Battle of the Sexes in D.H Lawrence's Short Story, Tickets Please

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Battle of the Sexes in D.H Lawrence's Short Story, Tickets Please

Juvenal probably had D.H Lawrence's short story "Tickets Please" in mind when he said, "Revenge is sweeter than life itself," because revenge is exactly what Lawrence focuses on in this story (Quoteland). Lawrence writes about how a few women, after having gone through a similar experience, get together and avenge a common enemy, John Thomas Rayner and have fun doing that, because beating Rayner is their sport. By doing so, Lawrence makes it a game betweenn John Rayner, the man, and the opposite sex, comprised of the women. In fact after a certain point the story ceases to be a game between John Rayner and the women, but rather becomes, according to Paul A. Wood, a "Battle of Sexes" (Wood, 77).

"Tickets Please" is a battle of the sexes because John Thomas Rayner, who is an inspector at a railway station, exploits his good looks and manipulates women working in the railway station and on the trains into falling in love with him. Rayner, according to J.P Breen, is "an amphibian, native to worlds of light and darkness," a "King" and a "Swamp Beast", who could do what he felt like doing (Breen, 71). And that is preciously what Rayner does, as he abandons the women after he has had his share of fun. Undeniably the women feel used after a certain point and want their revenge. Annie Stone was one of his victims and she, at the end of the story, with the help of some fellow victims, seeks revenge against John Rayner.

Lawrence focuses on revenge from an angle not often used by a lot of authors, which is that of playing a game. In 'Tickets Please,' Lawrence makes the story a game of revenge between the only male character, John Rayner,...

... middle of paper ...

...y for the men all the way. It was a victory that makes Annie cry in the end and makes John Rayner leave the room limping, but still a victor.

Works Cited

Lawrence, D H. "Tickets Please." England, My England And Other Stories. York:Cambridge

University Press, 1990. 34-45.

Breen, Judith P. "D.H. Lawrence, World War I and the battle between the sexes: A reading of

'The Blind Man' and 'Tickets, Please." Women's Stories: An Interdisciplinary Journal.

New York, 1986. 53-74.

Juvenal. "Quotable Quotes" Reader's Digest. Bombay: RDI Print and Publishing, 1993. 24.

Ryan Kiernan. "The Revenge of The Women: Lawrence's Tickets, Please." Literature and

History. Manchester, England: (L&H), 1981. 210-222.

Wood, Paul. A "On Teaching Lawrence." The D.H. Lawrence Review. Newark: DE (DHLR),

1988 Spring. 71-77.

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