The Marsh
The novel begins with an extended description of the Brangwens Marsh Farm which is “in the meadows where the Erewash twisted sluggishly through alder trees” (9). The landscape is quaint and idyllic, with a hilltop church-tower rising in the distance. This picturesque imagery functions so as to contrast against the “dirty industrial town” in which the Brangwens live at the end of the novel, and to illustrate the landscape that was lost during the Industrial Revolution.
Tom’s Drowning
At almost the exact midpoint of the novel, Tom drowns when the banks of the canal running through Marsh Farm collapse during a heavy rain. The scene is described in vivid and upsetting detail. Lawrence describes how Tom “wrestled and fought to get himself free, in the unutterable struggle of suffocation, but he always fell again deeper” (229). When he drowns, his body is “washed along in the black, swirling darkness, passively” (229).
Thus Lawrence not only kills off his first protagonist, but spares no detail in the process. In so doing, he demonstrates that he is interested in depicting the entirety of the human experience, from birth through to death. He equally suggests that like real people, his characters are not immune from tragedy.
The School
Ursula has high expectations before she begins her job as a teacher. Yet upon arriving for her first day, these hopes are dashed by the mere sight of the school. Lawrence writes that “the whole place seemed to have a threatening expression” and that “the curious, unliving light in the room changed [Ursula’s] character” (346). Ursula begins to refer to it as a “prison of a school” (437). The imagery of the school is reminiscent of the work of Charles Dickens, and it serves to heighten the reader’s compassion for Ursula as she struggles in the awful conditions.
The Horses
Near the end of the novel, Ursula is walking in the rain when she becomes surrounded by a pack of wild horses. In beautifully descriptive language, Lawrence describes their “red nostrils flaming with long endurance” as they begin “brandishing themselves thunderously around her, enclosing her” (452-453). The experience is transcendent for Ursula, and symbolizes the freedom that awaits her now that marriage with Anton is no longer possible.
The Corn Field
One night during their courtship, Anna and Will go out to the fields of Marsh Farms to harvest corn. In some of the most expressive language in the novel, Lawrence describes how as “the moon grew brighter, clearer, the sun glistened” (115). The scene is charged with eroticism as Lawrence describes “the flaring moon laying bare [Anna’s] bosom again, making her drift and ebb like a wave” (114). In this way, Lawrence masterfully draws a connection between the moon, the corn, and the fertility present between two young lovers. It is easy to see why critic James Wood labeled this as one of the novel’s “astonishing and memorable scenes” (xix).
