D.H. Lawrence once said, “Love is never a fulfillment. Life is never a thing of continuous bliss. There is no paradise. Fight and laugh and feel bitter and feel bliss: and fight again. Fight, fight. That is life.”
Lawrence in his novels is always grappling with the idea of love and life. He considered the relationship of a man and a woman as a ‘conflict’ devoid of the natural harmony. Harmony and compatibility is an endeavor in itself and all his characters are real and complex in nature. Sex has an imminent presence in all his novels in all its biological, psychological and metaphysical manifestations. He treated this topic with such a modern attitude that ‘The Rainbow’ was banned by the censorship board on the grounds of obscenity. Lawrence flustered and baffled the censorship board even more so as he turned a new leaf in the history of modern literature by explicitly writing about homo-sexual relationships. He felt the need to familiarize sex to the general public as something natural as he felt an exigency that had to be embraced.
Love in the traditional method was the ‘destination’ that a couple aimed for while they overcome the conflicts imposed upon them. Lawrence saw ‘love’ not as the destination but the ‘journey’ itself. And as a realist, he projects this journey of love as a ‘bumpy ride’. He links love intimately with sensual desires and we get to see the transcendence of love throughout the novel. Unlike the popular belief of Lawrence being an anti-feminist, we come across some really obstinate women characters who shape and steer the lives of men in the novel. He even creates Ursula as a strong independent woman paving her path into the male realm.
Lawrence has always been pre-occupied with one’s sexuality and the idea of love reflected throughout his works. His infatuation towards the representation of love is also borrowed from many disturbing sources. The writer’s never-ending struggle with these delicate topics metamorphoses with the characters in the novel ‘Rainbow’.
To create a realistic and disharmonious novel, the writer intricately links the issues of love, lust and loss together, which in their unity represent the imperfection of life. This inadequacy felt in the novel is not because of the situations, personality of characters or due to wrong timing…it is impotent because that’s Life.
The idea toyed around by the writer is embroidered in both regenerative and destruction of life and marriage. The story runs through the lifespan of three generations and their quest for love, marriage and contentment.
The story begins with the first generation Tom Brangwen, who fell in love with a Polish widow. The description of the ‘first siting’ is extravagantly beguiling contradicting the courtship period which was full of self-criticism, loathing and self-estrangement. Lawrence introduces not only the external situations but also the internal dilemma that Tom incarcerated himself to. The readers are made to scrutinize closely the inferiority complex that Tom faces in his sub-conscious mind. His jealously towards Lydia’s former husband and Anna is placed of utmost importance by Lawrence as it is due to this alienation and un-belongingness that the elder Brangwen felt he manages to shatter his comfort cocoon and take action towards his desires.
“…he noticed the wedding ring on her finger. It excluded him: it was a closed circle. It bound her life, the wedding-ring; it stood for her life in which he could have no part. Nevertheless, beyond all this, there was herself and himself which should meet.”
Although Tom was able to take flight, but soon after their marriage, he came across the constant turbulence. Lydia in this time of upheaval was, ‘Cold, he called her, selfish, only caring really about nothing, having no proper feelings at the bottom of her, and no proper niceness.’ Despite being tormented Tom, ‘he did not want to lose her; he did not want her to lapse away.’
Their relationship was not driven by lust, but rather by wants for warmth and companionship. Lydia after losing her sons and her Polish husband, couldn’t mourn their loss freely as she had to fulfill her responsibilities as a mother to Anna. She had given up on every pleasure and belief in religion retreating back to her hollow shell of a being until Tom Brangwen came along. Brangwen brought the normalcy back into Lydia’s life, making her feel human and alive. Similar to Lydia, Tom too was lonely and withering away desperately waiting for comfort. Lawrence in this first couple’s marriage seems to hint at the psychological void that is filled by each other in the opposite person’s life. The age gap between the couple too makes the attainment of the satisfaction of the psychological deficiency. Lydia finds solace in Tom in certain situations where she treats him like her son instead of her husband and this state of inversion also soothes Tom in certain circumstances where he requires a mother-like figure to guide him.
This role-playing and gratification comes to a standstill with the birth of their first son and later the second. Lydia’s attention is not only cut short of Tom’s life but also of Anna’s life. Anna now accepts Tom as her father as they seek shelter in each other in the absence of Lydia. And it is at this point that Lawrence re-introduces the dominant theme of his controversial novel ‘Sons and Lovers’ but here in ‘The Rainbow’, he hints at Electra complex. The growing attachment between Tom and Anna begins with their loneliness and grows into something fonder hinting at romance, but is put to an abrupt break with the introduction of Will Brangwen.
Will Brangwen’s injection into Anna’s life unlike the former couple, is more raw, passionate and brimming with carnal desires. Lawrence embellishes their love with their youthful passion of exploring the unknown territory. Anna’s wildness and Will’s submissiveness together create a beautiful harmony. The communion of these two polar opposites stood impregnable on the face of the Church; God no longer was the center, he was now sidelined. Religion had lost its ever looming presence, it was now a mere practice and as an abstraction. Even Will’s love for Church was not for the preaching but was for the architecture.
It’d be erroneous to say that Anna and Will fulfilled their duty of procreation as written in the Bible, although it is true that throughout her married life, Anna remained pregnant, but it wasn’t because of her innate will to follow the Lord’s words rather it was because she wanted to experience motherhood over and over again. Therefore, it was her carnal passions ruling over her mind and body. Unlike the former couple, Anna and Will weren’t afraid to trespass the territory of ‘extra-marital affair’. Tom Brangwen was astound when Lydia suggested him to go to another woman to fulfill his needs, but Will tries to reason out how he is a ‘virgin’ as his only relationship was with Anna. He wanted to explore other women and assert his masculinity.
“Save for his wife, he was a virgin……he wanted the other……it was one man who touched Anna, another who now touched this girl”
Something in Anna had changed too, she no longer loved Will as her husband, she loved him because ‘he was the father of her children’. After Will’s adultery, Anna instead of resenting him, found a new found passion for him. She challenged him back with a sort of radiance, very bright and free, opposite to him.
“Something was liberated in her. She liked him. She liked this strange man come home to her. He was very welcome, indeed! She was very glad to welcome a stranger. She had been bored by the old husband.”
Lydia and Tom; Anna and Will are driven towards their partners because of their physical and psychological needs and not because of the actual commitment and compatibility. Their relationships are rudimentary. Lawrence creates these couples to project how marriage is not a legalized institution for delving into sex, as he propagates the importance of communication and understanding in a marriage which will help couples in the long run. The former two couples lack the understanding of the other, they are too focused on their own pleasures to rake notice or be considerate of the other.
Finally, Lawrence introduces his finest character, Ursula Brangwen. Ursula is the first daughter of Anna and Will. She aspires to accomplish the shortcomings of the previous couples with her independence, knowledge and stubbornness. Ursula unlike the previous two women characters is freer and is not guided by men in her life- she manages to steer her own life despite the disapprovals around her. She is a free spirit and does not conform to traditions and stereotypes. She indulges in a relationship with Skrebensky, but it does not last for long as he is unable to satisfy her needs. Her exploration of the alien world does not end here, as she proceeds to have a lesbian relationship with her teacher Inger Winifred. In both her relationships, she is satisfied at the beginning, but her excitement doesn’t last for long as she got bored of both of them, therefore, breaks it off with them before she gets hurt. This attitude of Ursula is like her defense mechanism, from her childhood days; she was always neglected of the motherly love that she craved for, as Anna was constantly pregnant and didn’t have time to look after her children. Therefore, Ursula breaking up her relationship with both Skrebensky and Winifred projects her desperate need to protect herself from the pain. She even broke away from the barriers created for women, as she began working at a school as a teacher. She manages to subservient the male dominance to gain her individuality:‘She existed now as a separate social individual’. Despite the highs and lows in life, one is hopeful that the future will be better. Ursula becomes the spokesperson of Lawrence himself as she delivers this message of the ‘Rainbow’.
There is loss of self, emotions and even of human lives in the novel; some are overcome by physical presence, some by emotional presence. Lawrence wanted to propound through his characters is that, no one is perfect, and it is in this imperfection, that one should find the sincerity of the person. No relationship whether friendship or marriage can be complete without the understanding of the human. ‘One can never exist in isolation, we exist in togetherness with others…and that is Life.’
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