I am not sure I would always
fight for my life.
Life might not be worth
fighting for.
I am not sure I would always
fight for my wife.
A wife isn't always worth
fighting for.
Nor my children, nor my
country, nor my fellow-men.
It all deprnds
whether I found them worth fighting for.
The only thing men
invariably fight for
Is their money. But I doubt if I'd fight for mine, anyhow
not to shed a lot of blood over it.
Yet one thing I do fight
for, tooth and nail, all the time.
And that is my bit of inward
peace, where I am at one
with myself.
And I must say, I am often
worsted.
To Women, As
Far As I'm Concerned
The feelings I don't have I
don't have.
The feelings I don't have, I
won't say I have.
The felings
you say you have, you don't have.
The feelings you would like
us both to have, we
neither of us have.
The feelings people ought to
have, they never have.
If people say they've got
feelings, you may be pretty
sure they haven't got them
So if you want either of us
to feel anything at all
you'd better abandon all
idea of feelings altogether.
Wild things in captivity
while they keep their own
wild purity
won't breed, they mope, they
die.
All men are in captivity,
active with captive
activity,
and the best won't breed,
though they don't know why.
The great cage of our
domesticity
kills sex in a man, the
simplicity
of desire is distorted and
twisted awry.
And so, with bitter
perversity,
gritting against the great
adversity,
they young ones copulate,
hate it, and want to cry.
Sex is a state of grace.
In a cage it can't take
place.
Break the cage then, start
in and try.
http://www.cswnet.com/~erin/dhlpoem.htm
The historical moment in which D.H. Lawrence developed his poetical
works is placed at the beginning of the XX Century. This menas that there are
several important events that must be taken into account when analyzing
Lawrence ‘s poetical works.
On the one hand, the most important event that marked the way of
writing, behaving, feeling, thinking and living is World War I. This can be
clearly seen in literature, because it represents a tremendous hit for the
sensitive minds of the writers, specially poets, who have their own particular
way to express their disappointment.
On the other hand, the subject to be analyzed in this paper is the
strong influence that the industrialized world of the beginnings of the century
in the human relationships and feelings. This aspect has a relevant influence in Lawrence’s poetry as well as in
his life. The modern world of the beginning of the century is characterized by
the lack of importance of feelings, in contrast with the life dedicated to
industry, to work, to make society go on. This slave way of life takes men to
ignore their own roots, their own feelings, their relationships and even their
own mind. Indeed, the industrial world
ruled by Economy leads writers to express their solitude, as well as Herman
Melville did with “Bartleby the Scrivener” (1853). It is a clear precedent to
what Lawrence will express in “what would you fight for?”.
In this poem we find a clear example of Lawrence’s poetry, regarding
this subject. He plays with words, he creates expectations for the reader by
repeating rhythms, structures, ends of words, ... he repeats sentences as an
obsessive mind, damaged by the lack of values and afective relationships in his
society. He makes rethorical statements to make the reader think, to balance
his values and get to the conclusion that the most important thing to fight for
is “his inward peace” because Lawrence has a “visión de un ser humano completo
y natural, opuesto a la artificialidad de la moderna sociedad industrial por su
deshumanización de la vida y del amor”. EPDLP.
The essence is in one’s self, deep inside, and we individuals try to
find it outside, in society, in physical elements, and we are wrong from the point
of view of Lawrence. In the poem he begins showing himself as a doubtful
person, he is not sure “what to fight for”., giving examples of things that
should be important for himself like his wife, or even his children, things
that do not fulfill his needs or his feelings. But, at the end he makes a
radical change by giving an image of security and stating what he wants to
fight for. This hesitating mind is important in Lawrence ‘s poetry because it
shows the unbalanced mind, consequence of the pressure of that industrial
society. This way he includes the internal peace of his soul as the most
important element in his life, since it is the only thing worth fighting.
Again we see how through marked rhymes Lawrence creates a rhythm, he wants the reader, the listener, to get
used to the important words which are placed at the end of each verse, to have
a marked position, and to call the reader’s mind and take it to where he wants. This way he plays
the the reader’s mind.
Bur, in fact, this is not the only way Lawrence has to criticise the
world that surrounds him. “Lawrence saw sex and intuition as a key to
undistorted perception of reality and a way to respond to the inhumanity of the
industrial cultures.” KIRJASTO.
This is expressed in the poem “Wild Things in Captivity” where he argues that essential elements for
humanity have their sense in captivity, in isolation. He shows his feelings against society using
some contradictions: domesticity and simplicity against pervesrity and
adversity, that symbolize the world ruled by money and deshumanisation. He even
states that “men are in captivity” in a cage that kills “sex in man”. He
reflects the sense that the world in which he is living is even capable of
killing one of the most important instincts in humanity, “Sex”. The world makes men forget about the
importance of Sex, stating that “it can’t take place in a cage”, never in
captivity. He had a particular view of Sex:”sexual freedom arose obscenity trials, which had a deep effect on
the relationship between literature and society”KIRJASTO. He saw the worls as a
weapon against society and the consequence
is the death of the mmost primitive feelings and instincts. This way
society kills men.
The third example to analize is “To Women As Far As I’m Concerned”,
where we find Lawrence playing again
with the reader. He repeats again and again the same sentences to say “the
feelings I don’t have I don’t have”. It looks like an obsessive mind again like
in “What would you fight for?”. And it is very important what he is saying, he
doesn’t have feelings. The idea of the poem is the sad thought that feelings
will not get us, we don’t feel nothing, our society has won the battle and
stolen our feelings. People become liers because “if people say they have feelings, you may be
pretty sure they haven’t got them”. It is surrealistic, it takes the reader to
the extreme in which people don’t have feelings because of that industrial
society named before. This is a hard critic to a world that forgets that the
most important for people is People themselves, their relations, their
feelings. The word have appears in all the verses as the most important
for the poem next to the word feelings, except for the last two verses,
min which Lawrence wants to conclude the poem with the verb “feel”, giving it
the importance given before to the word “have”.
To conclude this exposition, after a paused and relaxed reading of the
three poems by Lawrence, the reader
extracts the idea of how powerful and influent the world can be. It can change
the minds of people, it can even snatch their own feelings and their most
important relationships for no justified reason, only by changing our values
and making us think that industry and economy are the most important things in
our lives. Nobody said it is fair.