D H Lawrence

Lady Chatterley's Lover D H Lawrence

The story concerns a young married woman, the former Constance Reid Lady Chatterley, whose upper-class husband, Sir Clifford Chatterley, described as a handsome, well-built man, is paralysed from the waist down due to a Great War injury. In addition to Clifford's physical limitations, his emotional neglect of Constance forces distance between the couple. Her emotional frustration leads her into an affair with the gamekeeper, Oliver Mellors. The class difference between the couple highlights a major motif of the novel, which is the unfair dominance of intellectuals over the working class. The novel is about Constance's realization that she cannot live with the mind alone; she must also be alive physically. This realization stems from a heightened sexual experience that Constance has only felt with Mellors, suggesting that love can only happen with the element of the body, not just the mind.