The Horse Dealer Daughter Analysis

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The “The Horse Dealer’s Daughter,” by D H Lawrence haves a very ancient death-rebirth symbolism. The story takes place in the early 1920 's in and around a farm at the edge of a small English town. The horse dealer’s daughter is a young woman named Mabel. Her father has died and Mabel along with her brothers are in debt and with nowhere to go. Dr. Jack Fergusson, a physician and friend of the brothers, who likes Mabel. Both Jack and Mabel are depressed. By the end both Jack and Mabel are reborn, and in love. Mabel is at the end of her emotional and material resources. She is depressed and suicidal at the same time. Her mother died when she was 14, and it was traumatic for her. She gives up in life and feels that she has nothing to live for …show more content…

He is sick, and exhausted from work. There is no woman in his life, and his only friend is leaving town. However, Jack has a subtle, semi-conscious attraction to Mabel but he is in a state of denial, and repression. As Jack goes to visit Mabel’s brother’s he becomes intrigued by their gloomy, proud, and strangely detached sister. He very carefully avoids talking to her, the narrator says: “Mabel looked at him with her steady, dangerous eyes, that always made him uncomfortable, unsettling his superficial ease.” (5.) Later on Jack passes Mabel and they exchange a look; the narrator says: “There was a heavy power in her eyes which laid hold of his whole being, as if he had 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 …show more content…

He undresses her dry’s her, put’s her in front of the fire to warm her up. When she wakes up she asks him “do you love me then?.” At first Jack hesitates, resists her, and he wanted to maintain an impersonal, doctor/patient relationship. Jacks concept of love is a matter of intention rather than spontaneous feelings. However Jack finally yields to her love. The narrator says: “She lifted her face to him, and he bent forward and kissed her on the mouth, gently, with the one kiss that is an eternal pledge…He never intended to love her. But now it was over. He had crossed over the gulf to her, and all that he had left behind had shriveled and become

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