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Flowers
Clifford Chatterley’s wheelchair symbolizes the destructive, emasculating dangers of mechanical technology. After Clifford is wounded and paralyzed from the waist down (a result of his time fighting in World War I), he becomes dependent on an expensive, high-tech wheelchair for mobility. In what is widely considered to be evidence of Lawrence’s own ableist views, Clifford’s inability to walk or have sex is equated with a lack of masculinity; at one point, his wife’s paramour, Oliver Mellors, mocks Clifford for literally lacking “balls” and thus having “none of that spunky wild bit of a man in him.” Clifford’s wheelchair is then presented as the way he compensates, as he turns to a machine to replenish his diminished manhood.
Just as the wheelchair represents the novel’s anxiety that men are being turned into machines, it also demonstrates the threat mechanization poses to nature. In one particularly important scene, Clifford’s wheelchair crushes the flowers underneath it as he traverses the Wragby grounds, turning the abstract danger of technology into something tangible and urgent. In another moment, Clifford’s wheelchair breaks down, and he himself breaks down, too, screaming at Mellors and Connie to fix the machine so that he can feel less powerless. By this logic, it is unsurprising that Lawrence presents Mellors’s strong body and dislike of mechanization as the antidote to Clifford’s failures—though again, it is important to note the ableist and gender-normative thinking behind Lawrence’s use of disability as symbol of emasculation and deterioration.
Clifford’s Wheelchair Quotes in Lady Chatterley’s Lover
The Lady Chatterley’s Lover quotes below all refer to the symbol of Clifford’s Wheelchair. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 10
Quotes
The fault lay there, out there, in those evil electric lights and diabolical rattlings of engines. There, in the world of the mechanical greedy, greedy mechanism and mechanized greed, sparkling with lights and gushing hot metal and whirring with traffic, there lay the vast evil thing, ready to destroy whatever did not conform. Soon it would destroy the wood, and the bluebells would spring no more. All vulnerable things must perish under the rolling and running of iron.
He thought with infinite tenderness of the woman. Poor thing, she too had some of the vulnerability of the wild hyacinth, she wasn't all tough rubber goods and platinum, like the modern girl. And they would do her in! As sure as life, they would do her in as they do in all naturally tender life. Tender! Somewhere she was tender.
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Chapter 13
Quotes
And the chair began to advance slowly, joltingly down the beautiful broad riding over with blue encroaching hyacinths. Oh last of all ships, through the hyacinths in shallows! Opinions on the last wild waters, sailing in the last voyage of our civilization! Wither, oh weird wheeled ship, your slow course steering. Quiet and complacent, Clifford sat at the wheel of adventure: in his old black hat and tweed jacket, motionless and cautious. Oh captain, my Captain, our splendid trip is done! Not yet though! Downhill in the wake, came Constance in her grey dress, watching the chair jolt downwards.
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Chapter 14
Quotes
“Did you hate Clifford?” She said at last. “Hate him, no! I’ve met too many like him to upset myself hating him. I know beforehand I don’t care for his sort, and I let it go at that.”
“What is his sort?”
“Nay, you know better than I do. The sort of youngish gentleman a bit like a lady, and no balls.”
“What balls? Balls! A man's balls!”
She pondered this.
“But is it a question of that?” she said, a little annoyed.
“You say a man’s got no brain, when he's a fool: and no heart, when he's mean; and no stomach when he’s a funker. And when he’s got none of that spunky wild bit of a man in him, you say he’s got no balls when he’s sort of tame.”
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Clifford’s Wheelchair Symbol Timeline in Lady Chatterley’s Lover
The timeline below shows where the symbol Clifford’s Wheelchair appears in Lady Chatterley’s Lover. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1
...Clifford is proud of the expansive, “melancholy” park he has inherited. Clifford has a mechanized wheelchair that allows him to move around his property, and he dresses expensively and with taste....
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Chapter 5
...trees, which have been around since Robin Hood’s time. With Connie guiding, Clifford rolls his wheelchair up a hill, coming to a clearing; this is one of the areas that Sir...
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Mellors begins pushing Clifford, in his wheelchair, back towards the house, and Connie runs ahead to open the gate. Though Clifford does...
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Chapter 8
...too, wants to go out in the woods, and so Connie helps him move his wheelchair out of the house. Though the air is fresh today, Connie cannot help feeling that...
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Chapter 13
On Sunday, Clifford wants to go for a walk, though being in his wheelchair in the middle of springtime always frustrates him. As they walk, Connie wonders aloud if...
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...Connie refuses to argue any longer, so they continue in silence. Connie notices that Clifford’s wheelchair is squashing flowers as it wheels across the forest. Privately, she wishes that the natural...
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...the cottage. Connie assures him that he does not. Clifford honks the horn on his wheelchair, summoning Connie—but before she leaves, Mellors touches her breast, just out of Clifford’s eyesight.
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...killing. Then they turn around, back down the hill towards Wragby. But this time, Clifford’s wheelchair starts and stops, then grinds to a halt.
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...to be pushed!” Connie suggests that Clifford should call for Mellors to help fix the wheelchair; Clifford again refuses, instead fiddling hopelessly with the motor. A bird sings a birdsong until...
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Mellors lies on his back under the wheelchair, trying to fix the motor, and Connie notes how pathetic all men seem to look...
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...and, with a tone of cold superiority, he asks Mellors to push him, in the wheelchair, back to Wragby. Mellors does so, though Connie sees what an extreme physical toll this...
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As Connie and Mellors work, Connie looks over at Mellors’s hand on the wheelchair. Though this hand has touched her many times, Connie has never seen it in the...
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Chapter 14
...to the cottage, Connie worries again that Mellors hurt himself when he was pushing Clifford’s wheelchair. Connie is angry with Clifford, but Mellors only feels that Clifford lacks “balls”—meaning, as Mellors...
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Chapter 19
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,...
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