The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd E-Book

D H Lawrence

• Herausgeber: DigiCat
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

D. H. Lawrence's "The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd" intricately weaves themes of love, loss, and the struggles of marital dynamics within a gritty, industrial backdrop of early 20th-century England. This one-act play showcases Lawrence's distinctive command of dialogue and character development, utilizing a naturalistic and symbolic literary style that immerses the audience in the turbulent emotional landscape of its characters. The deficiencies of the social fabric and the constraints of societal expectations are laid bare, inviting readers to reflect on the nature of personal freedom in the face of oppressive norms. D. H. Lawrence, an influential figure in modernist literature, was known for his exploration of human relationships and sexuality, heavily influenced by his own experiences growing up in a coal-mining family in the Midlands. His keen observations of the human psyche and the underlying tensions in familial bonds were paramount in shaping this work. The narrative is further colored by his progressive views on gender and individuality, offering a poignant critique of contemporary mores regarding widowhood and intimacy. This play is a compelling read for those interested in early 20th-century literature and the psychological complexity of relationships. Lawrence's exploration of emotional turmoil and desire resonates profoundly, making it a significant contribution to the understanding of human connections. For readers seeking a combination of stark realism and lyrical grace, "The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd" is an essential literary experience.

Leseprobe

D. H. Lawrence

The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd

A Drama in Three Acts

 

EAN 8596547336631

DigiCat, 2022 Contact: [email protected]

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

PERSONS

THE WIDOWING OF MRS. HOLROYD

THE FIRST ACT

THE SECOND ACT

THE THIRD ACT

DUCKWORTH & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS

ANIMAL LIFE AND WILD NATURE (STORIES OF) .

BOOKS ON ART.

GENERAL LITERATURE.

READERS' LIBRARY, THE.

STUDIES IN THEOLOGY.

NOVELS AND STORIES

BOOKS ON APPROVAL

INTRODUCTION

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D H. Lawrence is one of the most significant of the new generation of writers just beginning to appear in England. One of their chief marks is that they seem to step forward full-grown, without a history to account for their maturity. Another characteristic is that they frequently spring from social layers which in the past had to remain largely voiceless. And finally, they have all in their blood what their elders had to acquire painfully: that is, an evolutionary conception of life.

Three years ago the author of "The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd" was wholly unknown, having not yet published a single work. To-day he has to his credit three novels—"The White Peacock," "The Trespasser" and "Sons and Lovers"—a collection of verse entitled "Love Poems," and the play contained in this volume. All of these works, but in particular the play and the latest novel, prove their author a man gifted with a strikingly original vision, a keen sense of beauty, an equally keen sense of verbal values, and a sincerity, which makes him see and tell the truth where even the most audacious used to falter in the past. Flaubert himself was hardly less free from the old curse of sentimentalizing compromise—and yet this young writer knows how to tell the utmost truth with a daintiness that puts offence out of the question.

He was born twenty-seven years ago in a coal-miner's cottage at the little colliery town of Eastwood, on the border line between Nottingham and Derbyshire. The home was poor, yet not without certain aspirations and refinements. It was the mother who held it together, who saved it from a still more abject poverty, and who filled it with a spirit that made it possible for the boy—her youngest son—to keep alive the gifts still slumbering undiscovered within him. In "Sons and Lovers" we get the picture of just such a home and such a mother, and it seems safe to conclude that the novel in question is in many ways autobiographical.

At the age of twelve the boy won a County Council Scholarship—and came near having to give it up because he found that the fifteen pounds a year conferred by it would barely pay the fees at the Nottingham High School and the railway fares to that city. But his mother's determination and self-sacrifice carried him safely past the seemingly impossible. At sixteen he left school to earn his living as a clerk. Illness saved him from that uncongenial fate. Instead he became a teacher, having charge of a class of colliers' boys in one of those rough, old-fashioned British schools where all the classes used to fight against one another within a single large room. Before the classes convened in the morning, at eight o'clock, he himself received instruction from the head-master; at night he continued his studies in the little kitchen at home, where all the rest of the family were wont to fore gather. At nineteen he found himself, to his own and everybody else's astonishment, the first on the list of the King's Scholarship examination, and from that on he was, to use his own words, "considered clever." But the lack of twenty pounds needed in a lump sum to pay the entrance fee at the training college for teachers made it impossible for him to make use of the gained advantage.

Two years later, however, he succeeded in matriculating at the Nottingham Day Training College. But by that time the creative impulse had already begun to stir within him, aided by an early love affair, and so he wrote poems and worked at his first novel when he should have been studying. At twenty-three he left the college and went to London to teach school, to study French and German, and to write. At twenty-five he had his first novel—"The White Peacock"—accepted and printed. But the death of his mother only a month before that event made his victory seem useless and joyless. After the publication of his second novel, in 1912, he became able to give up teaching in order to devote himself entirely to his art. Out of that leisure—and perhaps also out of the sorrow caused by the loss of her who until then had been the mainspring of his life—came "Sons and Lovers" and "The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd."

What has struck me most deeply in these two works—apart from their splendid craftsmanship—is their psychological penetration, so closely paralleling the most recent conclusions of the world's leading thinkers. In the hands of this writer, barely emerged out of obscurity, sex becomes almost a new thing. Not only the relationship between man and woman, but also that of mother and child is laid bare in a new light which startles—or even shocks—but which nevertheless compels acceptance. One might think that Mr. Lawrence had carefully studied and employed the very latest theories of such men as Freud, for instance, and yet it is a pretty safe bet that most of his studies have been carried on in his own soul, within his own memories. Thus it is proved once more that what the student gropingly reasons out for abstract formulation is flashed upon the poetic dreamer in terms of living reality.

Another thing that has impressed me is the aspect in which Mr. Lawrence presents the home life of those hitherto submerged classes which are now at last reaching out for a full share in the general social and cultural inheritance. He writes of that life, not only with a knowledge obtained at first hand, but with a sympathy that scorns any apologetic phrase-mongering. Having read him, one feels inclined to conclude, in spite of all conflicting testimony, that the slum is not a location, but a state of mind, and that everywhere, on all levels, the individual soul may create around itself an atmosphere expressive of its ideals. A book like "Sons and Lovers" ought to go far to prove that most of the qualities held peculiar to the best portion of the "ruling classes" are nothing but the typical marks of normal humanity.

Edwin Björkman.

THE WIDOWING OF MRS. HOLROYD

PERSONS

Table of Contents

Mrs. Holroyd Holroyd Blackmore Jack Holroyd Minnie Holroyd Grandmother Rigley Clara Laura Manager Two Miners

THE WIDOWING OF MRS. HOLROYD

Table of Contents

THE FIRST ACT

Table of Contents

SCENE I

The kitchen of a miner's small cottage. On the left is the fireplace, with a deep, full red fire. At the back is a white-curtained window, and beside it the outer door of the room. On the right, two white wooden stairs intrude into the kitchen below the closed stair foot door. On the left, another door.

The room is furnished with a chintz-backed sofa under the window, a glass-knobbed painted dresser on the right, and in the centre, toward the fire, a table with a red and blue check tablecloth. On one side of the hearth is a wooden rocking-chair, on the other an armchair of round staves. An unlighted copper-shaded lamp hangs from the raftered ceiling. It is dark twilight, with the room full of warm fireglow. A woman enters from the outer door. As she leaves the door open behind her, the colliery rail can be seen not far from the threshold, and, away back, the headstocks of a pit.

The woman is tall and voluptuously built. She carries a basket heaped full of washing, which she has just taken from the clotheslines outside. Setting down the basket heavily, she feels among the clothes. She lifts out a white heap of sheets and other linen, setting it on the table; then she takes a woollen shirt in her hand.

MRS. HOLROYD (aloud, to herself)

You know they're not dry even now, though it's been as fine as it has. (She spreads the shirt on the back of her rocking-chair, which she turns to the fire)

VOICE (calling from outside)

Well, have you got them dry?

[Mrs. Holroyd starts up, turns and flings her hand in the direction of the open door, where appears a man in blue overalls, swarfed and greased. He carries a dinner-basket.

MRS. HOLROYD

You—you—I don't know what to call you! The idea of shouting at me like that—like the Evil One out of the darkness!

BLACKMORE

I ought to have remembered your tender nerves. Shall I come in?

MRS. HOLROYD

No—not for your impudence. But you're late, aren't you?

BLACKMORE

It's only just gone six. We electricians, you know, we're the gentlemen on a mine: ours is gentlemen's work. But I'll bet Charles Holroyd was home before four.

MRS. HOLROYD (bitterly)

Ay, and gone again before five.

BLACKMORE

But mine's a lad's job, and I do nothing!—Where's he gone?

MRS. HOLROYD (contemptuously)

Dunno! He'd got a game on somewhere—toffed himself up to the nines, and skedaddled off as brisk as a turkey-cock. (She smirks in front of the mirror hanging on the chimney-piece, in imitation of a man brushing his hair and moustache and admiring himself)

BLACKMORE

Though turkey-cocks aren't brisk as a rule. Children playing?

MRS. HOLROYD (recovering herself, coldly)

Yes. And they ought to be in. (She continues placing the flannel garments before the fire, on the fender and on chair-backs, till the stove is hedged in with a steaming fence; then she takes a sheet in a bundle from the table, and going up to Blackmore, who stands watching her, says) Here, take hold, and help me fold it.

BLACKMORE

I shall swarf it up.

MRS. HOLROYD (snatching back the sheet)

Oh, you're as tiresome as everybody else.

BLACKMORE (putting down his basket and moving to door on right)

Well, I can soon wash my hands.

MRS. HOLROYD (ceasing to flap and fold pillowcases)

That roller-towel's ever so dirty. I'll get you another. (She goes to a drawer in the dresser, and then back toward the scullery, where is a sound of water)

BLACKMORE

Why, bless my life, I'm a lot dirtier than the towel. I don't want another.

MRS. HOLROYD (going into the scullery)

Here you are.

BLACKMORE (softly, now she is near him)

Why did you trouble now? Pride, you know, pride, nothing else.

MRS. HOLROYD (also playful)

It's nothing but decency.

BLACKMORE (softly)

Pride, pride, pride!

[A child of eight suddenly appears in the doorway.

JACK

Oo, how dark!

MRS. HOLROYD (hurrying agitated into the kitchen)

Why, where have you been—what have you been doing now?

JACK (surprised)

Why—I've only been out to play.

MRS. HOLROYD (still sharply)

And where's Minnie?

[A little girl of six appears by the door.

MINNIE

I'm here, mam, and what do you think—?

MRS. HOLROYD (softening, as she recovers equanimity)

Well, and what should I think?

JACK

Oh, yes, mam—you know my father—?

MRS. HOLROYD (ironically)

I should hope so.

MINNIE

We saw him dancing, mam, with a paper bonnet.

MRS. HOLROYD

What—?

JACK

There's some women at "New Inn," what's come from Nottingham—

MINNIE

An' he's dancin' with the pink one.

JACK

Shut up our Minnie. An' they've got paper bonnets on—

MINNIE

All colors, mam!

JACK (getting angry)

Shut up our Minnie! An' my dad's dancing with her.

MINNIE

With the pink-bonnet one, mam.

JACK

Up in the club-room over the bar.

MINNIE

An' she's a lot littler than him, mam.

JACK (piteously)

Shut up our Minnie—An' you can see 'em go past the window, 'cause there isn't no curtains up, an' my father's got the pink bonnet one—

MINNIE

An' there's a piano, mam—

JACK

An' lots of folks outside watchin', lookin' at my dad! He can dance, can't he, mam?

MRS. HOLROYD (she has been lighting the lamp, and holds the lamp-glass)

And who else is there?

MINNIE

Some more men—an' all the women with paper bonnets on.

JACK

There's about ten, I should think, an' they say they came in a brake from Nottingham.

[Mrs. Holroyd, trying to replace the lamp-glass over the flame, lets it drop on the floor with a smash.

JACK

There, now—now we 'll have to have a candle.

BLACKMORE (appearing in the scullery doorway with the towel) What's that—the lamp-glass?

JACK

I never knowed Mr. Blackmore was here.

BLACKMORE (to Mrs. Holroyd)

Have you got another?

MRS. HOLROYD

No. (There is silence for a moment) We can manage with a candle for to-night.

BLACKMORE (stepping forward and blowing out the smoky flame) I'll see if I can't get you one from the pit. I shan't be a minute.

MRS. HOLROYD

Don't—don't bother—I don't want you to.

[He, however, unscrews the burner and goes.

MINNIE

Did Mr. Blackmore come for tea, mam?

MRS. HOLROYD

No; he's had no tea.

JACK

I bet he's hungry. Can I have some bread?

MRS. HOLROYD (she stands a lighted candle on the table) Yes, and you can get your boots off to go to bed.

JACK

It's not seven o'clock yet.

MRS. HOLROYD

It doesn't matter.

MINNIE

What do they wear paper bonnets for, mam?

MRS. HOLROYD

Because they're brazen hussies.

JACK

I saw them having a glass of beer.

MRS. HOLROYD

A nice crew!

JACK

They say they are old pals of Mrs. Meakins. You could hear her screaming o' laughin', an' my dad says: "He-ah, missis—here—a dog's-nose for the Dachess—hopin' it'll smell samthing"—What's a dog's-nose?

MRS. HOLROYD (giving him a piece of bread and butter)

Don't ask me, child. How should I know?

MINNIE

Would she eat it, mam?

MRS. HOLROYD

Eat what?