Chapter The Theme of Transformation in Lady Chatterley's Lover of Lady Chatterley's Lover - Study Guide by D.H. Lawrence

The Theme of Transformation in Lady Chatterley's Lover

The theme of transformation is strong throughout the novel, for Sir Clifford also seeks to transform himself, under the influence of Mrs. Bolton, from a passive writer of stories which Connie deems to be 'a wonderful display of nothingness...' into a coal magnate like Gerald Crich in Sons and Lovers. He wants to conceal his pulpy inner self, and its vulnerability, in order to embrace the work of hiring an engineer, descending into a coalmine and exploiting technology, thus becoming mechanically absorbed where his wife and Mellors have become sexually absorbed. Mrs. Bolton aids Clifford's transformation by helping him to comprehend his political potential, but she herself undergoes a transformation in the act of satisfying Clifford's need. As his social inferior, she demands no reciprocity, merely abandoning her own inner self, which still clings to her dead husband, and embracing Clifford's goal ofreinvigorating the mines. Her transformation is thus neither sexual nor political, but social, for 'she was coming bit by bit into possession of all that the gentry knew, all that made them upper-class...' and she can say to herself at the novel's end 'My word, he'd never have got on like this with Lady Chatterley. She was not the one to put a man forward...'