Family dynamics
At the beginning of the story, Lawrence focuses on the Pervin's family dynamic: the three brothers Joe, Fred Henry, and Malcolm, and their sister Mabel. For Lawrence, the role of the Pervins' parents is pivotal to the existing family dynamic of the siblings, though both their mother and father have died prior to the beginning of the story. Lawrence demonstrates Mabel's connection to her late mother in her frequent visits to her mother's gravestone. Their father, though not the most loving figure in their lives, provided them with the means to live an easy life. Now that they are left without a business or fortune, the siblings feel a sense of obligation to one another, as demonstrated by the tense conference in the first scene.
Grief and depression
At first, Mabel does not want to accept death. Death is insidious and cruel, because it takes away her hopes and happiness. The loss of both of her parents has left her in a place of extreme uncertainty. With the loss of her mother, she feels truly alone as a woman in this rural town. The happiest moments in her life are when she's cleaning her mother's grave, maintaining the "world of death" (204) she inherited from her. And with the loss of her father—first when he marries after their mother's death, and then ultimately with his death, Mabel learned that men are unreliable and susceptible to passion that makes them shirk obligation. When Mabel walks into the lake, the reader understands that she has lost all hope. And yet, by the time we see her attempting suicide, we have completely switched over to Jack's perspective. Then, by the time Jack has saved her and she's regained consciousness, she suddenly feels like she has something, or someone, to live for. Lawrence seems to be suggesting that human contact and intimacy can in some cases turn people's lives and emotions in an entirely new direction.
Love and passion
For Lawrence, love is true and mendacious. It can be deceptive and cunning. It can be found after a few years of waiting, but sometimes it shows up unannounced. In Lawrence’s short story, love between Mabel and Jack Ferguson appears unexpectedly in their lives. It is a bright ray of sunshine that breaks through the overwhelmingly gloomy atmosphere. At first, Jack is stunned and does not recognize this love. However, soon he accepts it. He is frightened by the terrible thought that Mabel might not need him. And Jack's confession of his love to Mabel catapults her into a totally new and more excitable state of mind. We are left at the end of the story with the question of whether or not their love will endure, or if it is simply a short bout of passion.
Gender roles
Lawrence was controversial in his time for exploring the interior nature of prevailing gender roles; however, time has shown that he was no resounding champion of women. Even in this story, we can see him struggling between the notion that Mabel deserves better treatment by the men in her family, and the instinct to solve all of her problems by ultimately hitching to a man and giving in to feelings of passion and love. But the exploration of gender in this story goes beyond the conclusion—in fact, the theme is introduced early on with Lawrence's description of the Pervins' parents. Mabel's mother was a source of warth and stability, and even after she dies, Mabel takes comfort in scrubbing her headstone. The fact that this task of cleaning is relagated to Mabel (and that it would never even occur to her brothers) is telling. And though their father ultimately leaves them to live with his second wife, Mabel never blames him for it because he provided for them for so long. The story returns somewhat to conventional narrative in the end, when Mabel's initial financial woes are solved by what looks like a soon-to-be marriage with Dr. Ferguson; however, lurking in the background is the danger of this type of security, which comes solely from sudden passion generated from loneliness.
