The Complexities of Love
Lawrence is a deeply romantic—even erotic—writer. Still, he does not shy away from portraying the more negative side of relationships. Just as his characters fall in love, so too can they fall into hatred or resentment of one another. Indeed, the word “hatred” recurs with notable frequency in The Rainbow.
Lawrence’s complex depiction of love can be found most obviously in the relationship between Anna and Will. While they begin their marriage in intense infatuation, their relationship soon becomes full of anger and resentment. They fight violently and Will is “always ready to burst out murderously against her” (158). Anna soon begins to speak of “the tragedy of her young married life” (163). Yet Will and Anna stay together and come to raise a large, mostly happy, family.
Through the depiction of relationships like that of Will and Anna, Lawrence pushes back against unrealistic depictions of perfect love. Instead, he demonstrates that love is complex and that moments of anger—or worse, hatred—are hardly uncommon in relationships. Lawrence’s characters crave love and desperately seek it out, even if that means risking the negative aspects of it.
The Difficulties of Faith
Lawrence dedicates much attention in The Rainbow to describing his character's relationships with religion. To varying degrees, they believe and participate in the Anglican church. Importantly, however, their beliefs are never static and always developing. It is not uncommon for his characters to fluctuate between devotion and faithlessness.
Lawrence pays particular attention to the spiritual development of Ursula. As a young girl, she loves attending church to the point that “Sunday was very precious to her” (254) At the same time, her religious views are unorthodox as she believes that “there was no actual Sin” (255). Later her religious convictions wane as she realizes that “one lived by action” and not by faith or worship (263). Then, just as suddenly, her faith returns to her and she feels the presence of Jesus with her in the countryside.
Similarly, Ursula’s father, Will, wrestles with his religious beliefs. This is particularly evident when he takes Anna to the Lincoln Cathedral. While he initially has a transcendent experience viewing the architecture, his wife, Anna, begins joking about some wood carvings in the church. Suddenly, Will’s belief in the divinity of the Cathedral is dashed and he feels “that his cathedrals would never again be the same to him as they had been” (190). The experience is painful for him, although he later regains his faith and begins tending to a nearby cathedral.
In these depictions of faith, Lawrence demonstrates that religious worship is a deeply personal, sometimes painful, and always changing practice. If his characters momentarily lose faith, it is because Lawrence suggests that doubt is essential to faith.
The Possibility of Renewal
Throughout The Rainbow, characters routinely have transcendent experiences after which they feel rejuvenated or reborn. Just as spring is sure to follow even the darkest of winters, Lawrence’s characters, regardless of how dire their circumstances, always have the chance to experience such a renewal. This is seen in the religious faith of characters like Ursula, which routinely wavers and then is strengthened again, and also in the love between characters such as Will and Anna, which dies before it is kindled again. Indeed, after a prolonged period without intimacy, Will and Anna rekindle their passion between them and the effect is so great that Will is described as a “new man” (220).
One can see a link in Lawrence’s depictions of renewals to the Christian belief in resurrection. Above all, he is suggesting that life does not merely begin with birth but rather consists of perpetual rebirths. The rainbow that Ursula sees at the end of the novel is a poignant reminder that even the most tempestuous weather can be followed by great beauty.
The Experiences of Gender
From the outset of the novel, it is clear that the experiences of the characters in The Rainbow are largely determined by their gender. The men tend to the farm while the women tend to the home and dream of “another form of life than this” (11). Whereas male characters such as Tom and Anton have the freedom to travel and choose their professions, female characters are expected to stay home, be courted by men, marry, and then raise a family.
Yet Lawrence introduces characters who seek to rebel against the gendered expectations placed upon them. Ursula, in particular, rejects the “enforced domestic life” of her mother and desires freedom and mobility (329). Against her parents' wishes, she begins working at a school. In so doing, she asserts herself in opposition to “the dry, tyrannical man-world” (381). Ursula also befriends Maggie Schofield, an advocate for women’s voting rights and a person for whom “the liberty of women meant something real and deep” (377). At the novel’s conclusion, Ursula has rejected Anton’s proposals and thus succeeds in her dream to be independent.
The Rainbow is a masterful account of the ways in which gender impacts one’s experiences of the world. With tenacious and admirable characters like Ursula and Maggie, Lawrence voices his disapproval with patriarchy and sexism and demonstrates his support for the empowerment of women.
The Bonds of Family
As a novel following a single clan, it is evident that the dynamics of family are a major theme in The Rainbow. Indeed, much of the novel is focused on the relationships between various family members. The forms of relation are unique between each character. For example, Lydia is “almost afraid” of her two sons but adores her granddaughter Ursula. These familial relationships can bring great joy, as they do between Tom and his adopted daughter Anna, but can be characterized by coldness and lack of connection, as with Anna and her daughter Ursula.
As with everything in the novel, these relationships are also subject to change. After Will catches the children playing in the parish office, he hits Ursula in the face with a cloth. The two were once very close but afterwards “the fire of mistrust and defiance burned in her, burned away her connection with him” (249).
For these reasons, The Rainbow is a remarkable depiction of the joys and pains of family life. Through his complex mapping of family relations, Lawrence suggests that while we may not choose our families, we are inextricably bound to them. Whether or not we choose to remain close to our families, Lawrence uses three generations of the Brangwens to demonstrate that we are invariably shaped by what our parents did—or did not—teach and model for us.
The Side Effects of Industrial Capitalism
The Rainbow is set during what is known as the Second Industrial Revolution, in which technological developments such as the steam engine drastically accelerated the manufacturing and transportation of goods. Just a few pages into the book, a canal is cut across the Brangwen’s farm to support the nearby coal mines followed by a railway line shortly thereafter. The developments in the area in which Brangwen's live is indicative of the broader changes occurring across the country at the same time.
The changes occurring amidst the Second Industrial Revolution prompt fear and revulsion for the characters in the novel. Ursula, in particular, is deeply connected to the natural world and takes considerable issue with the degradation of the landscape brought about by industrial capitalism. For example, when she visits her uncle Tom, who manages a coal mine, she is struck by the “demon-like colliery with her wheels twinkling in the heavens, the formless squalid mass of town lying aside” (324). She speaks derisively about “the machine” which stands in for the processes of industrialization more broadly (325).
Later, in a devastating scene, she stands beside Anton at the seaside and they both realize “what England would be in a few hours’ time—a blind and sordid, strenuous activity, all for nothing, fuming with dirty smoke and running trains and groping in the bowels of the Earth'' (431). It is clear that Lawrence shares this opinion and believed that the changes brought about by the Industrial Revolutions had robbed the world of beauty and mysticism and had left a homogenized, corrupted system in its place.
Colonial Logic
While it is perhaps less obvious than other themes in the novel, it is important to touch upon the colonial context present in The Rainbow. During the time in which the novel is set, Britain was continuing to expand its colonial reach across the world. In order to maintain control of its colonies, British troops were sent to fight in overseas wars. This was the case with the Boer War in South Africa to which Anton was sent.
To contemporary readers, the few discussions of race which take place in the novel will most likely appear problematic. For example, when Anton is due to be sent for a position as a colonial administrator in India, Ursula imagines him as “one of the governing class, superimposed upon an old civilization, lord and master of a clumsier civilization than his own” (411). She then reasons that “the country did need the civilisation which he represented” (411). Such statements, while undoubtedly troubling, are instructive examples of the racist and prejudicial beliefs that upheld and justified the colonial system which Anton serves and Ursala approves.
