Reconciling Murry and Millett
"Millett's argument is a refocusing of Murry's lament that the human relationship has been perverted by Lawrence to involve nothing more than sex." |
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In actuality, Murry and Millett's views are not entirely antithetical, because ultimately both are not convinced by Lawrence's vehement belief in the sexual mystery. Murry feels that Lawrence excludes the possibility of other forms of organic "touches" in helping us "reach [a better] future" (Murry 283), while Millett feels that Lawrence excludes women from the liberalisation he advocates. In either case, Lawrence has fallen short of the mark of being a true revolutionary-either he did not have the "courage of his tenderness" (Murry 282) to move beyond the sexual touch, or he overlooked the need for gender equality, beyond equality of the classes.
Both Murry and Millett acknowledge the lack of tenderness and an underlying hostility in the human relationships that Lawrence portrays. Lawrence skirts the issue of love, and to Connie's questions Mellors only replies: "I love thee that I can go into thee" (Lawrence 176), an acknowledgement of a physical love rather than emotional one. Also, the tension between Mellors and Connie (Lawrence 168-169) as a result of their class differences is not so much worked out between them as buried under the passion of sex. Murry questions why the appreciation of tenderness in human relationships, as the book is supposed to foster, is always "mixed up with a lot of rage" (282). Millett further pinpoints this rage as stemming not only from "disgust with the proletariat" and "dissatisfaction with […] the ruling class" (244), but also a fear and hatred of female autonomy and independence (241).
Ultimately, both Murry and Millett feel that the novel does no justice to its supposed goals, and the "false and perverted form" of society Murry predicts will occur (283) is reiterated in Millett's reading of the novel as narcissistic and misogynistic. Millett's argument is a refocusing of Murry's lament that the human relationship has been perverted by Lawrence to involve nothing more than sex. She pinpoints this perversion fundamentally as a misogynistic one. Thus Millett's ideas in the 1970's can actually be thought of as a continuation of Murry's perceptions in the 1920's.
Murry and Millett are aware of the need for some way to eliminate barriers and distinctions, whether between class or gender. Their reading of the novel allows them to speculate on the shortcomings of society-for Murry, the lack of "deep 'passional' awareness" (284), and for Millett, the lack of gender equality. This then, is how we should view Lady Chatterley's Lover today, as a novel that encourages us to think about relationship barriers, to see the fundamental need for humans to connect in some way, whatever way that may be. It is to this end that our society should continue to strive, for some way to "bridge across the chasm" (Millett 242), with our without "the phallus." Murry then, is right when he says "the seed [Lawrence] lets fall will grow," and perhaps that seed might culminate in solutions for our society, "thirty, or sixty, or a hundredfold" (Murry 284).
Works Cited
Lawrence, D. H. Lady Chatterley's Lover. London: Penguin, 1994 (1928).
Millett, Kate. Sexual Politics. London: Virago, 1997.
Murry, J. M. Review of Lady Chatterley's Lover. Adelphi ii (June 1929): 367-70. D. H. Lawrence: The Critical Heritage. Ed. R. P. Draper. London: Routledge, 1970. 281-284.
About the writer: Christelle Chua En Lin is a Life Sciences major who joined the USP in 2003. She wrote this paper for Andrew Leng's Questioning Evolution and Progress.
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