Considered pornography, this book was unavailable in its full text until 1960. I was helping my grandparents sort out their bookshelves when I stumbled across it. I asked my grandmother if it was any good, or was it famous simply because it was scandalous, and she replied, “Oh, Lawrence is very good. You should read it.” And I did.
I thought it was interesting because it wasn’t nearly so bad as everyone said. Yes, there’s sex, and yes, Lawrence goes into pretty graphic detail, but it’s a very technical description. There were no “heaving bosoms” and “turgid shafts.” There really wasn’t a whole lot of passion or fever, either. It was simply about a want and a need and two people fulfilling it. Society made it seem that this act was unnatural, but it’s not, and that was made abundantly clear in the book. Sex is animal-like, yes, but humans are, essentially, animals, and it’s completely normal to want to have sex.
I found more important to the premise of the novel was the Industrial Revolution in England. Lady Chatterly’s Lover was a commentary about how industry and technology drained man of his natural instincts and pleasures, turning him into an unthinking, wearied automaton, who does nothing more than work. Clifford is the embodiment of the Industrial Revolution. He takes advantage of the lower classes for his benefit. While it’s true that Clifford is innovative, his prowess is overshadowed by the people he’s taking advantage of. Clifford is also a crippled and childlike man who is emotionally immature, though he is logical. These characteristics of Clifford make apparent the fact that technology does not breed sensitive, emotional, passionate, and insightful people. If it can be created and controlled by a man like Clifford, then a man like Mellors (the hero of the novel) can not thrive in that situation.
Mellors is a rough, intelligent, passionate, and natural man. He is a gamekeeper and works with animals and nature. He is different because he prefers his privacy and enjoys working in the woods, and would most likely never work in the pits. He accepts Connie for what she has to offer and doesn’t offer anymore to her than he can give. He takes things as they come, the bad with the good.
Connie, meanwhile, just wants to be free. It’s true that she finds her freedom in another, in Mellors, but that doesn’t change the situation. She doesn’t want to be trapped in a pointless marriage with Clifford anymore. She wants to be able to love as she sees fit and to bear the fruit of that love. Clifford, in fact, doesn’t mind if she takes a lover, or even has a child, as long as that lover is of good-breeding. But Connie cannot be restricted in her love in any way, or it will not feel real. You can’t choose who you love. Connie is also discovering herself and becoming a woman. She’s doing this both sexually and mentally, by finding someone she can be herself with and that she wants to be with.
All in all, it’s a book about humanity. Sex is a part of that, but so is love, passion, caring, and sensitivity. The Industrial Revolution hindered those traits and stopped letting nature pervade society, and so society’s natural instincts started to dwindle. And yet, in this time, Connie and Mellors blossomed naturally into the best they could be under each others care.
