Symbolic Images In Odour Of Chrysanthemums Essay

, Research Paper

D.H. Lawrence?s used many symbolic images in ?Odour of Chrysanthemums?. He incorporated these images in several clever ways and gave us insight into his beliefs and the beliefs of the characters in his story.

D.H. Lawrence begins his use of symbolism almost immediately with his attempts to portray the natural world verses the mechanical world and his obvious opinions of each in the first paragraph. He describes the ?clanking? and ?stumbling? locomotive as it rounded the corner taking the time to point out that a colt which was startled by the engine still out-distanced it as it came down the tracks. He goes on to write that a woman who was walking up the railway line was drawn back into a hedge as ?the trucks heavily past with slow inevitable movement, as she stood insignificantly trapped between the jolting black wagons and the hedge?. The image of a woman caught between the hedge and the locomotive clearly symbolizes Nature verses Machine and Lawrence?s blatant use of dissonant words in his description of the mechanical world allows me to believe that he favored a world of nature instead of the industrial world that has come to be.

Lawrence also added symbolism of Jesus and the words spoken by him before death, ?It is finished?. ?At last it was finished. He was a man of handsome body, and his face showed no traces of drink. He was blond, full-fleshed, with fine limbs. But he was dead.? ?It was finished then: it had to become hopeless between them long before he died.? ?At last it was finished. They covered him with a sheet and left him lying, with his face bound.? The play on words symbolize most obviously the death of Walter but as well the new beginning that Elizabeth is at and the new way of looking at things and more importantly, life.