Summary Lover of Lady Chatterley


DG Lawrence
Lover of Lady Chatterley
In 1917, Constance Reid, a twenty-two-year-old girl, the daughter of the famous Royal Academy artist Sir Malkom Reid, is married to Baron Clifford Chatterley. Six months after the wedding, Clifford, all this time participating in the war in Flanders,. Returns back to England with severe wounds, as a result of which his lower body remains paralyzed. In 1920, Clifford and Constance returned to the estate of Rugby – the family estate of Chatterley. This gloomy place: a large low house, started in the XVIII century. and gradually disfigured by extensions. The house is surrounded by a beautiful park and forest, but because of the centuries-old oaks one can see the pipes of the coal mines, owned by Chatterley, with clouds of smoke and soot. Almost at the very gates of the park begins a working village – a heap of old, dirty houses with black roofs. Even in windless days the air is saturated with the smell of iron, sulfur and coal.

The inhabitants of Tavershala – the so-called working settlement – seem to be as ragged and gloomy as the whole area. Nobody here greets the hosts, nobody removes hats before them. On both sides there is an impassable abyss and some dull irritation.
Clifford became very shy after the injury. True, with the surrounding people he is holding off something insultingly-haughty, then modestly and almost timidly. He does not seem to be one of the modern feminine men; on the contrary, with his broad shoulders and ruddy face, he looks even old-fashioned, always elegantly dressed, but with seeming power and autonomy without Connie (shortened from Constance) he is completely helpless: he needs it at least in order to realize that he lives. Clifford is ambitious, he began writing stories, and Connie helps him in his work. However, according to Sir Malkom, Connie’s father, his stories are clever, but they contain nothing. So two years pass. After a while, Sir Malkom remarks that his daughter is not going to her “half-way” very much, she is withering, losing weight, and tells her the idea of ​​having
a lover.
In the winter in Rugby for a few days comes writer Mikaelis. He is a young Irishman who has already made a great fortune in America with his witty plays from secular life, in which he sarcastically ridicules the London high society that first warmed it, and then, having seen it, threw it into the trash. Despite this, in Rugby Mikaelis manages to impress Connie and for some time to become her lover. However, this is not at all what her soul unconsciously languishes. Mikaelis is too selfish, there is not enough manliness in him.
The estate is often visited by visitors, mostly writers, who help Chatterley to advertise his work. Soon, Clifford is already considered one of the most popular writers and earns a lot of money on this. Endless conversations between them, about the relations of the sexes, about their leveling weary Connie. Clifford sees the sadness and dissatisfaction of his wife and admits that he would not mind if she gave birth to a child from someone else, but on the condition that everything between them would remain the same. During one of the walks, Clifford introduces Connie to their new forester, Oliver Mollers. This tall, slender, silent man of about thirty-seven, with thick blond hair and a red mustache. He is the son of a miner, but he has the manners of a gentleman and he can even be called beautiful. A special impression on Connie produces some alienated expression of his eyes. He suffered a lot in his life, in his youth with despair and unsuccessfully married a woman who was much older than him and subsequently proved to be wicked and rude. In 1915, he was drafted into the army, which she used to leave for another, leaving his mother in the care of a small daughter. Himself Mellers rose to the rank of lieutenant, but after the death of his colonel, who was highly respected, decided to retire and settle in their native places.
Connie likes to walk in the woods and from time to time there are occasional meetings with the forester, which foster the emergence of mutual interest, while apparently outwardly expressed. Connie Hilda comes to visit Connie and, paying attention to her sister’s painful look, forces Clifford to hire a nurse and a footman for herself so that his wife does not have to tear up, caring for him. With the appearance in the house of Mrs. Bolton, a very pleasant fifty-year-old woman, who had worked as a nursing sister for a long time at the parish in Tavershala, Connie was able to devote more time to herself; With Clifford, she now spends in the evening only until ten o’clock. The rest of the time is mostly absorbed by her gloomy thoughts about the uselessness and purposelessness of her existence as a woman.
Walking once in the woods, Connie discovers a lodge for pheasant landing, next to which Mullers makes cages for birds. The blows of the forester’s ax sound ungenerous; he is unhappy that someone broke his loneliness. Nevertheless, he fires a hearth in the lodge to make Connie warm. Watching Mullers, Connie sits in the lodge until the evening. From this day, it becomes her habit to come to the meadow every day and watch the birds, as the chickens hatch from the eggs. For her most unknown reason, Connie begins to feel how her disgust for Clifford grows. Moreover, she had never so sharply felt the agony of the feminine element in herself. Now she has only one desire: to go to the forest to the hens. Everything else seems like a sick dream to her. One evening she runs to the lodge and, caressing the chicken, being unable to hide his confusion and despair, drops a tear on his tender fluff. From this evening, Mellers, who has felt the touching and spiritual beauty of Connie, becomes her lover. With him, Connie relaxes and first realizes what it means to love deeply and sensually and be loved. Their connection lasts for several months. Connie wants to have a child from Oliver and marry him. To do this, first of all, Mellers needs to file a divorce with his former wife, which he does.
Clifford leaves the writer’s work and headlong into discussion with his manager of industrial issues and the modernization of mines. The alienation between him and Connie is increasing. Seeing that she no longer needs her husband as before, she decides to leave him permanently. But before that he leaves for Venice with his sister and father to Venice for a month. Connie already knows she is pregnant, and is looking forward to the birth of her baby. From England, news reaches her that the wife of Mullers does not want to give him a divorce and dissolves the rumors defaming his village. Clifford dismissed the forester, and he leaves for London. Returning from Venice, Connie meets her lover, and they both finally confirm their intentions to live together. For Clifford, the news that Connie leaves him is a blow that helps him survive Mrs. Bolton. In love, in order to find freedom and divorce, it is necessary to live six months away from each other. Connie at this time leaves for his father in Scotland, and Oliver works on a foreign farm and is going to later acquire his own. Both Connie and Oliver live solely as a hope for an early reunion.


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Summary Lover of Lady Chatterley