Marina Hands as Connie in Lady Chatterley
(dir. Pascale Ferran, 2006)
One of the saddest moments in Lady Chatterley's Lover is when Connie stands naked before a full-length bedroom mirror and gazes upon her body, horrified to discover that it lacks any mystery or va-va-voom; that there's nothing to wonder at or yearn to touch, just insignificant substance.
Understandably, this absence of any gleam or sparkle in the flesh makes her feel immensely depressed and hopelessly old, despite the fact she's only twenty-seven. Happily, however, thanks to her illicit relationship with a man who persuades her that she possesses the nicest woman's arse as is, Connie discovers the confidence to one day throw off her clothes and dance naked in the rain:
"She ... ran out with a wild little laugh, holding up her breasts to the heavy rain and spreading her arms ... with the eurhythmic dance movements she had learned so long ago in Dresden. It was a strange pallid figure lifting and falling, bending so the rain beat and glistened on the full haunches, swaying up again and coming belly-forward through the rain, then stooping again so that only the full loins and buttocks were offered in a kind of homage towards him, repeating a wild obeisance."
Despite the fact that Connie is clearly twerking for her lover, ultimately, she's surely dancing for her own pleasure; full of the sensual narcissism which, according to Zarathustra, issues from the exalted body rejoicing shamelessly (and selfishly) in its greater vitality and virtue and around which the whole world becomes mirror.
Of course, we've encountered this feeling of voluptuousness, power, and female pride in Lawrence's fiction before - in The Rainbow - when a heavily pregnant Anna Brangwen dances naked in her bedroom, offering her body to an unseen deity in rapturous triumph.
I'll discuss Anna's case in part two of this post ... [click here].
See:
D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover, ed. Michael Squires, (Cambridge University Press, 1983), ch. 15.
D. H. Lawrence, The Rainbow, ed. Mark Kinkead-Weekes, (Cambridge University Press, 1989), ch. 6.
Nietzsche, 'On the Three Evil Things', Thus Spoke Zarathustra, trans. R. J. Hollingdale, (Penguin Books, 1969).
I'll discuss Anna's case in part two of this post ... [click here].
See:
D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover, ed. Michael Squires, (Cambridge University Press, 1983), ch. 15.
D. H. Lawrence, The Rainbow, ed. Mark Kinkead-Weekes, (Cambridge University Press, 1989), ch. 6.
Nietzsche, 'On the Three Evil Things', Thus Spoke Zarathustra, trans. R. J. Hollingdale, (Penguin Books, 1969).
