Horse Dealer's Daughter

Early in “The Horse Dealer’s Daughter,” D.H. Lawrence presents a bleak view of marriage: after the dissolution of the family business, one of the Pervin brothers “would marry and go into harness. His life was over, he would be a subject animal now.” Life doesn’t seem especially promising for Mabel Pervin, either. Unlike her brothers, she seems stuck without a single option, not even the promise of a slavish life of marriage—until a chance encounter with Dr. Jack Fergusson gives her the out she so desperately needs. When the lonely doctor pulls Mabel from the muck of her failed suicide attempt, both characters experience an awakening of sorts, but Lawrence allows them only a forced, inauthentic love, plus the promise of the “harness”

She wants to find ways to keep herself sane and secure. She has no security if no one loves her nor has the financial stability. Lawrence then also writes, "The men might be foul-mouthed, the women in the kitchen might have bad reputations, her brothers might have illegitimate children. But so long as there was money, the girl felt herself established and brutally proud, reserved." Lawrence is portraying that all the negatives in her life brings her down, but she can have money and be satisfied and content. However, since her family has no source of income because of the deaths of her parents, she nor her brothers have no money. The negativities stricken her with despair and hopelessness which then leads to her how lonely she is because she may never find anyone that will compensate for her lack of income. She is driven by a domesticated life and maybe a spouse that can fulfill that—which is where Dr. Fergusson comes in to play. Dr. Fergusson is as well forlorn