Whose Desires?

1. Whose Desires? D. H. Lawrence’s “The Blind Man” fromEngland, My England, and Other Stories (1922)

2. Leading Questions • Characters: Isabel, Bertie and Maurice. The story starts with Isabel’s listening for two sounds and ends with her receiving the two men, seeing one fulfilled and one defeated. How are Bertie and Maurice set against each other? What role does Isabel play in between the two men? • Spaces and the two trips to the farm: The spaces in the story are also set in contrast to each other. How is the farm different from the house? How are Isabel’s and Bertie’s trips to the farm different from and similar to each other? (e.g. pp. 72, 73; • The ending: What does the men’s touching each other mean? • Symbolic meanings: the scar, light and (palpable) darkness, cat, touch, flower bowl, etc. (pp. 73, 74, 77, 81-83)

3. Three Levels of the Story & Possible Approaches 3. Main Argument: the characters’ contradictory desires reveal the contradictions in Lawrence actually.

4. Introduction • structure of the text 1. Beginning: “So Bertie was coming. . . “ 2nd par. Flashback-The background of the story(pp. 68-71) 2. The Present time a. Isabel’s trip for Maurice in the barn (p. 71-) b. Maurice in his own room. (p. 75) c. Bertie’sarrival Isabel (75-76) d. tea and conversation in the living room (77- e. Bertie’s trip for Maurice in the barn (p. 80)

5. The Three Characters in Trouble/Need A. Isabel and Maurice, the couple (pp. 68-69) M: a. self-sufficiency in his sightless and physical world; “With his wife he had a whole world, rich and real and invisible.” (p. 69, also p. 70) b. post-trauma syndrome (depression) B. Isabel: isolation, sense of burden and intimacy; sees the coming baby as her salvation (still a mother, but becomes a lover rather than a loved object;) nervous but maintaining calmness (p. 71)  Beginning of action: letter (p. 71) “Let him come.” worried about each other (75)

6. The Three Characters with Contradictory Desires C. Bertie’s fear of intimacy (pp. 69-70; 78) • Maurice vs. Bertie: sensitivity/slow thinking vs. intellectual quickness/emotional slowness. • Isabel: • suffers to look at M in front of B.(78) • despises and admires B • Maurice: “There's a good deal when you're not active.' • vs. Bertie. “[W]hen there is no thought and no action, there is nothing.” (79)

7. Symbols: The Conflicts between Rational Mind and Physical Senses • Or in Lawrence’s own words “mental consciousness” vs. “blood consciousness” (note) • Dualism in Lawrence and the underline parts this story: • blood/mind; sensuality/intellect; • Dark/light; Sun/moon; animal (cat & horses) /insect or flower arrangement; Moisture/dry; • man/woman; male autonomy and community vs. female possession

8. I.The Sensual man vs. the intellectual man A. Maurice and Bertie’s Differences • Occupation—farmer, lawyer • Appearance & Characteristics (in I’s eyes): M p. 74; B 78 B. Their Ways of Talking to Isabel • Maurice: short phrases (e.g. 73-74) • Bertie: articulate but pretentious (75-76) • Isabel: feels divided, but confirms M’s “something else” (79)

9. Symbols (2): Spaces and the Two Trips to the Realm of the Senses A. I’s trip: • farmer’s house 72– • The stable p. 73, -- I: afraid, stirred, wanting to see • Isabel’s house 74 – safe B. B’s trip: • M becomes more articulate, while B, shy, stiff and pretentious p.81 • Touching p. 82  What does this mean?

10. What do they each desire? • The final “touches” – • Maurice: to know each other • He welcomes it as if fate (p. • Isabel: • To be left alone but she still has her “womanly patience” p. 71) • Justify the communication: p. 70 • a mother allowing the one son to be beaten by the other “I’m so glad” • Bertie – to escape Would you be like Bertie?

11. What does Lawrence want? • Story written around 1918; • between 1914 and 1918: wants to escape from England • His increasingly poor health was exacerbated by the English climate • There was the psychological pressure caused by the suspicions with which others regarded Frieda's German nationality and the couple's outspoken opposition to World War I.

12. What does Lawrence want? (2) • Form a "Blutbruderschaft" (blood-brother relationship) with John Middleton Murry and Murry's wife, Katherine Mansfield at their cottage in Cornwall. • The Murrys left because "were embarrassed by the violence of [Lawrence's] quarrels with Frieda." •  His need to set up such a “cult” makes him prejudiced against women and lower classes, using them as the Other in his symbolic system of belief.

13. Lawrence’s philosophy • “The brain is. . . the terminal instrument of the dynamic consciousness. It transmutes what is a certain flux into a certain fixed cypher. . . The mind is the instrument of intruments; it is not a creative reality.” Psychoanalysis and the Unconscious 247 • “For the blood is the substance of the soul, and of the deepest consciousness. It is by blood that we are: and it is by the heart and liver that we live and move and have our being, are one and undivided. (Apropos 111) • “The blood also thinks, inside a man, darkly and ponderously. . .

14. Lawrence’s philosophy (2) • modern – “We always want a ‘conclusion,’ an end.” • Primitive –having mythical and symbolic consciousness. • “To them a thought was a complete state of feeling awareness, a cumulative feeling, a deepening thing, in which feeling deepened into feeling in consciousness till there was a sense of fullness. (Apocalypse 80)