Sir Clifford is a jerk!

You might be misunderstanding the true nature of this work; Clifford, Mellors and Connie are all a product of their environment. Understand who Clifford was, he is the owner and responsible party for more than just the house; he is also responsible for the solvency of the entire village. If the mine shuts down, the town shuts down, the people all have no money, the estate collapses, and it is a serious problem for more than just his pocketbook.

Clifford was just a stand-in for the upper classes of all of the British Empire, reflecting ideas that everyone, *including* the servant class lived by. Now, don't get me wrong, I think that Clifford was a repellant person in more ways than simply his elitism, but I think it cheapens D.H. Lawrence's work to simply pigeonhole Clifford as a "jerk". Remember that Clifford has not only lost the use of his legs, he has also been robbed of the ability to fulfill his "husbandly duties" and more importantly to procreate. Think of what an INCREDIBLY sad and humiliating situation it would be to return from war to a wife you had only slept with for two months before the war, now unable to satisfy your beautiful, young, vibrant wife — a woman you love very much. Now your desire is a cruel joke, and her desire is an ever-present reminder of your complete inadequacy. You are also unable to sire an heir, which means that your estate will no longer be in your family's possession for the first time (maybe) ever. Can you imagine how depressing and angering that would be? I'm not trying to defend his very ungentlemanly conduct; I'm just trying to point out that Lawrence's character of Clifford is not the one-sided jerk some make him out to be.

Some people have called Mellors harsh and vulgar, but his blunt honesty is a major factor in his appeal for Connie. This is not a "Millennium Man", that impossible combination of sensitivity, strength and spotless character that is endlessly foisted upon us vis-à-vis modern romantic cinema. This is a real man who is not brusque due to some character flaw, his often cringe-inducing language and manner represents a realistic servant class man of his time. Notice that most of the time his words and attitude fail to illicit any response in Connie, which cannot be attributed to her ease with said situation; instead it is due to the fact that she knows his behavior is not singular, but the result of his upbringing, his class. This fact is very important because it is not simply Clifford that Connie leaves, and not just Mellors that she departs with, instead it is a decision she has made to no longer associate herself with the "ruling" class and her choice to belong to a strata that she finds much more honest and *free*.

D.H. Lawrence is making a very poignant condemnation of the class system, but he is also seriously commenting on the importance of real lovemaking, real tenderness, which was almost revolutionary at the time. Through Mellors we are given a very realistic portrait of what societal attitudes were toward sex and also what men and women *expected* in a sexual relationship. He accurately illustrates that women saw lovemaking as a duty, which fueled the male attitude that sex was something animalistic, and a woman's virginity was a prize to be won (or taken) and without her maidenhead an unmarried woman could never be a lady. It continually objectified women and dehumanized them as creatures that couldn’t enjoy sex; at most they were little children who considered intercourse “yucky”. When Mellors so enthusiastically responds to the time in the woods when both of them experience climax together, he is legitimizing the importance of a woman's sexual experience, and by default, her orgasm. In this way he *liberates* women from the old double standard, he HUMANIZES the sexual experience and sanctifies the mutual joy men and women can have when sex is done right.

Can you imagine how important this work is to — not only — women's sexual liberation, but also her equality with a man? He says as much in chapter 14, "... and he lay with her and went into her there on the hearthrug, and so they gained a measure of equanimity." He uses that term three times in the book. While the term "equanimity" is most accurately defined (in this instance) as "mental calmness and composure, esp. in a difficult situation", it also suggests a far more important meaning from the root Latin "aequanimitas" — aequus ‘equal’ + animus ‘mind', *equal mind*, fairness, impartiality. Lawrence is saying that the importance of the sexual experience, a TENDER sexual experience is mutual, both men and women need tender lovemaking and the absence of such is the cause of many of society's problems. If you only think of the act itself you lose the significance, but when you think of the larger picture of how sex enslaved women as brainless china dolls and established men as the stronger, dominant gender then you can see how important this statement is in Lady Chatterley.


"...nothing is left of me, each time I see her..." - Catullus

Yes, he certainly was a very unpleasant man throughout. No wonder his wife cheated on him (also, no woman could ever resist Sean Bean, ever).

Boycott movies that involve real animal violence! (and their directors too)