An Evil Necessity: Lady Chatterly's Lover

Characters in D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover struggle to escape the inescapable confines of money, class, and power. There was once a time when nature, not industry, was the driving force of human life. Those days are long gone and irretrievable, and as such, Lawrence’s attempt to bring people back to a world ruled by the body and the forest rather than the mind and the machine ultimately proves futile. In reading Lady Chatterley’s Lover, I found myself thinking about my own life, and how the world in which I live is controlled by money. While my world is far different from Lawrence’s, both worlds are filled with people who find themselves constrained by the harsh realities of capitalism. As I reflected upon the novel and upon society itself, I pondered whether the problems that plague society are solvable, and I ultimately reached the conclusion that we have planted our feet so firmly in the capitalist system that our only choice is to trudge forward as individuals.

Money, class, power, and other such evils feed into the “machine” which D.H. Lawrence holds accountable for the repressive nature of society. Even Connie, who resides in the upper echelon of society, feels constrained due to her “forbidden” love for a man in the lower class; money is holding her back, even though—or rather, because—she has it. One thing that stood out to me when reading the novel was how Connie attempts to free herself from the clutches of her drab life. Connie’s life at Wragby is devoid of meaning and physical contact, comprised only of empty conversations with her impotent husband. At the beginning of the novel, she is only living the mental life. Later on, Connie begins to use sex as a way to break free of the mental life and embrace “t...

... middle of paper ...

...en it comes to industry and capitalism. The “machine” of which Lawrence spoke in Lady Chatterley’s Lover has won the battle with nature, and we now live in a world driven by money, industry, and greed. So what can we do? I have come to the conclusion that the only logical course of action is to embrace the machine. If there will always be people who need things they do not have and people who have things they do not need, the only thing an individual can do is work as hard as they possibly can to ensure that they are in the former group. As Lawrence says, “Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take in tragically” (1). If an individual can put an end to this “refusal”, and accept the reality of the world in which he lives, he can put himself in a position to succeed, and ensure that he is not among the vulnerable when the iron curtain comes crashing down.