Banned Books: Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence

Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence

                Lady Constance Chatterley is in a loveless marriage. Her husband, Clifford, was injured in the war and paralyzed from the waist down and for that reason they are not intimate. He is the sole heir to Wragby and a Baron to boot. Unable to father a child, he has given Constance the option of having a child by another man that he will raise as his own so the Chatterley name will live on and the Wragby estate will continue to flourish. Constance was unsure how to respond to such an offer. Would Clifford really want to raise another man’s child? She began having lovers unsure of who she would want to have a child by. She wasn’t expecting to fall in love with anyone. She wasn’t expecting to discover herself in the arms of a man that wasn’t her husband. But when it happens she begins to experience a moral dilemma of the heart where there is no easy answer or way out.

                There was a complicated question asked in this novel: What do you do when your husband encourages you to have an affair in order to have a child? It’s selfish on both ends but surprising to hear out of the mouth of a man. Constance, or Connie as she was called in the novel, is content. She isn’t in love with her husband but knows she is in a mutually beneficial marriage. Now that she has been granted the freedom to explore herself out of the marriage sexually she is beginning to identify with what it is she desires and wants. Clifford is an aristocrat making the issue of classes and wealth a theme prevalent throughout the novel. When choosing a “father” for her child, Connie ponders who would be a desirable match. Who would be a man that Clifford would find respectable if he ever found out the father. It was interesting to watch the sexual relationship develop for Connie, especially when the level of intimacy increased and the emotional connection between her and her lover became evident.

                This was not an easy novel to get into. There was so much backstory that needed to be explained that I found myself dragging through the first fifty pages. Then things got interesting. Once Connie started showing her own motivations and her own desires she became more human and the story became more interesting. Lawrence took his time with developing the characters and though he thoroughly described the sexual rendezvous it was almost poetic and yet erotic at the same time. I really enjoyed this novel. Mostly because of Connie discovering herself and understanding what it means to live for herself and not for the whims of others. There is a huge level secrecy regarding the affair but there is also a large amount of romance and intimacy. Released in 1928 Lady Chatterley’s Lover was immediately banned in the United Kingdom because of its sexual language. There were even trials in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s in England and the United States regarding the publication of the novel. Alas it is now available uncensored for anyone’s reading pleasure.

http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/Paper-exhibit/banned.html  Retrieved 9/7/2014

“The Trial of Lady Chatterley’s Lover” Robertson, Geoffrey   http://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/oct/22/dh-lawrence-lady-chatterley-trial