Canadian Social Science Vol.4 No.

2 April 2008

Husband and Wife Relation in “Odour of

Chrysanthemums”
RELATION ENTRE MARI ET FEMME DANS ODEUR DU
CHRYSANTHÈME

Yan Zhen1

Abstract: This essay focuses on the husband and wife relations; the wife is in dominance in the
relation. The story is a rediscovery of the wife in her marriage, her husband, and herself. When man
cannot balance his natural and social consciousness, the gap and utter isolation appear. The essay
finds evidence from the description of the wife, the children, the husband, and of their talks. It’s
proved that both the wife and husband are the victims of this isolation.
Key words: relation, isolation, social consciousness, natural consciousness, gap

Résumé: Le présent article se concentre sur la relation conjugale, dans laquelle la femme est
dominante. L’histoire est une redécouverte de la femme dans son mariage, son mari et elle-même.
Quand l’homme ne peut pas balancer ses conscience naturelle et conscience sociale, le fossé et
l’isolation absolue apparaissent. L’article trouve la preuve dans la description de la femme, des
enfants, du mari et de leurs conversations. Il est prouvé que la femme et le mari sont tous les deux
victimes de cette isolation.
Mots-Clés: relation, isolation, conscience sociale, conscience naturelle, fossé

main development of the short story.3 In the early novels

1. INTRODUCTION of Lawrence, his heroines can be divided in to these four
types, Elizabeth is the kind of dominance,4 as Gertrude
Coppard in “ sons and lovers”, The refined daughter of a
"Odour of Chrysanthemums" is a short story by D. H. "good old burgher family," meets a rough-hewn miner at
Lawrence. It was written in the autumn of 1909 and, a Christmas dance and falls into a romance. But soon
after revision, was published in the English Review in after her marriage to Walter Morel, she realizes the
July 1911. Lawrence later included this tale in his difficulties of living off his meager salary in a rented
collection of short stories entitled The Prussian Officer house. The couple fights and drifts apart and Walter
and Other Stories, which Duckworth, his London retreats to the pub after work each day.5
publisher, brought out on 26th November 1914.2
Based on his parents’ marriage and his own love
affaires, Lawrence advocated in his works the principle
of saving the decaying civilization through a 2. HUSBAND AND WIFE RELATION
rearrangement of personal relationship, especially a
rearrangement of relationship between men and women.
Most of his works investigate what happened to its In "Odour of Chrysanthemums", the wife is more in the
hero’s relationship with women or men. He and his focus of attention. She also comes from a higher social
works pursued the balance of body and soul in marriage. class than her coal miner husband. From the text we
know that from natural consciousness, the wife have
Compared with his other novels, "Odour of loved her husband, and still treasure it in her memory.
Chrysanthemums" is only a fragment of life that
happened within several hours. And the change of the
heroin’s consciousness and psychology constitutes the 3
董俊峰，趙春華. 國內勞倫斯研究述評[J]. 外國文學研究，
1999（2）
4
高萬隆. 勞倫斯的回應：婦女問題與婦女解放—論勞倫斯
1 School of Foreign Languages, Huazhong Normal university. 早期小說中的女性形象[J]. 國外文學，1999（2）.
5
China. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odour_of_Chrysanthemums
2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odour_of_Chrysanthemums * Received 26 November 2007; accepted 17 March 2008

102
 Yan Zhen/Canadian Social Science Vol.4 No.2 2008 102-105
“Don’t do that—it does look nasty,” said cannot escape his shadow, and in being described as
his mother. He refrained, and she, suddenly shadows, these “men” are described in essence by the
pitiful, broke off a twig with three or four wan narrator as being part of nature, invisible in terms of
flowers and held them against her face. When their human identity, and significant only in terms of
mother and son reached the yard her hand their labor as miners.6
hesitated, and instead of laying the flower aside, Coal miners, husbands are like shadows coming
she pushed it in her apron-band.（27） between home and coal mine, far from nature, emotion,
No,” she said, “not to me. It was which women cherish. By the force of industrialization
chrysanthemums when I married him, and and reality, Elizabeth has to face the fact the deep gap in
chrysanthemums when you were born, and the the marriage. “There had been nothing between them”.
first time they ever brought him home drunk, (43) An opposition between nature and society creates
he’d got brown chrysanthemums in his the theme of D.H. Lawrence’s, “The Odour of
button-hole.”(32) Chrysanthemums”. This theme is evident in Elizabeth’s
recognition of the absolute differences between her
Chrysanthemums symbolize love and the natural world and the world of her now dead husband. Elizabeth
world. These pieces of softness shows her real character is confronted with the shocking reality that she only
and emotion which is too much hided by a man- knew the body of her now dead husband, but never
centered society, a industrial force, class consciousness,
gained knowledge of his true existence-his soul. “The
most importantly her own social consciousness. More
wife felt the utter isolation of the human soul”(42)
evidence can be found from the fact she mended his
clothes while waiting. However from most of the “One of the men had knocked off a vase of
descriptions in the text, Elizabeth is a woman of strong chrysanthemums. He stared awkwardly, and
personality, imperious, with definite black eyebrows, then they set down the stretcher. Elizabeth did
calm, set, strict, of high dignity, because she didn’t went not look at her husband.”
to the bar herself to look for her husband. She is a In this passage Elizabeth’s complete lack of
responsible mother and wife, but love diminished. From emotion with her husband, and intense sense of guilt at
the story we know her husband indulge himself in bar this lack of feeling is highlighted. After Walter’s death,
and drinks and the warm environment there, and he Elizabeth appears extremely calm. When she was
always complains of the cold and not having a warm washing Walter’s body, hiding the truth from her
fireplace when he came back. children, she just looked the naked body of her husband
Another point is that although her husband and suddenly found that she even didn’t give herself a
Walter didn’t show up until the end of the story, chance to know about him. 7
their son, john, is in some way a shadow of his While waiting for her husband to return home from
father. “She saw herself in his [her son’s] work or the bar rather, she regrets ever moving in with
silence and pertinacity; she saw the father in her him, “…what a fool I’ve been, what a fool! And this is
child’s indifference to all but himself”. (29) what I came here for, to this dirty hole, rats and all, for
From her critical and strict attitude towards her son, him to slink past his very door”. She feels threatened
we may infer her relations with her husband. She starts and upset that her husband is so selfish as to not even
to see traits in her son that she had not noticed before; come home to his family when she has given up so
moreover, the fact that she sees herself as quiet and much for him. Growing suspicion proves that Elizabeth
determined in her son’s personality makes her look like no longer trusts her husband, and she faces with the
a warm nurturing mother. In contrast, she sees a selfish reality of her diminishing marriage.
image in the child inherited from the father, Ralph Waldo Emerson once said “Is not
characterizing the father as a bad influence to the son. marriage an open question, when it is alleged,
Her thoughts foreshadow to the reader and to her that from the beginning of the world, that such as are
the marriage is having problems because she cannot in the institution wish to get out, and such as are
even find a moral trait in her husband let alone her son. out wish to get in?”.8
Her thoughts also demonstrate her feelings of anger
towards her husband because she thinks about the Emerson’s expressions are all too true for many
negative characteristics that her son possesses from the married people as well as those in serious relationships.
father rather than the positive. It seems that engaging in marriage is a step that many
take only to find out it was a mistake. Nothing is ever
Walter didn’t show up until he was moved in dead in
a stretcher, but from other characters, we can know
about him. From his son, as mentioned before, we get to 6
http://www.masterpapers.com/samples/Book_Reports.doc
know that he is a careless, not so sentimental man, who 7
doesn’t care much about his wife’s emotion. They have “Brainy Quote.” 2005. XploreInc. March 6, 2005
sex without love (43). Moreover, the miners are http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics_love.html.
8
described by the use of a simile, as, “…single, trailing, “Brainy Quote.” 2005. XploreInc. March 6, 2005
and in groups, like shadows diverging home.” Man http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics_love.html.

103
 Yan Zhen/Canadian Social Science Vol.4 No.2 2008 102-105
perfect in relationships as well as in life and in death.9 husband. No matter how they are represented in life, as
D.H. Lawrence similarly illustrates the theme of chrysanthemums or as fire, difficulties are evident in
relationships and their unsuccessfulness in life in his everyone’s lives.
short story “Odour of Chrysanthemums”.
He realistically demonstrates these themes
with “the pitiless self-discovery sometimes 3. CONCLUSION
brought about only through the death of another”.
10

When Elizabeth discovers the death of her husband, As Elizabeth alienated herself from her husband, which
she deals with the fact that she never knew about him; we may find evidence all through the story, she at the
the main theme in the story is that truth and the same time lost her real self. In the last several
relationships in life are often difficult and are paragraphs, when Walter was moved in,
sometimes not figured out until the ultimate tragedy, “At last it was finished. He was a man of
death. handsome body, and his face showed no traces of
Elizabeth Bates discovers that inside, she is a person drink. He was blonde, full-fleshed, with fine limbs.
with unique thoughts, passions and fears; her husband But he was dead.”
was just as much of an individual as she, but one whom When the story comes to this part, it gives the reader
she never really sought to know beneath the surface. a new impression of the husband, a completely natural,
Their marriage had been dead long before her husband human-being, quite, clean, full of life. But, critically, he
lost his life that night in the mine. In the end, even the was dead. It is just at this moment the wife found that
vase of chrysanthemums intended for aesthetic beauty she even hasn’t given herself a chance to know about
within Elizabeth’s home is clumsily knocked onto the and to love her husband as a real man, a natural self.
floor, leaving nothing tangible behind, but an “odour”.
He was so heavy and inert. A terrible dread
“The chrysanthemums symbolize a spot of gripped her all the while: that he could be so
beauty unrecognized by Elizabeth, just as she heavy and utterly inert, unresponsive, apart. The
never appreciated what she could have had with horror of the distance between them was almost
Walter until it was too late.” “She knew she had too much for her—it was so infinite a gap she
never seen him, he had never seen her. They had must look across.（44）
met in the dark…”
Firstly, it’s the husband’s personality, happy ,jolly
The reality had set in that she never had a connection lad, attracts the wife, however, after marriage, she
with this man whom she loved for so long. He was a begins to realize that this distance between two classes,
stranger to her even when it seemed they were so close. and the social consciousness takes the upper hand, the
Having kids together was the only thing they shared, yet wife was not only isolated from other people, but also
“the utter isolation of the human soul, the child within from her true self. Both the husband and wife are the
her was a weight apart from her…in her womb was ice victims of this unbalanced relationship. In the end of the
of fear…” She now has the hinder of his child in her. story, we know that Elizabeth was on her way to have a
Finding no love from her husband’s dead malicious baby, “the child within her was a weight apart from
body, how could Elizabeth find the strength to love her her”, how life will be? Is the baby bears the meaning of
unborn child? The fear inside of her reaches far beyond a new beginning of life for Elizabeth, or a rediscovery of
her child, “She was grateful to death, which restored the her relations with Walter means a complete end of the
truth…But from death, her ultimate master, she winced old one through death? Whatsoever, the death of her
with fear and shame”. It was as she was reborn. Now husband, the influence will be everlasting.
she has to move on by living rather than dwelling on
what had been or rather what had not been in life. At last it was finished. They covered him with a
Realizing that she had kids to provide for and a home to sheet and left him lying, with his face bound. And
maintain, Elizabeth found the strength to move on. she fastened the door of the little parlour, lest the
Through experience and struggle, truth is found, children should see what was lying there. Then,
whether it is painful or not, truth is found. Lawrence with peace sunk heavy on her heart, she went
successfully embodied symbolism along with imagery about making tidy the kitchen. She knew she
and other literary elements to portray the theme of death, submitted to life, which was her immediate master.
life, and relationships. Elizabeth discovered the truth in But from death, her ultimate master, she winced
her own personal relationship through the death of her with fear and shame.（45）
In the relationship, we may infer that whether her
9
“Brainy Quote.” 2005. XploreInc. March 6, 2005 husband is dead or not, Elizabeth is a looser in the
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics_love.html. relationship, she is a looser when facing life. When a
10
“Brainy Quote.” 2005. XploreInc. March 6, 2005 human-being is too much obsessed with social
consciousness, she is far away from happiness, from
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics_love.html. herself, from human nature. Moreover, from the

104
 Yan Zhen/Canadian Social Science Vol.4 No.2 2008 102-105
description of her son and daughter, we vaguely feel the tragedy will continue.
same characters they inherited from their parents. This

THE AUTHOR
Yan Zhen, postgraduate, School of Foreign Languages,Huazhong Normal university, Wuhan, Hubei, 430079, P.R.
China.

105