TRANSFORMATION & SYMBOLISM IN D.H. LAWRENCE'S "THE HORSE DEALER'S DAUGHTER"
"The Horse Dealer's Daughter" is a love story. It is also a story rich in symbolism. In this paper I will present an interpretation of the symbols which appear both in the descriptions of the two main characters and in their actions. My analysis will be limited to the final scene, in which the two characters undergo a startling transformation. The symbolism to be dealt with relates to the Christian rites and symbols of baptism, shedding of the old skin, light, resurrection, and marriage.
The story is set in England around the turn of the present century. It opens at the breakfast table of Mabel Pervin and her three brothers, who are sitting together for what may be the last time. The horse stable and house which their father left them when he died has gone bankrupt. Malcolm has found a job, Fred Henry is leaving for Northampton, Joe, the eldest, plans to marry and work for his father-in-law, but the fate of Mabel remains a mystery. She is impassive and withdrawn, and will not share a single word with them about her future plans. Soon, Jack Fergusson, the young country doctor and friend of Fred henry drops by to wish them off. During his visit he takes special note of Mabel, who looks back with "steady, dangerous eyes." Later that afternoon, as jack Fergusson in walking his rounds just outside town, he sees Mabel, tending her mother;s gravestone in the cemetery, and their eyes meet. A "mystical element [is] touched in him," in that moment, and "he [feels] delivered from his own fretted, daily self." As afternoon falls into night, Mabel strolls down to a nearby pond. Again, Jack catches sight of her; but what he sees does not quite register in his mind: "He stood motionless as the small black figure walked slowly and deliberately towards the center of the pond...." After a pause of disbelief, he springs into action.
Against his fear, and despite his being unable to swim, Jack plunges into the water over his head to save Mabel. He carries her unconscious home, undresses her, and then revives her with spirits. When she comes to, she makes the startling declaration, "You love me. I know you love me, I know." Jack seems, at first, repulsed by her declaration. But, in his struggle to deal with her statement, he discovers an unexpected truth in her words. Everything in his past, as a doctor, as a young bachelor, as a young man about town, goes completely against what he does next:
...he bent forward and kissed her on the mouth gently, with the one kiss that is an eternal pledge.... He crossed over the gulf to her, and all that he had left behind had shrivelled and become void.
With sudden movement toward resolution, Jack tells Mabel of his desire to marry her "...quickly -- tomorrow if I can." Mabel fears that his desire may not be true; and on that strange note the story, rather abruptly, ends.
BAPTISM: Submersion in water is a traditional first step in the symbolic process of transformation. For Christians, the central act of initiation into the church is baptism (from the Greek word meaning to submerse). Through baptism, the Christian initiate is renewed (which is to say, the sins of his old life are washed away), reborn (in Christ), and transformed. But the symbol of baptism is not limited to a single ritual of the church. In fact, according to J.E. Cerlot in
A Dictionary of Symbols the connection between water, and both material and spiritual transformation, can be found in Egyptian hieroglyphics, ancient Hindu and Chinese writings, as well as the Old and New Testaments. The earliest biblical example of what will later develop into baptism is the story of Noah and the Flood, where the earth itself is buried under water and symbolically reborn after forty days and forty nights. In the New Testament, before entering his public ministry, Jesus submits himself to John the Baptist to be submerged in the waters of the River Jordan.
Cerlot quotes John Chrysostom's interpretation of baptism and the Flood as follows:
It represents death and interment, life and resurrection....When we plunge our head beneath water, as in sepulchre, the old man becomes completely immersed and buried. When we leave the water, the new man suddenly appears.
Cerlot's interpretation of this is that the waters dissolve the elements and allow them to recombine in a new pattern. In "The Horse Dealer's Daughter," Lawrence has his characters submerge themselves completely in a "square, deep pond." He communicates to us very clearly that the theme of this immersion is death, not merely because of the attempted suicide, but because of the very essence of the things surrounding the pond itself. The pond is described as "grey, deadened, and wintry..." Jack is repulsed by the "smell of the dead, clayey water, and [is] mortally afraid for his own health." This is also, appropriately enough, the turning point in the story, where the lives of the two main characters cross in such a way that in the space of a few minutes they are changed completely from the hopeless and unfulfilled people they were to beings on the verge of awakening.
SHEDDING OF THE SKIN: Alan Watts begins his explanation of Easter with the following words:
Before it can come to life as a plant, the seed must be buried in the earth. Before it can soar into the air upon brilliant wings, the catepillar must enter the long sleep of it's chrysalis tomb. Before the splendor of spring, all the earth is shrouded in gray, cold death of winter. "Unless a grain of corn fall into the ground and die, it remains alone. But if it dies, it brings forth much fruit." In those words Christ summed up the strange truth that life is ever dependent upon death. (Easter, It's Story and Meaning, N.Y., 1950, p.19)
Baptism and symbolic shedding of the skin are very closely related, as Watts makes very clear in the above passage. For this reason, I believe, Lawrence makes a great issue of the wet clothing in the second half of the story. After carrying Mabel back to the Pervin house, and while she is still unconscious, Jack removes her clothing and wraps her in blankets. Jack's own wet clothing remains and issue until almost the the last page of the story. When he finally undresses, something of great symbolical significance takes place.
At first, Jack feels he may die from the cold. Later, as his heart warms, his body also seems to warm. In fact, though at first he fears death from the cold, he does not change until Mabel sends him to do so. ("...he had not the power to move out of her presence, until she sent him.") Baptism was the first step in their transformation, the shedding of their old skin is the next. This is symbolized in the story by the shedding of wet clothing. It is a physical transformation, of course, just as the caterpillar physically transforms into a butterfly, and as teh grain of corn physically changes in order to bring forth fruit. But the transformation itself serves as a symbol of something not physical as all, but spiritual. It would be quite easy to interprete Jack and Mabel's falling in love with each other as a mere consequence of their intimate physical contact (Jack clutches her in his arms, carries her home, undresses her.) In a story less symbolic, the plot might well have developed along the lines of physical attraction and arousal. But Lawrence has something completely different in mind. The first time Jack sees Mabel naked, they have their original relationship of doctor/patient. The next time he notices "
for the first time [emphasis added] that one of her shoulders [is] quite bare," and he sees "one of her small breasts...." He notices these things, but he is neither aroused nor repulsed by them. What he does next demonstrates that something has begun to change in him. He asks in "an
altered voice [emphasis added], 'Why are you crying?'" At this point he has changed from his role of doctor to that of compassionate human being. But the most convincing evidence that a transformation has taken place in Jack is found in his third encounter with what is now only a hint od Mabel's nakedness:
And as she went, the blanket trailing, and as he saw a glimpse of her feet and her white leg, he tried to remember her as she was when he had wrapped her in that blanket. But then he didn;t want to remember, because she had been nothing to him then and his nature revolted from remembering her as she was when she was nothing to him.
Jack has begun to respond to Mabel in a completely new way. Her nakedness, or partial nakedness, triggers a response in him, but he is "revolted" by the memory of her as a mere physical being. Clearly, he has connected with something beyond the body. It is the self itself, the spiritual self, which he now relates to. Mabel's response to Jack is also interesting. When she sees him changed for the first time into dry clothing, she remarks, "I don't like you in those clothes." The meaning seems to be that she dislikes him in a state of concealment and disguise, as if he has taken a backward step into his old self.
(end part one)