D H Lawrence - Selected Short Stories

Important - when answering questions on Lawrence's 'Selected Short Stories', you should concentrate on the study area 'Setting and Atmosphere'. Try to avoid writing about just the setting, the study area demands you include 'Atmosphere' as well!

These notes are in no particular order and not many quotes are included - you must do this yourself!

• The coming of the railways and coalmines changed the countryside around Nottingham during the nineteenth century.
• The Industrial Revolution brought new hardship's, the dangers of working in the mines, the ugliness of the waste - creating a bleak and depressing atmosphere in which to live.
• Miner's were often killed or maimed in pit accidents and a lifetime under the ground could destroy a man's health and state of mind.
• When dealing with the setting and atmosphere of Lawrence's short stories, it is impossible to avoid mentioning his own background as this inevitably influences what he writes and the way he writes it.
• Lawrence was born in 1885 in the Eastwood in Derbyshire, in the heart of the industrial Midlands. His early experiences of living in a mining community were to greatly influence his writing and this is particularly true of the two short stories we have read in class 'Odour of Chrysanthemums' and 'Fanny and 'Annie'.
• Eastwood was a drab, cold town with little to give colour to what was a hard, bleak existence. This atmosphere is recreated in the two stories, particularly in 'Odour of Chrysanthemums'.
• His father was a miner, an uneducated man who drank a lot and showed little interest in his four children.
• His mother was his social superior, a teacher who was keen to develop the talents of her children. The similarities between his mother and father in 'Odour of Chrysanthemums' and his mother in 'Fanny and Annie' are obvious. It is worth noting that Lawrence's uncle died in a mining accident, just as Mr Bates did in 'Odour of Chrysanthemums'. Indeed, in 'Odour of Chrysanthemums', the smell of the flowers not only reminds Mrs. Bates of her unhappy past, but also the reader of Lawrence's.
• Lawrence's use of dialect adds much reality to the stories. The contrast between the broad Notts / Derby dialect of the local miners and their wives to the standard English of Mrs. Bates and between the residents of Butterley and Annie is marked. This heightens the differences in social status - indeed characters use it to show their resistance to Annie.
• Much of Lawrence's writ' s contains elements of parenthood, love and marriage, often reflecting his own experiences. Hence the atmosphere he creates is often one of depression and despondency. Even Fanny's decision to marry Harry is tinged with uncertainty and concern, for they are opposites in every way.
• Mrs. Bates is very isolated - from both the community in which she lives and from her own husband. She feels a certain amount of guilt when she discovers that he is dead, having believed him to be spending the evening in the pub, something he seems to spend a lot of time doing. (The pub, together with the church and the mine/workplace were central to the community in which Lawrence lived and in both 'Odour of Chrysanthemums' and 'Fanny and Annie').
• She realises that she is as much to blame for the breakdown in her own marriage as her dead husband. How much this is true of his own mother is unclear, but given that so much else is autobiographical it is certainly worth bearing in mind, She never really knew him as a man, nor did she love him.
• Annie is also the social superior of her husband-to-be, an aunt left her the sum of £200 and another owns a sweet shop. She was a lady's lady and would therefore be lower middle class, as opposed to Harry who would be regarded as working class.
• 'Fanny and Annie' is an example of Lawrence's lack of respect for the accepted moral values of that era. In the early 1900's, readers would have frowned at Annie's fascination for someone who is from a socially inferior background and would have been shocked at her sexual attraction (quote needed here).
• She sees him as a 'common man, deliberately entrenched in his commonness', yet she decides to stick by him and marry him, despite the fact that he might be the father of Annie, a local girl from a similar background. Fanny wanted to keep 'her man', his attraction to other women in turn attract her to him.
• Butterley Station in Derbyshire where Fannie met Harry was based on Ripley Station where, in 1918, Lawrence saw a young factory worker, his face lit up by the heat of a near-by furnace, meet a young woman.