oppress others with their conception of what the center to be!

Thanks for writing! Keep reading DHL. He's a fox! You know, the kind that steal eggs and eat chickens, and sometimes get mistaken for being... something they're not!

-Randall Albright

http://world.std.com/~albright/L1.html

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To: rananim@rananim.prestel.co.uk, "Pete Bolejack" <st109456@ppp.kcc.edu>
Subject: Re: HDD thoughts
From: katzeman@k.imap.itd.umich.edu (katzeman)
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 09:05:39 -0500

Dear Pete (et al),

Thank you for your recent posting to the Rananim group. You provided a necessary counterpoint to some of the other ideas expressed here.

If I was going to pick a story to show how Lawrence wrote in gay themes, I agree that HDD would be a rather far-reaching choice. You have to dig pretty deep to find evidence for this claim, but I also believe that Lawrence wrote in such a way to encourage this kind of inquiry. The point is, of course, that we will all dig deep and find different things (some of us only "dirt").

Nonetheless, I found some of the wording you used to support your claims a bit troublesome, and since I'm still troubled by it a day later, I thought I'd call it to your attention.

I first want to say that I am far from a person who read these stories, and can analyze them.

I disagree. You do an excellent job of analyzing here. Using text to support your claims--it's very scholarly.

I don't want to offend anyone with what I am about to talk about.

I am certainly not offended. It's clear that you took time to articulate your thoughts in an inoffensive manner, which is why I'm writing to you with these other ideas.

First, what ever happened to good old fashion unconditional love.

Good point. But wouldn't this also imply not viewing gender as a condition of that love? There's nothing about being an "unconditional lover" that would make a person gay, straight or anything really. Or does it? Your argument seems to imply the impossibility of Jack being a "gay unconditional lover."

Jack just could of been a man with a big heart for everyone. He is a doctor. You have to care for individuals somewhat if you are in that vocation.

Which still doesn't indicate a specific sexuality, or does it?

Your long quotation (which I won't duplicate here) provides good evidence to support your claim. You follow it up with this question:

How in the world can this man be accused of being gay? This man has fallen in love!

Why is Randall's assertion that he is gay an "accusation"? We only "accuse" people of things we believe are wrong, like accusing someone of a crime.

After he rescued Mabel from the pond, Jack was asked if he loved her. How can you answer that if this single doctor has never fallen in love before?

I think I understand what you mean here, but at the same time, if we never fell in love because we had never fallen in love, none of us would ever fall in love, right? There has to be a first time for everything.

Second, At this time, Jack needed to be revived more than Mabel did. If a naked woman, who is all wet, semi wrapped up in a blanket, that has been thought of all day, asks if you love her after kissing you....how could Jack say no?

I could say, "It's easy if he's gay," but let me take it from a different angle. If the assumption is that a naked woman's sexuality is so overpowering, then this could actually be used to support the claim that he IS gay. In other words, her power is so great that his own desire is overwhelmed. Or not, in which case, what does this say about how Lawrence depicts women?

Yes, I agree that it is extreme that the two fall in love so quickly, but I think it is more extreme to say that Jack is a gay man.

Far-reaching? Yes. Difficult to support? Maybe. But extreme? Well...Lawrence was a pretty extreme writer, wouldn't you say? He certainly didn't shy away from the extremes of human consciousness. It's not really extreme to say that Jack is a gay man unless you find being gay extreme.

Like I said, I think your point is a good one. Unfortunatley some of your wording displays an underlying bias which I think weakens your overall argument. Just something to consider. Especially if you're writing college papers--something I avoid at all costs!

Thank you for your input. Keep posting!

And I wouldn't worry too much about offending other people. They'll let you know, just like you'll let them know when you're offended. Once upon a time there was a man who managed to offend just about everyone on this list, and we all survived.

Who was that masked man anyway?

Best to all,

--Jay Katzeman

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To: rananim@rananim.prestel.co.uk
Subject: Pete's Lament
From: Charles Cagle <ccagle@pittstate.edu>
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 1997 08:06:24 -0700

Pete Bolejack: I can certainly understand your reading of Jack and those horsey-stud brothers of Mabel. One can, of course, put a "gay" slant on anything (including Jesus giving a private dinner for 12 men!), but I think where some of us may be coming from is a wider knowledge of Lawrence's own confused sexual nature, which included some definite homoerotic meanderings. I think this is what subconsciously glimmers through in the horse-dealing story. Lawrence was "basically" straight, but there was something in the dark hair and eyes of those Cornish farmers that fascinated and attracted him, and he yearned in a kind of ersatz Greek manner for male bonding. He nearly had it with John Middleton Murray--or did he, Randall? Cagle

---------------------------------------------

To: rananim@rananim.prestel.co.uk
Subject: Re: Pete's Lament
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 1997 15:39:06 -0400

Charles Cagle:

Great to hear from you again! As to my one (and it was only one of three-- the other two being Marxist and Darwinian) reading of "The Horse Dealer's Daughter", I may have been basing it on biographical information. But then again, to demystify myself (as is so important in semiotics and deconstructionism), I had very little interest or knowledge in DHL's biography until last summer, when I read Meyer's biography on him! I saw the homoeroticism directly in his art, and argued fiercely with Mark Spilka about this when studying Lawrence 20 years ago, who made declarations in his book, _The Love Ethic of D.H. Lawrence_ like:

"In other words there is nothing homosexual about this relationship..." ---about "The Prussian Officer" story

(Interesting that now, with a 1996 biography, _Thomas Mann, Eros and Literature_ by Anthony Heilbut, I find out that it was written as a rather excitedly "first in English" reply to "Death in Venice"! So what excited DHL so much about the subject matter, I wonder? What is it about the relationship between both of the men that I can see DHL being... both!)

Furthermore, Spilka 20 years ago could not understand my own views that there was far more homoerotic than just the wrestling scene of _Women In Love_. This was also before Foucault and Derrida had much power (at least in the Department: we were all Barthes and Eco, but Spilka was... in his own world...). He could not ABIDE my belief that Lawrence was into "rough trade" (sado-masochism), or that this was indeed what was the nature of Gerald and Gudrun's relationship... ever wonder why their love scenes are far more convincing than Birkin and Ursula's?

And all of this was simply based on the art, which at the time did not include the suppressed "Prologue" to _Women In Love_. I simply saw weird stuff going on with Paul Morel, Tom Brangwen Senior, and others, besides the "bad" people like Winifred and Tom Junior, whom I felt were being demonized only at certain surface levels.

But Spilka gave me a very hard time, and I have to remember where he was coming from. He was one of the forefront to "rehabilitate" DHL in the 1950s, and in doing so, was friendly with Frieda (he DID at least tell me that DHL had problems with... well, that's DHL's personal life!)... and again, it was in Spilka's, Frieda's, and the 90+% of the population who at least think of themselves as "straight" to downplay these matters.

Spilka probably would also not have understood what I call the power of the unsaid in literature, such as a poem like "Kubla Kahn" by Coleridge. If a great pleasure-dome is erected, can one make a conjecture that perhaps it is built on top of, or paid for by, PAIN? If Kubla Kahn makes the decree, could it be, unsaid, that the order is carried out by SLAVES which he has at his command? Why DOES nature find it such an abomination? Why... well, this is way off the track of DHL, isn't it!

What has been "coming out" recently, beyond the "Prologue"-- which I *first saw* this summer, printed in the 1995 edition of _Women In Love_-- as well as in the Meyers, Maddox, Kinkead-Weekes biographies, the entry on DHL in _The Gay and Lesbian Literary Heritage_ written by Richard Kaye in 1995--- merely have helped to vindicate a view that I got a lot of **** for in 1976-77.

Now, that aside, do I want to dwell solely on this one aspect of DHL? Do I want to flatten "The Horse Dealer's Daughter" so that it can't also be one of the great heterosexual romantic love stories of all time? No way! Again, I quote The Master himself:

"The Perfectability of Man! Ah, heaven, what a dreary theme! The perfectability of the Ford car! The perfectability of which man? I am many men. Which of them are you going to perfect? I am not a mechanical contrivance." ---D.H. Lawrence, beginning of the "Benjamin Franklin" essay, _Studies in Classic American Literature_

Let literature BREATHE. That's one of the things that DHL wrote about in an _Apocalypse_ quote that I typed today. In some countries, they believe Jesus was black. Some people believe he was gay. Others believe he was lovers with Mary Magdalene. Did DHL "have it" with Murry? I frankly don't care! But I'm interested in how, despite some of his 19th century views that I consider bunk, he pioneered both men's and women's liberations, as well as gave clues about getting back in touch with a better sense of the earth-- "ecology", we now call it. Respect for a nature that is higher (or is it deeper?) than the anthropomorphic God which so many religions have. To me this is a key part of "St. Mawr".

-Randall Albright

http://world.std.com/~albright/L1.html

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To: <rananim@rananim.prestel.co.uk>
Subject: More on HDD
From: "Pete Bolejack" <st109456@ppp.kcc.edu>
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 1997 17:39:42 -0400

I just wanted to write and say thanks to for allowing me to be a part of your discussion. Your responses have been reasonable (and some not). I also want to thank you for all the feedback I received.

All the responses I received had to do more with the perspective, "through the eyes of the author" which I admit I did not consider at the time. I tend to look at situations more literally then opening up the surroundings. However, I don't see how an author can always write over the same surroundings unless they write multiple stories about a certain character. (Edgar Rice Burroughs) For Ex. If you grew up in a on a farm (we'll say), and you become a writer. You would probably write about stories about being on a farm and managing it because you would know all about it, right? After two or three books you would have pretty much exhausted your resource or get bored with it. My point being, even if Lawrence had "something in the dark hair and eyes of those Cornish farmers that fascinated and attracted him, and he yearned in a kind of ersatz Greek manner for male bonding."(Cagle), he could of just wrote this from a "straight" perspective. This was not the first story he mastered. Maybe due to the death of his father, or the every day struggle with life, he needed money? Who knows?

-- Pete Bolejack

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To: rananim@rananim.prestel.co.uk, "Pete Bolejack" <st109456@ppp.kcc.edu>
Subject: Re: More on HDD
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
Date: Sat, 12 Apr 1997 17:22:10 -0400

Pete:

I am always happy to hear new voices in Rananim, and was very pleased to see Jay Katzeman's enthusiastic response to your post. Your post was well thought out, and I too appreciated your use of source text instead of just whimsically saying things.

As far as my post, I hope you heard through my language that some of it was in jest, but also that it was written as if I had do "defend" my view in a debate society. In fact, I was "deconstructing" your post to further justify mine.

Yes, I can see your view. Please continue to post. You added counter-balance and, more importantly, MOTION on the subject of HDD. Much of what I, at least, enjoy in DHL is this ability to not sum him all up and throw him away. There is a very strong element of enigma in his great works, which is why I continue to read them and find them to be shimmering, alive.

As far as your speculation that:

If you grew up in a on a farm (we'll say), and you become a writer. You would probably write about stories about being on a farm and managing it because you would know all about it, right?

Well... what were you thinking about while you were on "the farm"? E.M. Forster called DHL "the greatest imaginative novelist of our time." So even then, if you're on a farm... you might be very into fantasy, too.

_Sons and Lovers_ is a supposedly "autobiographical" novel about DHL growing up. It isn't his first novel, though, and these days I actually prefer _The White Peacock_, flaws and all, because it is more imaginative. And in S&L, DHL doesn't fool me that he hasn't played with the facts to give it certain slants and fudge others. And there have, indeed, been a number of slants on that novel, like: is Gertrude the real hero? is Paul? Walter? William? That the novel still stands up, in the face of all these viewings, is a testament to its power as fiction in my opinion. But if "Paul" really wrote the book, would he perhaps have an interest in covering some of his tracks... yet, being himself, still reveal himself, too? Complicated.

Yours is a mainstream view of "The Horse Dealer's Daughter". As I said, my mother-in-law read it very much the same way, and I didn't even bring up these more subversive ways to read it with her.

If you flip through some of the new Penguin introductions for DHL's work, they talk about this and that... the new one on _Apocalypse_, for example, mentions how DHL might have liked Fritjof Capra's _The Tao of Physics_. The one for _The Rainbow_ mentions Derrida. But they don't bring up, to me, some key elements to DHL's writing. One is that he is the child of a dysfunctional family, and has certain obsessive-compulsive traits himself. Another is that he exhibits, through his art, at least a conflicted sexuality in some of his work,starting with his first novel, _The White Peacock_, in which he's either a "transparent eyeball" of other people's actions or, for once in his life, fulfilled in a total-love way with another man ("A Poem of Friendship" chapter). Jeffrey Meyers interprets this in much more than a "platonic" love, and I agree. Add to this a number of other stories... a coal miner at the age of 16... William Henry Hocking at the age of 30... ambivalent feelings toward Maurice Magnus... and I could go on and on, particularly through the art... and I see a pattern develop that has only recently come to light, but is still not mentioned in official criticism much. Why? I chalk it up to trying to maintain a focus on the larger message of his art.

That doesn't mean that he can't write heterosexual fiction, or that he couldn't pass as a heterosexual. He could write it so well that many people just skip over what to me are subliminal codes, which maybe he didn't even know he was doing. (Forster had this view, too.) And it certainly doesn't mean that you shouldn't focus, as Philip DeMarco did earlier this year, on what you see in the story! The joke with DeMarco when he joined Rananim was that I started by offering, "Oh, I've got JUST the answer for you..." which he didn't like! And then I gave him ANOTHER answer... which he still didn't like! He loved the oozing of sensuality in the story. And then he wrote his own view on the story, which is exactly what DHL is talking about in that one _Apocalypse_ quote I typed for the group yesterday. Make sense? Hope so.

In other words, there are many levels on which DHL is operating. Have you read anything else by him? If not... there's a great deal of stuff out there. If you like his short stories, some on which I have no "gay" theory, but I think are superb, include: "England, My England" and "The Man Who Loved Islands". If you liked "The Horse Dealer's Daughter", you may really enjoy these as well as others that I *claim* have a subliminal code going on, and which you can choose to ignore.

Hope that you continue to read DHL as well as to post to the group. And I also say to anyone that if you'd like to discuss things privately with me, I'm open to that, too. There is a certain amount of "being onstage" when you post to a group that may put both me and the person to whom I am responding in a different light than if we can talk privately, without fear of falling down and making fools out of ourselves. We actually learn more from our mistakes than from our hubris, I think. So keep that in mind, too, at least from me.

---Randall Albright

http://world.std.com/~albright/L1.html

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And here is a complete essay (which achieved an 'A' grade) on The Horse Dealer's Daughter. By Philip DeMarco <philipis@mindspring.com>

WARNING: The copyright for this story rests with Philip Demarco (1996). Please do not use this material without prior consent.

Philip Demarco Paper #3 English 152: Section 130

The Essential Imagery in The Horse Dealer's Daughter.

The smell of sex can be enveloping and visceral. Anyone encountering the perimeter of a fox's run, knows this well, as does the person who has entered the recently vacant bedroom.

The images of that experience do not confine to the sense of smell however, and D.H. Lawrence shows us that repeatedly in The Horse Dealer's Daughter, as hallmarks of primal sensuality around a theme of dissolution from the state of love to the state of animalism, that parallel the social decline.

We are told that Mabel has kept house for her brothers, without benefit of servants, for over ten years. In this time, the business, once prosperous, has disintegrated into a place where "everything was gone to the dogs, there was nothing but debt and threatening"(95).

When the story opens, the brothers are watching the last of the horses, large Drays, walked away. Immediately, the imagery of the horses is likened to the brothers. We hear the Drays "showed a massive, slumberous strength, and a stupidity which held them in subjugation" (10). Here Lawrence is similarly describing the brothers. The first, Joe, is himself, "Marrying, and going into harness. His life was over. He would be a subject animal now" (10). When he rises, he does so in a "horsey fashion "( 20). Fred Henry, "was an animal that controls, not one which is controlled" (15). The third brother, Malcolm, has the bovine characteristics. He stares, "out of the window aimlessly" (35). Lawrence tells us that he has a fresh jaunty, museau , which sounds flattering in the English, but translates as "snout" in French. As to Mabel, Lawrence gives faint praise, saying, "she would have been good-looking, save for the impassive fixity of her face, 'Bulldog' as her brothers called it" (5). The animal, expecting the blows , has learnt to hide her emotion. The four siblings then, (as the four Drays,) are leaving the life they have known.

"They were all frightened at the collapse of their lives, and the scene of disaster in which they were involved left them no inner freedom" (5). As animals run to cover, and leave the weaker when fear occurs, so do they wish to be rid of the sister, the weaker sibling.

Lawrence gives us further imagery that foreshadows the events to come. Joe did not merely smoke. He "worked a grain of tobacco to the tip of his tongue and then spat it out" (5). The image of lubrication is with us already. When the Doctor's assistant, (Fergusson,) is passing and is hailed by Malcolm, the real dog barks, and the Fergusson obeys. Indeed, His visage is Spaniel like. "His face was rather long and pale, his eyes looked tired" (40). When challenged by her brother in the Doctor's presence, Mabel first looks at him "with her steady dangerous eyes" (75), but then "averts her head and continues her work" (80), as a dog would subjugate. Indeed, her brother comments about her, "The sulkiest bitch that ever trod" (80). Lawrence's analogous imagery is strengthened. When a dog is ready to die, it retreats. Mabel does too.

She tends to her Mother's grave, and the fore-shadowing of her actions is established, because we are told that by doing it, she, "felt in immediate contact with the world of her mother" (100). Persephone is about to return to Hades. In doing this, she sees and is seen by Fergusson. The exchange between them at that moment is flooded with sexuality. "There was a heavy power in her eyes which had laid hold of his whole being, as if he had drunk some powerful drug" (105). Already, love is not being described here, but rather the headiness of obsessive sexuality against which one cannot withstand and where rationality does not exist and the Id is absolute master.

Fergusson returns to his functions, but it is in the manner of one who is driven. He performs his functions of a Care-giver in whore-like fashion, giving his waiting patients only "cheap drugs" (105) and this, and his subsequent rounds are accomplished in "perpetual haste" (105) which he chooses to do by walking. It is as though his consciousness is propelling him towards a physical dynamic.

It is in the late afternoon, that Fergusson, is completing his rounds. He catches sight of the Previn's House and is conscious of the fact that soon his ability to visit there will be finished, a "resource lost to him" (105), and here, he reveals what this human interaction represents. An almost voyeuristic, highly charged sexual reaction. "In fact, it excited him, the contact with the rough, strongly-feeling people was a stimulant applied directly to his nerves" (105). It is at this moment, with his mind and body charged with arousal that he sees Mabel Pervin. "His mind suddenly became alive and attentive" (105). He sees her slowly wade into the water, until it reaches her breast, and finally engulfs her. We are told that he cannot swim, but her enters the water to find her. His movements are slow and the sensations of the water slowly envelops the lower part of his body and the bottom of the pond is "deep and soft clay" (110) that grips at him and seeks to suck him in. It is only after nearly drowning himself in a clutch at her clothing, that he sees her floating nearby and drags her to the shore, away from "the horror of wet, grey clay" (115). The clay is the formless shape of death, with its matching color.

Having created life in her by establishing breathing, (symbolic of the male/female physical union,) he carries her to her home, strips her of the wet, dirty clothing, symbolic of the prosaic reality of her life, and places her before a fire, wrapped in coarse blanket, drinks whisky, and forces some into her mouth. A fluid exchange has been created. Inhibitions have been automatically lessened by the alcohol. She "fixes" (130) him with her gaze; unalterably. This scene is incredibly seductive. He attempts to break off. She maintains in every way the tension, which breaks, with her (assumed?) wildness of action and question, when she establishes the reality that she is undressed, and that he undressed her and that they are alone and that she is the stronger person and asks----"Do you love me then?"(140). On asking this, she crawls in animal like fashion across the floor, naked and he sees and feels by the light of that fire, her kneeling, nuzzling her face and breasts against "his thighs...triumphant in first possession" (145). We are told that he is "amazed, bewildered and afraid" (145). He feels all this, he looks down at "the tangled wet hair, the wild bare animal shoulders" (145). and despite no previous feelings; despite his code of professional ethics, is unable to break away. "He had not the power to break away" 145). He is drawn down into that sensual embrace as inevitably as he might have been drawn down under that water. It is a surrender and the seal of that surrender is his simple response, "yes" (155) when asked if he loves her.

An irrevocable union has been made here and now the shift from the animalism to societal norm recommences, with a recognition that outside of this heat, is society, in the form of his waiting patients, and the marriage which must occur. She repeats and repeats that she is horrible. Finally "horrible to you" (185), which leaves the reader with the suspicion that while the heat was genuine in its need, the suicide might not have been so and that Fergusson might be very like the animal who is found in a trap.

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