Love versus industry in Lady Chatterley's Lover?

Themes

The importance of the novel lies in the criticism of industrialisation and technological progress to which Lawrence opposes the search for the alternative values of individuality, primitivism and the total freedom of body and soul. Through the relationship between Constance and Mellors, Lawrence celebrates the sacredness and purity of sexual passion, which becomes a metaphor of freedom.

Love, sex and nature

Both Lady Chatterley and Mellors seek relations in which tenderness, physical passion and mutual respect all flow together. Mellors, like a Romantic hero, has chosen to live alone within nature to escape from the strict rules imposed by society; whereas Lady Chatterley, confused and hurt by the prudery and repressive principles of her world, seeks refuge in the wood and in sexual experience. The wood becomes the symbol of life and natural order as opposed to the emptiness and sterility of Wragby Hall; it is also the place of sexual initiation where Mellors and Constance become lovers and learn to understand themselves and each other better. Their story is the left unfinished by Lawrence.