Summary:
I - "How Tom Brangwen Married a Polish Lady"
The Rainbow begins with a broad description of the Brangwens, a family of farmers living near Ilkeston in the East Midland region of England. For generations, the Brangwens have lived on Marsh Farms, a fertile plot of land along the Erewash river. As Lawrence writes, the Brangwens “were fresh, bold-slow speaking people, revealing themselves plainly, but slowly” (9). They lived prosperously, but also with a sense of thrift and modesty.
The second section of the first chapter begins by detailing the rapid technological developments that occur around Marsh Farm in the 1840s amidst the Industrial Revolution. Coal mines are constructed in the Valley and a canal is dug across the Farm to connect them together. Shortly thereafter, a railway line is built in the region. This newly industrialized society is juxtaposed with the Bragnwen’s more quaint, traditional existence such that they become “strangers in their own place” (14).
At this point, the Brangwen family tree is outlined, beginning with Alfred Brangwen and his unnamed wife. Enjoying a successful marriage, Alfred and his wife raise six children—four sons and two daughters. The first chapter focuses most closely on Tom, the youngest child in the family. As a young man, Tom is sent to school in Derby at his mother’s behest. Lawrence makes it clear that Tom has no talent for formal education and writes plainly that “he was a fool” (17). Nonetheless, he is a sensitive person and responds with deep emotion to works of literature. After returning back home to Marsh Farms, Alfred dies and Tom begins to run the farm at the age of seventeen. The siblings fight amongst themselves, with Tom and Frank sharing a particular hatred for one another.
The novel quickly proceeds through Tom’s years as a young man. At eighteen, he sleeps with a prostitute and finds the experience largely underwhelming and upsetting. Skipping over to when Tom is twenty-three, his mother dies and he is left at the farm with Effy, with whom he fights with often (22). When he is twenty-four, Tom goes horseback riding with two friends. While stopping over at a hotel, Tom spots a young woman. The two begin talking and, feeling a sense of connection with the woman, Tom leaves his two friends behind and takes the woman for a ride on his horse. The woman reveals that she is married and that night at the hotel, Tom sees her and her husband dining together. Tom is captivated watching them together, and deduces that her husband must be a foreigner.
While a seemingly insignificant interaction, the experience with the young woman and her husband proves to be formative for Tom and prompts him to realize that there is much more to the world than his life on the farm. He returns back home and begins to develop a heavy drinking habit. He wants to marry but finds none of the women near the farm suitable.
Tom proceeds to drink heavily for the next three years. One day, when he is twenty-eight, he spots a young woman while walking his horse in the countryside. Immediately, he knows that she will become his wife. Back home, he inquires with Tilly who the woman might be, and Tilly reveals that she is a Polish widow named Mrs. Lensky who works as a caretaker for the vicar and has a young daughter named Anna.
One day, Mrs. Lensky comes to the Brangwen farm when she runs out of butter for the vicar. Tom lends her some and the two begin talking, though they have some difficulty given Mrs. Lensky’s limited understanding of English.
Before she leaves, Tom invites her to return to the farm with her daughter some time, and twice he shows them both around his property.
One night in March, Tom walks over to the vicarage where Mrs. Lensky lives while the wind blows dramatically. Through the window of the vicarage, he watches a tender moment between Mrs. Lensky and her daughter. After Mrs. Lensky has put Anna to bed, Tom knocks on the door. Abruptly, he proposes to her. She agrees, rescinds, and then agrees again. They share a passionate kiss and then Mrs. Lensky expresses concern that she is six years older than Tom, though he does not seem concerned. The chapter ends with Tom agreeing to return the following day to make arrangements with the vicar.
II - "They Live at the Marsh"
The second chapter begins with Mrs. Lensky's story. She was the daughter of a Polish landowner who accrued debts. It is revealed that her name is Lydia, that she trained to become a nurse, and that was married to a young doctor with whom she had two children. Both children died of diptheria and after immigrating to London and having another child, Anna, Paul dies too.
Lydia travels to Yorkshire with Anna to care for a dying vicar. Lydia is depressed and finds life to be without meaning. The vicar dies and Anna travels to Cossethay, a town invented by Lawrence, near to the rear-world Ilkeston. There “the bewilderment and helplessness continued” for Lydia and she finds it increasingly difficult to adjust to life in England (52). After spotting Tom while walking, she begins to desire him. Although they begin their courtship, she finds it difficult to connect to him. Tom begins to act moody and violent, “almost in hatred of her” (55). Lawrence stresses that “they were so foreign to each other” and that they struggle to connect.
After their wedding, Tom still feels that Lydia is “foreign and unknown to him” (57). He fears that she’ll leave and when she tells stories of her life before him, he cannot relate or make sense of them. Lydia becomes pregnant and they continue to fight with one another. At the same time, Tom grows close with Anna, “his great and chiefest source of solace” (63). Although Anna is a difficult and stubborn child, Tom is patient and attentive to her and she often joins him while she works in the fields. Lydia goes into labor with the assistance of a midwife while Tom watches Anna downstairs. He recalls back to the owls he would see and hear in his youth. Anna then begins to grow agitated and demands to see her mother. She grows inconsolable and cannot stop crying. To calm her, Tom wraps Anna in a shawl and carries her out to the barn in the pouring rain. Tom feeds the animals while Anna watches and becomes calm. She sits on his lap and finally falls asleep. Tom takes her back to the house and visits Lydia who is still sleeping though still in labor.
III - "Childhood of Anna Lensky"
Lydia gives birth to a son, also named Tom, though his father does not feel as connected to him as he does to Anna. His resentment and frustration with Lydia continues to grow, and he drinks to excess. Nonetheless, his relationship with Anna continues to flourish. They spend time working in the fields together, Tom teaches her to count, and they sing nursery rhymes together.
Tom starts taking Anna to the weekly market with him. At first she is overwhelmed by all the people and business but she grows to love the attention she receives from Tom’s friends. Although she is just a young girl, she joins her father in the bar and jokes with the adults.
Tom discovers that his brother, Alfred, is having an affair with “an educated woman, a lady, widows of a doctor” and he goes to visit her at her cottage in Derbyshire (85). There, he discovers that Alfred shares a refined cultural taste with his mistress, Mrs. Forbes. As with the young woman and her foreign husband that he met some years earlier, Tom again feels a sense of inadequacy and starts “despising himself for his own poor way of life” (86). After returning home from Mrs. Forbes’ cottage, Lydia confronts Tom and demands to know if he desires a mistress like his brother. Tom rejects the question and the two begin to fight. In the course of their fight, they both express that the other makes them feel unloved and unappreciated. This revelation proves to be a breakthrough in their relationship and they become intimate again (90).
Analysis:
Lawrence begins the novel with sweeping descriptions of the Brangwens and the land on which they live. In so doing, he introduces themes that will remain central to the remainder of the novel, including the effects of technological development, the influence and importance of family, and the experience of gender. From the outset, it is clear that gender will be a major point of consideration in the novel. The male Brangwens are portrayed as simple farmers, content with working their land, whereas the women “wanted another form of life than this . . . [and] stood to see the far-off world of cities and governments” (11). In this sentence, the trajectory of the novel is established. That is, the quest for a female character who will break free from expectations placed upon her to secure a life for herself.
Such a character, however, is still three generations in the future. Narrowing its scope, the novel first takes Tom as its protagonist. In Tom, it is clear that Lawrence wants to avoid unrealistic depictions in his characters. While Tom is attractive, he struggles at school and lacks self-confidence—he is not a heroic figure but rather a relatable, everyman character. His desires for love and belonging and his self-criticism are all too common.
Lawrence moves quickly at the beginning of the novel. Characters are born, marry, and die often with just a single sentence of notice. One of the interesting techniques Lawrence employs in the novel is his treatment of time. Some paragraphs cover entire years, while other episodes, like the courtship between Tom and Lydia, occupy significant portions of the novel. The effect mirrors the ways in which time itself feels elastic and it allows Lawrence to cover a span of decades without making the novel feel rushed or lacking.
The courtship between Tom and Lydia also introduces the essential theme of resurrection into the novel. While Tom had been wayward for several years, after meeting Lydia it is as though "a swift change had taken place on earth for him, as if a new creation were fulfilled, in which he had real existence" (32). As this sentence suggests, life and the world for Lawrence are always open to the possibility of renewal and rebirth. Thus for the remainder of their lives, the love between Tom and Lydia will continually wilt and blossom again.
Another important section of these first chapters is Lydia's story. In relating her tragic story, Lawrence encourages the reader to sympathize with her. If, at times, she can be distant with her children or husband, Lawrence suggests that this may be rooted in her past trauma and the difficulty she experiences adjusting to life in England. While the depiction of characters in the novel is not always flattering, Lawrence patiently unpacks the complexities of human thought and behaviour and reminds us of the virtues of remaining compassionate to one another.
The third chapter in this first part focuses on Anna, the representative of the second generation of the Brangwen family. A considerable amount of attention is placed on her relationship with her step-father, Tom. In part, their relationship is endearing. He teaches her how to count and she keeps him company while he works. At the same time, there is the troubling sense that Tom grows close to Anna because he has grown distant from Lydia. In Anna, he seeks the sort of love and companionship more appropriate from a wife than a child. This dynamic will set him up for considerable disappointment in just a short time.
