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Chapter 18
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Lady Chatterley’s Lover, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Intellect vs. Bodily Experience
Nature vs. Machinery
Class, Consumerism, and Money
Gender and Sexuality
Catastrophe, Continuity, and Tradition
Summary
Analysis
Now, Connie must write to Clifford to tell him that she is in love with Duncan and that she hopes Clifford will divorce her. Though Clifford has long intuited that something like this might happen, he still falls into a state of shock when the letter arrives, turning so pale that Mrs. Bolton rushes to call a doctor. When Mrs. Bolton realizes what has happened, she labels it as a case of “male hysteria.” Privately, she feels frustrated that Clifford is even a tiny bit surprised.
Clifford’s time ignoring his instincts now comes back to haunt him, as he is doubly humiliated by Connie’s letter because he has not ever allowed himself to anticipate it. In using the word “hysteria,” a term historically used to pathologize female emotion, Mrs. Bolton demonstrates just how far Clifford has strayed from the novel’s conception of proper gender roles.
Themes
However, Mrs. Bolton knows that her job is to comfort Clifford—and in this case, that means joining in his sadness. Mrs. Bolton thus starts to cry and rushes to hold him, and he rests his head on her bosom. In a strange twist, this first moment of bodily contact turns Clifford into something “like a child” with Mrs. Bolton. From then on, he begs her to give him sponge baths and kisses, touching her breasts in a way that is both sexual and infantile. Mrs. Bolton finds this thrilling and shameful, though she never stops it.
This strange passage illuminates the ways Clifford is passive instead of active, suggesting that receiving sponge baths and comfort make him weak and “like a child.”. But though Mrs. Bolton believes this behavior to be inappropriate and even deviant, her desire to have power over a member of the upper class wins over her disgust at Clifford’s behavior.
Themes
But while Clifford leans into his childlike demeanor at home, this reversion allows him to be an even sharper and more successful businessman in the outside world, almost “inhuman” in his ability to make decisions based on cost and chemistry. Mrs. Bolton is both proud of and revolted by Clifford’s business success. More than that, she is upset by Clifford’s refusal to divorce Connie, especially because he seems less interested in reuniting with his wife than he is in faulting her for breaking a promise.
In highlighting Clifford’s business acumen, the novel portrays him as unnatural in two ways. Just as Clifford’s sexual behavior is a far cry from the natural masculinity Mellors embodies, his focus on calculations and chemicals over people and landscapes is similarly mechanical, “inhuman.”
Themes
Though Connie dreads it, she feels bullied into going back to Wragby; as soon as she returns to the house, she is struck by how “evil” the place feels. Connie is relieved to see that Clifford is behaving haughtily instead of pathetically, greeting her in his best black-tie clothes. With cold rage, he accuses her of going back on her word. Despite Connie’s acknowledgement and apology, Clifford still refuses to believe that she really loves Duncan Forbes. So Connie confesses the truth: she loves Mellors.
Whereas Connie associates Mellors with naked beauty, Clifford tries to gain power through clothing, bought in an attempt to compensate for his physical insecurities. Even at the end of his marriage, then, Clifford still hopes to use his wealth as a distraction from (or compensation for) his lack of bodily strength.
Themes
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Clifford’s eyes bulge with anger at this confession; “if he could have sprung out his chair,” thinks Connie, “he would have done so.” Still, it is clear that he has known, deep down, that the rumors about Connie and Mellors were true. Clifford hates the idea that Connie would marry this working-class man, much less have a baby with him. In his anger, Clifford tells Connie that she is perverted, “not normal.” Stubbornly, he vows that he will never give her a divorce.
Clifford’s accusation that Connie is “not normal” is ironic, given how much the novel has just dwelled on Clifford’s own abnormalities. The narrative again conflates Clifford’s disability with his personal failings, as even in his moment of rage, all Connie can think about is his inability to get out of his mechanical wheelchair.
Themes
Hilda convinces Connie that her only option is to pack up and leave and hope that Clifford will change his mind. Connie does so, saying goodbye to Mrs. Bolton and resolving to wait for six months until Mellors’s divorce comes through. The plan is that he will work farming jobs, saving up enough so that soon they can get their own small farm together. “So they would have to wait till spring was in,” Connie thinks.
It is perhaps unsurprising that Connie and Mellors, hoping to embrace a more natural way of life, have chosen to escape to a farm. In an interesting detail, Connie’s resolution to “wait” for spring parallels her physical experience of sex, in which she waits for Mellors to set the pace of their mutual pleasure.
Themes
In a letter, Mellors tells Connie about the farm he is working on. He likes the owners, who are grieving a son lost to the war. Mellors also enjoys farming, though this new town, too, is filled with mines and colliers. Mellors continues to rail against these “apathetic” men, worked to the bone and always anxious about money; “if you could only tell them,” he laments, “that living and spending isn’t the same thing!” Mellors feels that this shift in mindset is the last defense against the doom wrought by industrialization.
Mellors’s rant against colliers and their machines is familiar, but more salient is his unusual respect for this family. Because this farm family grieves World War I, Mellors seems to hint, they are able to move on from it naturally, rather than distracting themselves with new technologies and endless “spending.” The novel mostly emphasizes pleasure and sexual intimacy as a key to meaningful continuity, but here, grief emerges as another critical part of that equation.
Themes
Indeed, Mellors feels that the one thing that gives him hope for the future is believing in “the little flame” between himself and Connie. Even as he turns 40, Mellors still struggles to balance “patience” with the “tortur[ous]” desire he feels every time he thinks about Connie. Eventually, though, he writes that he has come to “love chastity,” because it is a kind of peace that can only come between bouts of passionate sex.
In Mellors’s final letter to Connie, the novel’s omniscient narrator disappears, at last allowing readers directly into the communication between the story’s central couple. Now, Mellors learns to let the passionate sex he had with Connie—“their real togetherness”—animate and sustain his time alone. In other words, because he has known powerful physical intimacy, Mellors is able to embrace things beyond that intimacy, whether that means picking up his pen or approaching the future with new patience.
Themes
Literary Devices
Mellors ends his letter by promising Connie that he will keep his faith in “the little flame, and in the unnamed god that shields it from being blown out.” He knows their separation is necessary, though he thinks that sex creates everything good in the world; even the flowers, Mellors believes, are born from the sun and the earth copulating. Finally, he signs off with their old pet names: “John Thomas says good-night to Lady Jane, a little droopingly, but with a hopeful heart.”
Lady Chatterley’s Lover began with the mention of cataclysm; in this touching conclusion, Mellors emphasizes the value of “hope,” of finding one “little flame” still burning amidst the rubble of violence and mechanization. As always, Mellors focuses on sex and nature—both symbolized by flowers—as the ingredients of this hope. But in signing off with a “drooping” “John Thomas” (perhaps a reference to his flaccid penis), Mellors moves from thinking purely in terms of passion to valuing “heart,” emphasizing not only rugged sex but patient, lasting commitment.
Themes
