Anger in the White Stocking

Anger in the Work of D. H. Lawrence

D. H. Lawrence was probably a very angry man. His writings are full of extremely intense feelings of anger and hate which do not seem to belong. This anger is usually connected to love, but can be classified by what other emotions it is also linked to. For example, in "Second Best," there is no real reason for Anne to feel great fury, yet she does towards the mole. Anne somehow equates the mole with a barrier to her success in love, so she hates it. In "The Shadow in the Rose Garden," the intense anger is connected to jealousy. The husband is extremely jealous of his wife's prior involvement with Archie. In "The White Stocking," the anger is also associated with jealousy. Ted does not like the fact that Elsie has been accepting gifts from Sam Adams. The sisters in "The Christening" have intense resentment towards their youngest sister Emma, who ruined the family reputation. This translates into anger directed at her and the world in general. Lastly, the title character and the Orderly in "The Prussian Officer" have a love-hate relationship, except one hates, the other loves. The Orderly, as recipient of unwanted love, feels great resentment and anger towards the Officer, so much so that he kills him.

Lawrence uses anger as an all-purpose front for and manifestation of deeper negative feelings. For this reason, the anger often seems unnecessary and out of place. Its common occurrence, however, allows us to treat it as a motif. In all of the stories above listed, there are characters involved in intensive love relationships. In "Second Best," "Shadow" and "Stocking," there are either married couples, or soon to be. "The Christening" has a family, and "The Prussian Officer" involves a gay officer. There is something dysfunctional about all of these relationships, however, and the anger exposes it. There is no reason for anger if there is not something wrong, so we know that there is underlying unrest in, Ted and Elsie's marriage, for example. The anger is supposed to hint at trouble, then it is up to the reader to discern from clues in the rest of the text the particular irregularity in the story.

In "Shadow" and "Stocking" the anger is among husbands and wives. The two stories are basically equivalent in message and structure: wife has hidden secret from husband, husband finds out, responds with jealous rage. For contrast, however, Elsie does not really hate Ted back, as opposed to the husband and wife in "Shadow" who both hate each other until the end, when they become merely cold. Ted's hate also dissipates, however.

Lawrence uses the anger motif to signal change. In the previous two mentioned stories, while there is anger, change is happening. Anger is an external symptom of not only problem, but also solution. Anger does not happen without friction (in "Stocking" and "Shadow," there is inherent class difference. Elsie is dumber than Ted, and the wife is not over Archie), but during periods of anger, change occurs. The husband and wife realize that their marriage can be fixed - it just will be different, and Elsie and Ted have a new understanding of one another.

Anger as a sign of change is also accurate for "Second Best." Anne realizes over the course of the story that she wants to/must marry Tom. Her anger directed at moles demonstrates her wish to move past the engaged Jimmy and on to Tom, to start to get her life in order. She goes from fear of moles to the courage to kill one - through her pent up anger. The mole as a sign of her frustration in love and sex shows change, because she is angry when the mole is alive, but as she kills it in great anger, she becomes happy. She is engaged and going to take part in a normal life.

The anger in "The Christening" and "The Prussian Officer" is different because it is associated with love and resentment. Hilda and Laurie hate Emma because she has brought shame upon the family. As the father indicates, the family is dysfunctional in the first place, partially due to his failings and the lack of mother. This is the "problem" which is indicated by all of the anger and resentment. Hilda and Laurie are also jealous because they are probably virgins, but their sister is not. The anger in this family is a festering bitterness, not a passionate hatred as in the first three stories analyzed.