Lady Chatterley (Connie) is dissatisfied with her marriage and her stultifying life at Wragby Hall, an expansive yet dreary estate functioning as a salon for intellectual upstarts. Sir Clifford, her baronet husband, is paralyzed from the waist down following the Great War. Yet it's not just Clifford's invalidism and impotence contributing to Connie's malaise: it's the tired spirit of Clifford's world. As Connie begins journeying into the neighboring woods for an escape, she forms a passionate relationship with Oliver Mellors, Wragby's rough but tender gamekeeper. However, their love is threatened by outside forces - Clifford, Mellors' brutish wife, and even the industrial noises puncturing the solitude of their Edenic shelter.
While reading this, I thought of Schopenhauer and wasn't surprised to learn that Lawrence was heavily influenced by his philosophy, a system challenging the supremacy of rationality and the notion that reason governs life. For Schopenhauer, a blind incessant impulse, the "Will," is the ultimate, singular, and undefinable object of our primordial instincts. One desire of the Will is sexual gratification. As Schopenhauer says: "Voluntary and complete chastity is the first step to asceticism or the denial of the will-to-live." In Mellors, Connie discovers an undimmed force of nature and a respite from the life of the mind that defines Wragby. From the perspective of the wood, she recognizes the lack of meaningful connection inherent in the sophistication of Clifford and his guests.
Given my impression of some of the novel's passages as rather explicit, it's no surprise that the novel was banned under strict obscenity laws from its 1928 publication until the court's overruling in 1960, marking Lawrence with a reputation as a pornographer until his death. To characterize Lawrence's final work as pornographic, however, is misleading. Lawrence's sexual frankness is a means to emphasize the centrality of the body; it's a rejection of conjugal sterility and a suggestion that love involves something far deeper and more mysterious than pure intellect or mental consciousness.
Lady Chatterley (Connie) is dissatisfied with her marriage and her stultifying life at Wragby Hall, an expansive yet dreary estate functioning as a salon for intellectual upstarts. Sir Clifford, her baronet husband, is paralyzed from the waist down following the Great War. Yet it's not just Clifford's invalidism and impotence contributing to Connie's malaise: it's the tired spirit of Clifford's world. As Connie begins journeying into the neighboring woods for an escape, she forms a passionate relationship with Oliver Mellors, Wragby's rough but tender gamekeeper. However, their love is threatened by outside forces - Clifford, Mellors' brutish wife, and even the industrial noises puncturing the solitude of their Edenic shelter.
While reading this, I thought of Schopenhauer and wasn't surprised to learn that Lawrence was heavily influenced by his philosophy, a system challenging the supremacy of rationality and the notion that reason governs life. For Schopenhauer, a blind incessant impulse, the "Will," is the ultimate, singular, and undefinable object of our primordial instincts. One desire of the Will is sexual gratification. As Schopenhauer says: "Voluntary and complete chastity is the first step to asceticism or the denial of the will-to-live." In Mellors, Connie discovers an undimmed force of nature and a respite from the life of the mind that defines Wragby. From the perspective of the wood, she recognizes the lack of meaningful connection inherent in the sophistication of Clifford and his guests.
Given my impression of some of the novel's passages as rather explicit, it's no surprise that the novel was banned under strict obscenity laws from its 1928 publication until the court's overruling in 1960, marking Lawrence with a reputation as a pornographer until his death. To characterize Lawrence's final work as pornographic, however, is misleading. Lawrence's sexual frankness is a means to emphasize the centrality of the body; it's a rejection of conjugal sterility and a suggestion that love involves something far deeper and more mysterious than pure intellect or mental consciousness.
Lady Chatterley (Connie) is dissatisfied with her marriage and her stultifying life at Wragby Hall, an expansive yet dreary estate functioning as a salon for intellectual upstarts. Sir Clifford, her baronet husband, is paralyzed from the waist down following the Great War. Yet it's not just Clifford's invalidism and impotence contributing to Connie's malaise: it's the tired spirit of Clifford's world. As Connie begins journeying into the neighboring woods for an escape, she forms a passionate relationship with Oliver Mellors, Wragby's rough but tender gamekeeper. However, their love is threatened by outside forces - Clifford, Mellors' brutish wife, and even the industrial noises puncturing the solitude of their Edenic shelter.
While reading this, I thought of Schopenhauer and wasn't surprised to learn that Lawrence was heavily influenced by his philosophy, a system challenging the supremacy of rationality and the notion that reason governs life. For Schopenhauer, a blind incessant impulse, the "Will," is the ultimate, singular, and undefinable object of our primordial instincts. One desire of the Will is sexual gratification. As Schopenhauer says: "Voluntary and complete chastity is the first step to asceticism or the denial of the will-to-live." In Mellors, Connie discovers an undimmed force of nature and a respite from the life of the mind that defines Wragby. From the perspective of the wood, she recognizes the lack of meaningful connection inherent in the sophistication of Clifford and his guests.
Given my impression of some of the novel's passages as rather explicit, it's no surprise that the novel was banned under strict obscenity laws from its 1928 publication until the court's overruling in 1960, marking Lawrence with a reputation as a pornographer until his death. To characterize Lawrence's final work as pornographic, however, is misleading. Lawrence's sexual frankness is a means to emphasize the centrality of the body; it's a rejection of conjugal sterility and a suggestion that love involves something far deeper and more mysterious than pure intellect or mental consciousness.
Lady Chatterley (Connie) is dissatisfied with her marriage and her stultifying life at Wragby Hall, an expansive yet dreary estate functioning as a salon for intellectual upstarts. Sir Clifford, her baronet husband, is paralyzed from the waist down following the Great War. Yet it's not just Clifford's invalidism and impotence contributing to Connie's malaise: it's the tired spirit of Clifford's world. As Connie begins journeying into the neighboring woods for an escape, she forms a passionate relationship with Oliver Mellors, Wragby's rough but tender gamekeeper. However, their love is threatened by outside forces - Clifford, Mellors' brutish wife, and even the industrial noises puncturing the solitude of their Edenic shelter.
While reading this, I thought of Schopenhauer and wasn't surprised to learn that Lawrence was heavily influenced by his philosophy, a system challenging the supremacy of rationality and the notion that reason governs life. For Schopenhauer, a blind incessant impulse, the "Will," is the ultimate, singular, and undefinable object of our primordial instincts. One desire of the Will is sexual gratification. As Schopenhauer says: "Voluntary and complete chastity is the first step to asceticism or the denial of the will-to-live." In Mellors, Connie discovers an undimmed force of nature and a respite from the life of the mind that defines Wragby. From the perspective of the wood, she recognizes the lack of meaningful connection inherent in the sophistication of Clifford and his guests.
Given my impression of some of the novel's passages as rather explicit, it's no surprise that the novel was banned under strict obscenity laws from its 1928 publication until the court's overruling in 1960, marking Lawrence with a reputation as a pornographer until his death. To characterize Lawrence's final work as pornographic, however, is misleading. Lawrence's sexual frankness is a means to emphasize the centrality of the body; it's a rejection of conjugal sterility and a suggestion that love involves something far deeper and more mysterious than pure intellect or mental consciousness.
Lady Chatterley (Connie) is dissatisfied with her marriage and her stultifying life at Wragby Hall, an expansive yet dreary estate functioning as a salon for intellectual upstarts. Sir Clifford, her baronet husband, is paralyzed from the waist down following the Great War. Yet it's not just Clifford's invalidism and impotence contributing to Connie's malaise: it's the tired spirit of Clifford's world. As Connie begins journeying into the neighboring woods for an escape, she forms a passionate relationship with Oliver Mellors, Wragby's rough but tender gamekeeper. However, their love is threatened by outside forces - Clifford, Mellors' brutish wife, and even the industrial noises puncturing the solitude of their Edenic shelter.
While reading this, I thought of Schopenhauer and wasn't surprised to learn that Lawrence was heavily influenced by his philosophy, a system challenging the supremacy of rationality and the notion that reason governs life. For Schopenhauer, a blind incessant impulse, the "Will," is the ultimate, singular, and undefinable object of our primordial instincts. One desire of the Will is sexual gratification. As Schopenhauer says: "Voluntary and complete chastity is the first step to asceticism or the denial of the will-to-live." In Mellors, Connie discovers an undimmed force of nature and a respite from the life of the mind that defines Wragby. From the perspective of the wood, she recognizes the lack of meaningful connection inherent in the sophistication of Clifford and his guests.
Given my impression of some of the novel's passages as rather explicit, it's no surprise that the novel was banned under strict obscenity laws from its 1928 publication until the court's overruling in 1960, marking Lawrence with a reputation as a pornographer until his death. To characterize Lawrence's final work as pornographic, however, is misleading. Lawrence's sexual frankness is a means to emphasize the centrality of the body; it's a rejection of conjugal sterility and a suggestion that love involves something far deeper and more mysterious than pure intellect or mental consciousness.
