Women in Love

Written in 1920 and often regarded as D. H. Lawrence's greatest novel, Women in Love is the complex story of two women and two men who scrutinize their lives and personal needs in an effort to discover something that makes the future worth living. The personal and social traumas of post-World War I, combined with the rise of industry and urbanization, have affected all four main characters, often at cross purposes as they explore love and its role in their lives. Intensely introspective and self-conscious, each character shares his/her thoughts with the reader, allowing the reader to participate in the inner conflicts and crises that each faces. Ursula Brangwen, a teacher in a mining town in the Midlands, is attracted to Rupert Birkin, a school supervisor; her sister Gudrun, an artist whose sculptures have drawn some attention in London, is drawn to Gerald Crich, whose father is a mine owner. As the two women earn their living and consider the issue of marriage, which they regard as an impediment to their independence, the men deal with issues of sexuality and power, and whether the love of a woman is enough. Both men have homosexual urges which compete with their feelings for women. Gerald is the most conflicted of the four. Taking over the mines upon the death of his father, he is fiercely committed to making them successful, even if that means hardening his heart toward his workers. He feels no sense of responsibility toward them, dedicating his efforts toward success and power, an attitude he conveys also toward Gudrun, who finds him self-centered but physically attractive. Rupert Birkin, who is eventually drawn to Ursula, is often thought to have been modeled on Lawrence himself, and his sensitivity, self-analysis, and feeling that love is not enough--that one must progress beyond love to another plane--display the kind of agonized soul searching done by many other young men of his age following the horrors of the world war. Extremely complex in its exploration of the period's social and philosophical influences on the characters (who are archetypes of society), the novel is also full of symbolism, with many parallels drawn between love and death, which the characters sometimes prefer to life. As the love affairs of these four characters play out, filled with complications, disagreements about the meaning of love, questions about love's relation to power and dominance, and the role of sexuality, Lawrence projects the tumult of post-war England as the values of the past yield to newer, more personal goals. Mary Whipple

Written in 1920 and often regarded as D. H. Lawrence's greatest novel, Women in Love is the complex story of two women and two men who scrutinize their lives and personal needs in an effort to discover something that makes the future worth living. The personal and social traumas of post-World War I, combined with the rise of industry and urbanization, have affected all four main characters, often at cross purposes as they explore love and its role in their lives. Intensely introspective and self-conscious, each character shares his/her thoughts with the reader, allowing the reader to participate in the inner conflicts and crises that each faces. Ursula Brangwen, a teacher in a mining town in the Midlands, is attracted to Rupert Birkin, a school supervisor; her sister Gudrun, an artist whose sculptures have drawn some attention in London, is drawn to Gerald Crich, whose father is a mine owner. As the two women earn their living and consider the issue of marriage, which they regard as an impediment to their independence, the men deal with issues of sexuality and power, and whether the love of a woman is enough. Both men have homosexual urges which compete with their feelings for women. Gerald is the most conflicted of the four. Taking over the mines upon the death of his father, he is fiercely committed to making them successful, even if that means hardening his heart toward his workers. He feels no sense of responsibility toward them, dedicating his efforts toward success and power, an attitude he conveys also toward Gudrun, who finds him self-centered but physically attractive. Rupert Birkin, who is eventually drawn to Ursula, is often thought to have been modeled on Lawrence himself, and his sensitivity, self-analysis, and feeling that love is not enough--that one must progress beyond love to another plane--display the kind of agonized soul searching done by many other young men of his age following the horrors of the world war. Extremely complex in its exploration of the period's social and philosophical influences on the characters (who are archetypes of society), the novel is also full of symbolism, with many parallels drawn between love and death, which the characters sometimes prefer to life. As the love affairs of these four characters play out, filled with complications, disagreements about the meaning of love, questions about love's relation to power and dominance, and the role of sexuality, Lawrence projects the tumult of post-war England as the values of the past yield to newer, more personal goals. n Mary Whipple

A sequel to "The Rainbow," "Women in Love" seems to be a more personal novel for its author, as D.H. Lawrence introduces a character to echo his own feelings about love and the world. This character is Rupert Birkin, a misanthrope who thumbs his nose defiantly at any and all social conventions and has few, if any, likeable qualities. It is this man with whom Ursula Brangwen, the individualistic heroine from "The Rainbow," falls in love, but even she is not blind to his disagreeableness. Ursula, now 26 years old, teaches in the school of her coalmining hometown, Beldover. In the first scene in the novel where she and Rupert, a school inspector, reveal their mutual acquaintance, they are standing in front of her class, transforming her botanical lecture into a wellspring of sexual innuendo in what appears to be Lawrence's playful attempt at provoking the censors who prudishly criticized his prior work. Also participating in this scene is Hermione Roddice, a haughty aristocratic woman who harbors a secret desire to humiliate and control men, specifically the headstrong Rupert. Meanwhile, Ursula's prettier and more vivacious younger sister Gudrun, an artist, is attracted to Gerald Crich, heir to the seemingly cursed Crich coal dynasty. Almost the opposite of Rupert, Gerald is a proud, practical, and conscientious businessman who lays down the law with his coal miners and is cruel to his animals, feeling he deserves nothing less than unconditional obedience. The provocative nature of this novel is that Gerald is attracted to Rupert -- socially, physically, sexually -- possibly because he considers Rupert a symbol of liberation from the workaday world he is secretly tired of; and this feeling is readily reciprocated. In a scene where the two men strip and wrestle, Lawrence provides the male counterpart to the lesbian scene in "The Rainbow," as though to say what's good for the goose is good for the...well, you know.The novel basically tracks the trajectories of the love/hate relationships of these two couples. While Ursula and Rupert eventually find compatibility, having in common their rugged individualism, Gerald and Gudrun drift towards a dysfunctional state of potential violence, as he realizes with jealousy and anger that her artistic world is closed to him. Lawrence's strength is not tight little plots but character study, and the great achievement in "Women in Love" is that the characters do not exhibit any stereotypical or easily describable behavior; it's difficult to pinpoint their personalities from just one conversation, and not much easier even over the course of the entire novel. Ursula, Gudrun, Rupert, and Gerald are fascinatingly, almost frighteningly, complex people whom Lawrence seems deliberately to have designed to leave the reader at a loss, to test the reader's tolerance for sexual and psychological perversity.

I think Women in Love must be just about the most emotionally intense book I've ever read. D.H. Lawrence conjures his four main characters in what feels like the heat of a closed-room kiln. The writing is beautiful and amazingly perceptive, but is at times stultifyingly over-analytical.Yet, despite the book's combined length, density and decided lack of plot, Women in Love is surprisingly readable. What makes this book so good is the honesty with which Lawrence imbues his two title characters, Ursula and Gudrun Brangwen, and their two chosen lovers, Birkin and Gerald. It can be frustrating to read page after page of the mental thrashings of an individual mind's search for truth and authenticity in life and in love, but it can also be a kind of revelation. These characters think differently about the world around them than I do, and we each think differently about the world than you who are reading this do. And yet we are all basically the same on a certain transcendent level. We are all human and we all long for an authentic connection with the world around us. We are different and we are the same. That's why living in this world isn't always easy, and that's why it's always worthwhile. This book beautifully and even entertainingly captures those basic struggles for human connection and if for that reason alone, it's well worth reading. Highly recommended.

Set in the aftermath of World War I, this deeply philosophical novel brilliantly portrays Lawrence's fascination with the power and activity of the subconscious mind. Lawrence expertly strips away the surface levels of normal awareness and perception to reveal the forces working within the deep inner recesses of the human psyche. His interest in and fascination with the writings of Freud is everywhere made manifest in this story. In every section of this brilliant book, the reader can grasp the characters' efforts to exert the will against the inviolable forces of nature. The end result, according to Lawrence, is that they sever the organic bond with the natural world and suffer a spiritual death. Through their struggles, we gain a sense of our own futile efforts to control reality, to make it over in our own image. We discover we must complete our being by living in the moment, submerging the self and uniting with others. Above all else, we learn about our true nature and the necessity of living in harmony with the ebb and flow of the larger universe. Buy Lawrence's book, and, more importantly, dwell on its depictions of the mind's power to deliver our destiny. I highly recommend this masterpiece to all readers wishing to gain insight into human psychology and, ultimately, a truer picture of humanity. Although the book is quite long (nearly 500 pages) and doesn't have a unified plot structure, Lawrence rewards his beautiful bounty to the patient and careful reader.