Adam Johnson at Bradford Crown Court / Christopher Gable as
Will Brangwen in The Rainbow (dir. Ken Russell, 1989)
Will Brangwen in The Rainbow (dir. Ken Russell, 1989)
For whilst his actions may have raised a few eyebrows in the not-too-distant past, I very much doubt he would have been prosecuted, let alone found guilty of a serious crime and portrayed by the media as some kind of monster of depravity.
Obviously, as the law stands, the girl is a minor and cannot give consent to sexual activity. Johnson knew this. But does sending her inappropriate texts, kissing her in the back of his car and putting his hand down her pants, really deserve to be punished with a minimum of five years jail time? Johnson was undoubtedly devious, arrogant, and stupid. But he didn't violently assault the young woman; her claim that he forced her to perform fellatio on him was rejected by the jury.
Interestingly, the case makes one think back to an incident in The Rainbow involving Will Brangwen, also aged 28 at the time, and a young girl he meets at a variety theatre on a Saturday night out in Nottingham away from his wife, Anna, from whom he feels increasingly estranged. Lawrence writes:
"In the Empire one evening he sat next to two girls. He was aware of the one beside him. She was rather small, common, with a fresh complexion and an upper lip that lifted from her teeth, so that, when she was not conscious, her mouth was slightly open and her lips pressed outwards in a kind of blind appeal. ...
A gleam lit up in him: should he begin with her? Should he begin with her to live the other, the unadmitted life of his desire? Why not? He had always been so good. Save for his wife, he was a virgin. And why, when all women were different? Why, when he would only live once? He wanted the other life. His own life was barren, not enough. He wanted the other.
Her open mouth, showing the small, irregular, white teeth, appealed to him. It was open and ready. It was so vulnerable. Why should he not go in and enjoy what was there? The slim arm that went down so still and motionless to the lap, it was pretty. She would be small, he would be able almost to hold her in his two hands. She would be small, almost like a child, and pretty. Her childishness whetted him keenly. She would he helpless between his hands."
Clearly, from this pervy-pornographic description, the nameless girl is young - perhaps she too might only be fifteen, who knows?
Brangwen strikes up conversation, making her blush even as she flashes a smile at him with her eyes. Her nervousness and vulnerability "pricked him with a pleasant sensation ... she was so young and palpitating". He is determined to press home his advantage and exert his power as an older man. After the show, Brangwen convinces the girl to abandon her friend and come with him for a coffee. Lawrence writes:
"The friend was gone into the darkness. He turned with his girl to the tea-shop. They talked all the time. He made his sentences in sheer, almost muscular pleasure of exercising himself with her. He was looking at her all the time, perceiving her, appreciating her, finding her out, gratifying himself with her. He could see distinct attractions in her; her eyebrows, with their particular curve, gave him keen aesthetic pleasure. Later on he would see her bright, pellucid eyes, like shallow water, and know those. And there remained the open, exposed mouth, red and vulnerable. That he reserved as yet. And all the while his eyes were on the girl, estimating and handling with pleasure her young softness. About the girl herself, who or what she was, he cared nothing, he was quite unaware that she was anybody. She was just the sensual object of his attention."
Again, this description makes more than a little uncomfortable; Lawrence stresses the calculating and coercive aspects of seduction. Brangwen sounds predatory. It is not inconceivable that he might attempt to rape the girl if he doesn't get his way with a combination of small-talk and sweet-talk:
"He was alert in every sense and fibre, and yet quite sure and steady, and lit up, as if transfused. He had a free sensation of walking in his own darkness, not in anybody else’s world at all. He was purely a world to himself, he had nothing to do with any general consciousness. Just his own senses were supreme. All the rest was external, insignificant, leaving him alone with this girl whom he wanted to absorb, whose properties he wanted to absorb into his own senses. He did not care about her, except that he wanted to overcome her resistance, to have her in his power, fully and exhaustively to enjoy her."
Brangwen puts his arm around the girl and pulls her close. He leads her along darkened streets and into the park, where he begins to grope her. She doesn't consent to this, but neither does she protest. Rather, she stays silent and inscrutable; obediently doing what he asks of her. Brangwen is happy with her silence and passivity. He doesn't want to know her personally; "he only wanted to discover her. And through her clothing, what absolute beauty he touched ... his hands ... so subtly, so seekingly, so finely and desirously searching her out".
The girl acquiesces and seems also to be enjoying the experience: "In utter sensual delight she clenched her knees, her thighs, her loins together." She accepts his kisses and her mouth becomes bold and assured, rather than helpless and unguarded. But as Brangwen becomes ever more forceful, with a "sudden horrible movement she ruptured the state that contained them both", pushing him away and telling him to stop with a frightened cry. Lawrence eventually brings this long scene to a climax:
"She came back to him, but trembling, reservedly this time.
Her cry had given him gratification. But he knew he had been too sudden for her. He was now careful. For a while he merely sheltered her. ... He wanted to persist, to begin again, to lead up to the point where he had let himself go on her, and then manage more carefully, successfully. ...
He sheltered her, and soothed her, and caressed her, and kissed her, and again began to come nearer, nearer. He gathered himself together. Even if he did not take her, he would make her relax, he would fuse away her resistance. So softly, softly, with infinite caressiveness he kissed her, and the whole of his being seemed to fondle her. Till, at the verge, swooning at the breaking point, there came from her a beaten, inarticulate, moaning cry:
'Don’t - oh, don’t!'
His veins fused with extreme voluptuousness. For a moment he almost lost control of himself, and continued automatically. But there was a moment of inaction, of cold suspension. He was not going to take her. He drew her to him and soothed her, and caressed her. But the pure zest had gone. She struggled to herself and realised he was not going to take her. And then, at the very last moment, when his fondling had come near again, his hot living desire despising her, against his cold sensual desire, she broke violently away from him.
'Don’t,' she cried, harsh now with hatred, and she flung her hand across and hit him violently."
Brangwen reacts to this with suave irony and gives her a cruel smile. The girl had escaped, says Lawrence - adding with a rapist's logic: "But she hated him for her escape more than for her danger."
Afterwards, Will Brangwen "caught a train and went home", back to his wife and children, just as if nothing had happened. Indifferent and happy to lie. Just like Adam Johnson.
See: D. H. Lawrence, The Rainbow, ed. Mark Kinkead-Weekes, (Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 210-17.
See also Howard J. Booth's essay "'At Last to Newness': D. H. Lawrence's The Rainbow and the Dream of a Better World", in the Journal of D. H. Lawrence Studies, Vol. 4, Number 1 (2015), pp. 19-44. Booth's suggestion in a footnote that Will Brangwen has a sexual fascination with childhood directly inspired this post.
A gleam lit up in him: should he begin with her? Should he begin with her to live the other, the unadmitted life of his desire? Why not? He had always been so good. Save for his wife, he was a virgin. And why, when all women were different? Why, when he would only live once? He wanted the other life. His own life was barren, not enough. He wanted the other.
Her open mouth, showing the small, irregular, white teeth, appealed to him. It was open and ready. It was so vulnerable. Why should he not go in and enjoy what was there? The slim arm that went down so still and motionless to the lap, it was pretty. She would be small, he would be able almost to hold her in his two hands. She would be small, almost like a child, and pretty. Her childishness whetted him keenly. She would he helpless between his hands."
Clearly, from this pervy-pornographic description, the nameless girl is young - perhaps she too might only be fifteen, who knows?
Brangwen strikes up conversation, making her blush even as she flashes a smile at him with her eyes. Her nervousness and vulnerability "pricked him with a pleasant sensation ... she was so young and palpitating". He is determined to press home his advantage and exert his power as an older man. After the show, Brangwen convinces the girl to abandon her friend and come with him for a coffee. Lawrence writes:
"The friend was gone into the darkness. He turned with his girl to the tea-shop. They talked all the time. He made his sentences in sheer, almost muscular pleasure of exercising himself with her. He was looking at her all the time, perceiving her, appreciating her, finding her out, gratifying himself with her. He could see distinct attractions in her; her eyebrows, with their particular curve, gave him keen aesthetic pleasure. Later on he would see her bright, pellucid eyes, like shallow water, and know those. And there remained the open, exposed mouth, red and vulnerable. That he reserved as yet. And all the while his eyes were on the girl, estimating and handling with pleasure her young softness. About the girl herself, who or what she was, he cared nothing, he was quite unaware that she was anybody. She was just the sensual object of his attention."
Again, this description makes more than a little uncomfortable; Lawrence stresses the calculating and coercive aspects of seduction. Brangwen sounds predatory. It is not inconceivable that he might attempt to rape the girl if he doesn't get his way with a combination of small-talk and sweet-talk:
"He was alert in every sense and fibre, and yet quite sure and steady, and lit up, as if transfused. He had a free sensation of walking in his own darkness, not in anybody else’s world at all. He was purely a world to himself, he had nothing to do with any general consciousness. Just his own senses were supreme. All the rest was external, insignificant, leaving him alone with this girl whom he wanted to absorb, whose properties he wanted to absorb into his own senses. He did not care about her, except that he wanted to overcome her resistance, to have her in his power, fully and exhaustively to enjoy her."
Brangwen puts his arm around the girl and pulls her close. He leads her along darkened streets and into the park, where he begins to grope her. She doesn't consent to this, but neither does she protest. Rather, she stays silent and inscrutable; obediently doing what he asks of her. Brangwen is happy with her silence and passivity. He doesn't want to know her personally; "he only wanted to discover her. And through her clothing, what absolute beauty he touched ... his hands ... so subtly, so seekingly, so finely and desirously searching her out".
The girl acquiesces and seems also to be enjoying the experience: "In utter sensual delight she clenched her knees, her thighs, her loins together." She accepts his kisses and her mouth becomes bold and assured, rather than helpless and unguarded. But as Brangwen becomes ever more forceful, with a "sudden horrible movement she ruptured the state that contained them both", pushing him away and telling him to stop with a frightened cry. Lawrence eventually brings this long scene to a climax:
"She came back to him, but trembling, reservedly this time.
Her cry had given him gratification. But he knew he had been too sudden for her. He was now careful. For a while he merely sheltered her. ... He wanted to persist, to begin again, to lead up to the point where he had let himself go on her, and then manage more carefully, successfully. ...
He sheltered her, and soothed her, and caressed her, and kissed her, and again began to come nearer, nearer. He gathered himself together. Even if he did not take her, he would make her relax, he would fuse away her resistance. So softly, softly, with infinite caressiveness he kissed her, and the whole of his being seemed to fondle her. Till, at the verge, swooning at the breaking point, there came from her a beaten, inarticulate, moaning cry:
'Don’t - oh, don’t!'
His veins fused with extreme voluptuousness. For a moment he almost lost control of himself, and continued automatically. But there was a moment of inaction, of cold suspension. He was not going to take her. He drew her to him and soothed her, and caressed her. But the pure zest had gone. She struggled to herself and realised he was not going to take her. And then, at the very last moment, when his fondling had come near again, his hot living desire despising her, against his cold sensual desire, she broke violently away from him.
'Don’t,' she cried, harsh now with hatred, and she flung her hand across and hit him violently."
Brangwen reacts to this with suave irony and gives her a cruel smile. The girl had escaped, says Lawrence - adding with a rapist's logic: "But she hated him for her escape more than for her danger."
Afterwards, Will Brangwen "caught a train and went home", back to his wife and children, just as if nothing had happened. Indifferent and happy to lie. Just like Adam Johnson.
See: D. H. Lawrence, The Rainbow, ed. Mark Kinkead-Weekes, (Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 210-17.
See also Howard J. Booth's essay "'At Last to Newness': D. H. Lawrence's The Rainbow and the Dream of a Better World", in the Journal of D. H. Lawrence Studies, Vol. 4, Number 1 (2015), pp. 19-44. Booth's suggestion in a footnote that Will Brangwen has a sexual fascination with childhood directly inspired this post.
