A Woman Deprived

Lady Chatterley Lover’s core theme is about fulfillment (or it’s lack of) of the the mind and body. Lawrence appears to make the case that both are essential and having only one can slowly but surely stifle you.

Connie, the protagonist, is a fairly liberated soul, who has had her share of flings before marriage. She marries, Clifford, a titled landlord who dabbles in writing. He constantly aims seek only mental fulfillment —it is implied is not capable or interested in physical pleasures due to his disability. Instead he lusts after more success, wallowing in low self-esteem that he tries to overcome by insulting the less fortunate around him. Connie is challenged and required to meet up to his intellectual expectations.

Connie and Cliffard share a monotonous amiable relationship — no love and no hate — just mutual dependency. Deprived of physical intimacy , Connie begins to resent the mental relationship with Cliffard and all literary exercises of the mind just become words, worthless meaningless words.

The town of Urthwaite, where she stays also provides no escape. Its grey, dreary, with aloof and unfriendly people and Connie feels her life is drying up.

It’s at this deprived stage of her life, she bumps into Mellors, the game keeper who makes an immediate impression upon her. She establishes a physical relationship, brought upon by loneliness and the tenderness that she senses in him. They slowly fall in love and the second half of the novel deals with their struggles to be together.

Sex is everywhere, so why are we still reading Lady Chatterley’s Lover?

We are in the 21st century, sex has been acknowledged as a physical and fulfilling activity in its own right. We are more than exposed to it in all sorts of media around us. Television and movies have taken the lead on expressing sexual equality for women.

So why are we still reading Lady Chatterley’s Lover?

I believe its because the novel is also about so much more. DH Lawrence initially shocks the reader with the frank, physical attraction between Connie & Mellors and then he provokes the readers into questioning their own value system.

The novel is anti-establishment — it questions many things. The relationship between man and woman, the image of sex, England’s industrialization and it’s impact on the gentleness of society, the class system , the importance of money and the bitch goddess of success.

The novel is progressive — it acknowledges the sexual needs of a woman even though Connie is hardly written as a feminist character.

And finally the novel is brutally honest, in the way it deals with desire, with an unabashed forthrightness, that’s proud and crude at the same time.

DH Lawrence rights with certain fearless that is both astonishing and pleasing. It is easy to understand why ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ was such a sensational book and has themes that resonate even in the modern world.

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