3 Review(s)

Women in Love, the book Lawrence considered his best, was written during World War I, and while that conflict is never mentioned in the novel, a sense of background danger, of lurking catastrophe, continually informs its drama of two couples dynamically engaged in a struggle with themselves, with each other and with life’s intractable limitations. The novel contains some of the clearest statements of Lawrence’s beliefs. It contains much philosophical discussion and description of characters’ emotional states and unconscious drives, and many of the ideas are expressed through elaborate symbolism. The novel describes the relationships of two sisters, Ursula and Gudrun, who teach at a grammar school in the Midlands colliery town of Beldover. Both are bored of their limited horizon and searching for adventure and fulfilment. Ursula falls in love with Rupert Birkin (a thinly disguised portrait of Lawrence himself) and Gudrun is attracted to his friend, Gerald Crich, son of a local mine owner. The plot thickens as Birkin and Gerald experience both attraction and repulsion in their respective relationships with the two sisters ….