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In D. H. Lawrence s The Horse Dealers Daughter, the short story writer and novelist depicts the struggles of a women who tries to deal with the collapse of her family and the non existent relationship between her and her brothers. We see the main character, Mabel, wanting to be loved by someone but is unable to find it as the story takes place. As stated by Ford, Lawrence uses a transparent, omniscient narrator, a specific and natural local, clearly motivated characters, and complex, psychological conflicts For the story to be dramatized realistically. (Ford 240) In the beginning of the story we learn that the main character Mabel is subject to the constant ragging of her three brothers. The Horse Dealer s Daughter even sounds like the name of a fairy tale, and Mabel Pervin is a version of Cinderella.
She is oppressed by her three brutish brothers, the prescribed number out of fairy tales. She does the dirty work in the household, cleaning up while they sit around and call her the sulkiest bitch that ever trod. Mabel has no fairy godmother to transform her into a princess. Instead, she must find her own salvation; her new life must be earned. (Vickery 232). Mabel is forced by her brothers to find a new place to live as the brothers are leaving the estate after their family has lived their for so long. She tells her brothers that she doesn t know where she is going to go; only to be replied by her brothers that if she fails to make a decision she will be living in the streets.
She addresses this threat like all of the other ones and keeps a straight, unraveling face to all of her brother s taunts. This point can be emphasized by the ideas of Daleski. He says that, Lawrence, however, does not focus on the language of Mabel s responses or her inexpressiveness-though her silences when she refuses to answer her brothers questions are the first indication of her feeling of hopelessness. (Daleski 100) After, Mabel is done dealing with her brothers questions and remarks she goes down to the graveyard to visit her dead mom who she tries to emulate as she matures into a women. Her mother is the only person that she ever really looked up to and admired so she always goes to the graveyard to pay her respects. As Mabel visits her mother in the graveyard she catches the eye of Dr. Fergusson who was passing bye on his way to tend to patients in surgery.
Dr. Fergusson pays careful attention to Mabel as she moves from the graveyard into the pond. Having first been dominated by her brutish brothers and then demeaned by her father s poverty, she decides to die rather than endure the continuing disgrace of her social position Like the exile sought by the man who died, however, Mabel s attempted suicide seems ambiguously inspired. Her desire for death is perversely, a desire for life-in which fulfillment and glorification loom larger than mere escape. But whatever her conscious motives are there can be no doubt that she is at least partly impelled by unconscious needs, and that, like the man who died, she is wholly powerless to resist. (Microfilm 1978). Mabel s attempt to drown in the pond is snatched from her as the watchful eye of Dr.
Fergusson sees her descend into the pond. This leads Dr. Fergusson to valiantly jump into the pond after Mabel disregarding the fact that he can not swim as well as the putrid odor of the water. She is rescued by the young doctor, who revives her, and then removes her wet clothes and dries her, wrapping her naked in some blankets. When she comes round, she elicits from the doctor that it is he who has both saved and undressed her; and then follows and astonishing moment: Do you love me, then? she asks, and putting her arms round him, claims possession of him. (Preston 101).
Once rescued from her watery death by Dr. Fergusson, she comes to realize, through him, her elemental passions, and, clinging once more to life, humbly seeks her sexual salvation. (Microfilm 1978) Dr. Fergusson addresses this question with questioning his own self. He seems to keep on reassuring himself that he doesn t love her as the thought of it parades his head. He was amazed, bewildered, and afraid. He had never thought of loving her.
He had never wanted to love her. When he rescued her and restored her, he was a doctor, and she was a patient. He had no single personal thought of her. Nay, this introduction of the personal element was very distasteful to him, a violation of his professional honor He revolted from it, violently. And yet-and yet-he had not the power to break away. (Lawrence 160).
His failure to break away from the grip of Mabel leads us to believe that the answer to her question was not as absolute as he previously thought it would be. When the doctor finally answers Yes we have no doubt at all about his complete sincerity: His unwilling response to her challenge is something profound and positive; it was prefigured in the impression made on him when he saw her at her mother s grave. The portentous eyes were intent on death, and death plays a major part in this story of the triumph of life. (Leavis 202). Whole heartedly or not the two profess their love for each other as they lay holding one another in Mabel s house. At the end of the story when Fergusson must go back to the office, Mabel worries that the spell of their passionate encounter will be broken. But her fear that he can t want to love her is unfounded.
He can t help loving her-if love is the right word: No, I want you, I want you, was all he answered, blindly, with that terrible intonation which frightened her. (Votteler 233). The story ends with Mabel frightened and upset when Fergusson proclaims that he wants to marry her and that he wants to be with her. She doesn t seem as if Fergusson's proclamation is the reason for being distraught, yet it seems as if she is scared of the fact that she may lose the chance to be in love with someone; the one thing she has been chasing since the death of her mother. The Horse Dealer s Daughter has no irony, and yet it too is open-ended.
This story concludes with a moving declaration and commitment of love between Mabel Pervin and Jack Fergusson, her rescuer. The story seems to be a full-fledged embodiment of salvation through the dark mystery of sexuality. Yet there is nothing programmatic-or even fully resolved. The reader would like Mabel and Fergusson to be redeemed by their passion, but it is also unmistakable that something dangerous and destructive has been unleashed. Forces have been set in motion which are not controllable. (Votteler 233). These uncontrollable forces is what makes the characters of the story so gripping and memorable.
The fact that the passion they find is somewhat unexplainable can be one of the major reasons people take to this story for the simple fact that we have always been consumed with the unexplainable which drives the reader to seek an answer.
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Research essay sample on Horse Dealer Daughter Main Character
