Ursula and Gudrun Brangwen are sisters living in The Midlands in England in the 1910s. Ursula is a teacher, Gudrun an artist. They meet two men who live nearby, school inspector Rupert Birkin and coal-mine heir Gerald Crich, and the four become friends. Ursula and Birkin become involved, and Gudrun and Gerald eventually begin a love affair. All four are deeply concerned with questions of society, politics, and the relationship between men and women. At a party at Gerald's estate, Gerald's sister Diana drowns. Gudrun becomes ...
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Ursula and Gudrun Brangwen are sisters living in The Midlands in England in the 1910s. Ursula is a teacher, Gudrun an artist. They meet two men who live nearby, school inspector Rupert Birkin and coal-mine heir Gerald Crich, and the four become friends. Ursula and Birkin become involved, and Gudrun and Gerald eventually begin a love affair. All four are deeply concerned with questions of society, politics, and the relationship between men and women. At a party at Gerald's estate, Gerald's sister Diana drowns. Gudrun becomes the teacher and mentor of Gerald's youngest sister. Soon Gerald's coal-mine-owning father dies as well, after a long illness. After the funeral, Gerald goes to Gudrun's house and spends the night with her while her parents sleep in another room. Birkin asks Ursula to marry him, and she agrees. Gerald and Gudrun's relationship, however, becomes stormy. The two couples holiday in the Alps. Gudrun begins an intense friendship with Loerke, a physically puny but emotionally commanding artist from Dresden. Gerald, enraged by Loerke and most of all by Gudrun's verbal abuse and rejection of his manhood, and driven by his own internal violence, tries to strangle Gudrun. Before he has killed her, however, he realises that this is not what he wants, and he leaves Gudrun and Loerke, and climbs the mountain, eventually slips into a snowy valley where he falls asleep, and freezes to death. The impact of Gerald's death upon Birkin is profound. The novel ends a few weeks after Gerald's death with Birkin trying to explain to Ursula that he needs Gerald as he needs her; her for the perfect relationship with a woman, and Gerald for the perfect relationship with a man.
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Asked to name the ten greatest novels of the 20th Century very few well read people would leave this explosive, sensitive novel off the list. Lawrence had so many artistic talents - poet, essayist, travel writer, painter. But above all his best novels display all of these talents; and none more so than "Women in Love."
Many may disagree with his convictions that drive his characters in this powerfully unfolding tale, but somehow faulting what Lawrence believes, or for that matter, what his creations do to themselves and others, seems especially beside the point, as the poetic passion simply drowns any cool headed intellectual attempt to reduce the raw recreation of experience with such precision.
This is not suggest that Lawrence lacked the deep intelligence to delve into what it means to be human and expose the frailty of his passionate conduct. He senses with a sure instinct that it is this very passion that makes us all so vulnerable. Yet, he nevertheless shows us in scene after unfolding scene that being false to our true selves leads to even greater misery: the reductive misery of unfulfillment..
