The Rainbow Literary Elements

Novel

The book takes place between the 1840s and 1905 and is set predominantly in the East Midlands region of England.

The novel employs a third-person point of view and details the thoughts and feelings of a wide range of characters.

Joyous; romantic; sentimental; reverent; ardent; cruel; bitter; despairing

The novel has one protagonist for each generation of the generation of the Brangwen family. It begins by focusing on Tom, before shifting to Will and finally to Ursula.

As an intergenerational novel, The Rainbow lacks a singular major conflict. Instead, there are a number of conflicts that arise between characters. For example, Tom and Lydia fight viciously with one another, just as their daughter, Anna, fights with her husband, Will. Subsequently, Anna and Will's daughter, Ursula fights to assert her independence from her parents and against the prejudice she faces as a woman in society. In a military context, Anton fights in the Boer War.

Ultimately, the Rainbow is a sprawling novel that cannot be reduced to a sole conflict.

Each generation in the novel comes with its own climax. First is Tom's death by drowning. Then, Will has his transcendent experience at the cathedral. Finally, Ursula and Anton make passionate love under the moonlight, which signals the end of their relationship.

Early in their courtship, Ursula and Anton are talking about his role as soldier when he says, "I would fight for the nation" (289). Shortly thereafter, he is sent to fight in the Boer War.

The title of the novel's chapters also serve as type of foreshadowing. For example, it is clear that a flood will take place in "The Marsh and the Flood" just as Ursula will likely fall in love in the chapter "First Love."

It is somewhat difficult to locate understatement in Lawrence's writing as he is known much more for his descriptive and verbose style. For example, when Winifred notices that Ursula has drifted away from her, it feels "like the end of her life" (319). Or, when Anna and Will are fighting, she feels as though "she could kill him, cast him out" (156).

One notable exception is found at the beginning of the chapter "Childhood of Anna Lensky." Although his wife has just given birth to a son, Lawrence writes that "Tom Brangwen never loved his own son as he loved his step-child Anna" (78). What should be a joyous moment – the birth of a child – is deflated by this statement.

The novel is filled with religious allusions. For example, Marsh Farms is depicted as a sort of Garden of Eden, and Anna and Will are portrayed at times as figures like Adam and Eve. Indeed, when they are walking in the cathedral and Anna begins to mock the carvings, Will hears "the voice of the serpent in his Eden" (189). Likewise, the flood which kills Tom resembles the biblical flood which wiped out all life on earth except for what Noah had saved in his ark.

The novel is filled with stunning imagery of the natural world. For example, at the conclusion of the novel, Lawrence describes how the titular rainbow "bended and strengthened itself till it arched indomitable, making great architecture of light and colour and the space of heaven" (458). Earlier, when Ursula and Anton stand at the shore, Lawrence writes that "that moon was incandescent as a round door, out of which came the high blast of moonlight, over the sea-ward half of the world, a dazzling, terrifying glare of white light" (443).

Lawrence's vivid imagery is a large part of what makes the book memorable.

The paradox at the centre of the novel is about human development. While the Industrial Revolution brought about great advances in agriculture and general living standards, Lawrence also depicts the environmental devastation that results from such developments. The paradox, then, is that progress and destruction occur at once.

The three generations of the Brangwen family all parallel one another. Lydia and Tom fight, as do Will and Anna, and later, Ursula and Anton. Tom favours his eldest daughter, Anna, just as Will favours Ursula. Lydia is distant from her children, just as Anna is distant from hers. In this way, Lawrence is suggesting that we as people result from traits learned or inherited from those who came before us.

When Ursula visits Tom in the coal town which he manages, she grows contemptuous of what she calls "the machine" (325). The figure of "the machine" is frequently taken up as a metonymy for all sorts of technology and for industrial capitalism more broadly.

The Lincoln Cathedral which Anna and Will visit is personified in interesting ways. It is described as being "lifted watchful in the sky" and containing "the perfect womb" (186).