Lady Chatterley’s Lover: Idioms 6 key examples

The word “chirpy” comes from early 19th century England. It refers to the cheerful sounds birds make, as they’re full of energy and difficult to silence. Later, it became a word that was often used to describe the attitude of British soldiers during World War I. Newspapers and films, wanting to keep morale high at home, often portrayed them as upbeat, optimistic and cheeky even in the face of death. Clifford has certainly faced his own mortality, and remains “almost, one might say, chirpy” after his terrible injury and traumatic experiences. The picture that Lawrence paints of Clifford here calls upon several tropes of the British country aristocrat: he is “cheerful,” “ruddy,” “blue-eyed,” and “challenging.” However, the juxtaposition of the "ruddy, healthy-looking face" with the notion of being "strange and bright and cheerful" hints at the duality that lies below Lord Chatterley’s chipper mask.

Even though Clifford seems cheerful and well-adjusted, he only appears to be so. The truth, as Lawrence’s reader and Connie soon realize, is that the war has burned all of the feeling out of Clifford. He seems almost “chirpy” because he can’t feel the sadness or the love he had in his pre-war life. His “brightness” and the fact that he’s “cheerful” seem strange because they’re not accompanied by the troubled disposition one might expect from a war veteran who has recently been injured.

In this passage, Mellors talks about how he perceives Clifford’s masculinity. As is typical of this novel, he explains a psychological characteristic through language that involves the body. When Connie doesn’t understand what the reference to testicles means, Mellors explains by drawing parallels with other bodily idioms. He explains that just as one might say a fool has "no brain" or a coward has "no stomach," to say a man has "no balls" indicates a deficiency in his masculinity. Mellors thinks that Clifford is unmanly because he is “tame” and lacking that “wild” bit of manliness that he possesses himself.

The situation is dripping with situational irony because of the actual status of Lord Chatterley’s testicles. While Mellors uses the phrase “no balls” metaphorically, Clifford is in reality physically infertile due to his war injury. Although it’s unclear how damaged his lower body actually is, the reader knows that Clifford can neither walk nor sire children. Mellors's blunt assessment of Clifford as "tame" yet "nasty" emphasizes the difference in the two men’s characters. By saying the other man has “no balls,” Mellors is also saying that he himself does possess that “spunky wild bit of a man in him.”

The idioms in this passage pile onto one another, showing Mellors’s feelings about class divisions very clearly. The idiom "mingy"—in this context—refers to his perception that the middle classes have a mean-spirited and stingy character. He also calls them “snipes” (implying that they’re childish, critical, and weak), “prigs” (implying that they’re pompous and self-absorbed), and “rotten as high game.” 

This last phrase refers to the custom of “hanging” kills from a hunt for several days to improve their flavor. Hanging from a hook at room temperature for a few days can improve the taste and texture of tough, gamey flesh like deer and pheasant. However, it’s easy to make a mistake and let the meat go dangerously rotten. When this happens, it releases a revolting stench, signaling it’s unsafe to eat, or “too high.” Saying someone is “rotten” in 19th-century Britain meant that they were politically or morally corrupt, as Mellors believes the middle classes to be. Being "rotten as high game" is very rotten indeed.

Furthermore, by saying that they have “narrow guts,” Mellors suggests that the middle classes are both physically and morally “constipated.” They can’t accept or process change and are so stuck in their ways that even their bowels aren’t able to move. A change as small as a pea would "give them a stoppage."

Finally, the use of the term "kow-tow" emphasizes the excessive submissiveness that Mellors thinks middle-class people all demonstrate. In Victorian and 19th century English to "kowtow" to someone means to behave flatteringly or grovellingly. It's a term that came to English from Chinese, where the original word refers to a specific kind of formal bow. Rather than having firm beliefs or standards, Mellors believes that the middle classes are utterly swayed by tradition and aristocratic clout.

There are several idioms at play in this passage, which also refers to other conversations Mellors and Constance have had involving their genitalia. “Lady Jane” is a Victorian-era euphemism. It usually refers to the vulva, but sometimes refers to the vagina itself. Mellors calls attention to the flowers he’s woven into Constance’s pubic hair and asks her who will do so while they’re separated. He familiarly refers to “Lady Jane” as “Jinny,” but when he sees that his playful talk isn’t entertaining Constance, he becomes somber. 

When he suggests that “Lady Jane” might find someone who will put “jasmine in [her] maidenhair” and “a pomegranate flower in [her] navel” Mellors is suggesting two very specific sexual images. “Maidenhair” is a kind of straggly moss, and jasmine is a plant with small white flowers. He is literally asking Constance if she thinks she’ll find another lover, but he’s also invoking the image of beads of semen caught in her pubic hair. The second floral reference is perhaps even more overtly sexual. When Mellors refers to a “navel,” he’s actually referring to the entrance of Constance’s vagina. Pomegranates are symbols of pregnancy and fertility, and the "navel" of the vulva is the vaginal opening. He’s asking if Constance will allow someone else to impregnate her. At this point, he isn’t aware that she is already carrying his child, and he is mournfully imagining a future in which “Lady Jane” and “John Thomas”—another idiom that the pair use to refer to his penis—are forever separated.

The reference to “Lady Jane” happens several times in this novel. In this context, it’s interesting to note that the book’s working title was initially Lady Jane and John Thomas. This wordplay of Lawrence’s was vetoed by publishers as being too explicit, so the book was retitled Lady Chatterley's Lover.

Mellors is having both an emotional and a sexual reaction to Constance's body in this scene. As he's complimenting her, his voice catches in his throat. Lawrence emphasizes the "caressive" qualities of Midlands English when he describes Mellors's speech here. When Mellors has a hold on himself, his English can be almost as standard and formal as Constance's or Clifford's. When he's overcome with a feeling, however, he reverts to a more heightened version of regional diction. This stronger accent is accompanied by several regional idioms that give the reader a sense of local color and increase the realism of the scene. Mellors isn't quoting Shakespeare to woo Constance. He's speaking plainly and honestly, especially when he uses idioms like “sure as nuts.”

This idiom refers to the stores of nuts and acorns that squirrels make to sustain themselves in the winter. When he says that Connie's bottom is "ivery bit" womanly "as sure as nuts," he's pointing out the obviousness of its size and "globe-fulness." It's "womanly" to him because it's not a small "button" bottom, but a "soft and sloping" one. He's also implying that Connie has a good store of "arse" squirreled away for coming times. It's so big and fine, he goes on to say, that it could "hold up the world." By this, he means to praise its strength, but he also means that it's an excellent example of a nice "woman's arse."

The idiom "breeches arse-forrards" is a retort referring to Hilda’s classist assumptions about Mellors's ignorance. She thinks her jabs at him have been subtle, but Mellors asserts that he isn’t naive or foolish here. Saying that he doesn’t wear his breeches “arse-forrards” literally means that Mellors knows which way to put his pants on. It’s comparable to the modern expression "I wasn’t born yesterday," and it provides the reader with a sense of how an interaction like this might actually have sounded in the early 1900s. 

The use of dialect in this passage grounds Mellors in his social and geographical context. Mellors's dialect of English is a regional variation specific to the Midlands. At the time, having a regionally-specific accent in Britain suggested that a person came from a working-class background. In refusing to change his speech when berating Hilda, Mellors continues to confront and challenge her assumptions about his intelligence and capabilities. Part of the reason that Hilda is so uncomfortable with Mellors is because of his natural grace and good manners, since this clashes with her ideas about his social status, thus making her feel ill-at-ease. Rather than bowing to Hilda's simplistic interpretation of him, Mellors chooses to stand up for himself.