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Margaret Jimenez

Professor Laura DeSena

Writing Workshop II – Y20.7503.002

December 17, 2007

The Tragedy of Insane Jealousy in D.H. Lawrence

In D.H. Lawrence’s book of short stories titled “The Prussian Officer and Other Stories”,

a common theme of jealousy is noted in three of his tales, “The Prussian Officer”, “The Shadow

in the Rose Garden” and “The White Stocking”. Although the outcomes of these stories are

quite different, the similarity in them is how the emotion of jealousy evolves and becomes an

irrational sentiment that turns into malice in its most beastly form. What we ultimately see in all

three stories is the tragedy of an insane kind of jealousy, a lethal one that in the end consumes its

victims and leaves them quite literally as corpses or vestiges of their former selves in its wake.

In his article, “Jealousy”, Michael J. Warren writes, “jealousy is fear of loss, specifically

loss or affection of another, where the affection lost is, or at least is thought to be, gained by a

third party” (635). Another definition of the word “jealous” is being “intolerant of rivalry or

unfaithfulness”(Websters 647). In Lawrence’s stories, we see how these states – loss of affection,

rivalry and unfaithfulness, quickly develop into a lethal obsession in the first instance, a chasm

of grief and pain in the second and into an instance of rash violence in the third. Lawrence was

known to weave these themes of tragedy and jealousy into many of his writings. His own often

turbulent and failed romantic relationships were dark experiences that provided material for

many of his stories. Author, Fiona Beckett expresses the author’s penchant for this when she

writes, “…Lawrence had a series of relationships with women which had implications for his

writing” (10).

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In Lawrence’s story, “The Prussian Officer”, the tale involves two men, one an officer, a

Captain of the Prussian Army and his orderly, his servant, who is also described as a lowly

soldier. The story has homoerotic undertones to it as Lawrence describes how each man views

the other. The irrational jealousy that is seen in this story can be described as one that is sparked

by a suppressed desire on the part of the Captain for his young servant resulting in an obsession

that develops into unchecked rage, hostility and eventually death for both men.

The story unfolds with the author describing the Captain as “a tall man of about forty,

grey at the temples. He had a handsome, finely knit figure, and was one of the best horsemen in

the West. His orderly, having to rub him down, admired the amazing riding-muscles of his

loins” (Lawrence 201). At this point we get the first glimpse of one man’s admiration for the

other, although as the story continues the author also writes, “for the rest, the orderly scarcely

noticed the officer any more than he noticed himself” (201). The Captain is also described as “a

Prussian aristocrat, haughty and overbearing” (201). A man who has never married but

occasionally takes himself a mistress, described matter of factly as if it were common practice in

that period.

The orderly at first sees the Captain as cold and just and indifferent, knowing very little

about this man he serves. His task is to obey orders and that is what he does. The servant, as

described by the author is “a youth of about twenty-two, of medium height and well built. He

had strong, heavy limbs, was swarthy, with a soft black, young moustache. There was something

altogether warm and young about him” (Lawrence 202).

Gradually the officer becomes acutely aware of his servant’s presence and describes it as

“young, vigorous , unconscious…” (Lawrence 202). It is as though the servant’s presence

becomes intoxicating to the Captain, “like a warm flame upon the older man’s tense rigid body”

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(202). At this point jealousy begins to rear its ugly head. The Captain sees in his servant

“something so free and self-contained about him, and something in the young fellow’s

movement, that made the officer aware of him. And this irritated the Prussian” (202).

His servant’s presence begins to bother the Prussian. He now rarely looked at him

directly and yet he always knew when he was there. He would notice things about his servant

such as “the movement of his strong young shoulders under the blue cloth, the bend of his neck.

And it irritated him” (Lawrence 202). Something about the self-assuredness of his servant was

irritating to the Captain, to a degree that it would soon turn the emotion of jealousy into

intemperate fury.

The youth began to notice the changes in his Captain and he could not understand the

reasoning behind it. After an incident where a bottle of wine had gone over, the Captain’s

reaction was an extreme one. He “started up with an oath, and his eyes, bluey like fire, had held

those of the confused youth for a moment. It was a shock for the young soldier” (Lawrence

202). Slowly, the youth’s confidence is beginning to erode. “And from that time an

undiscovered feeling had held between the two men” (203).

Jealousy is a powerful emotion, so potent that when suppressed it can act like a keg of

dynamite with the fuse lit, ultimately exploding in utter fury and destroying everything in its

path. Those deeply affected by it become like ticking time bombs. The servant knows his time

with the Captain is almost over. He has served him close to a year and has three months left

before his time is up. So he resolves to do what he has to do to endure what is left of his service.

The Captain however has other plans for his servant. The author describes what the Captain is

feeling at this point in the story in the following manner,

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“But the influence of the young soldier’s being had penetrated through the officer’s

stiffened discipline, and perturbed the man in him. He, however, was a gentleman, with

long, fine hands and cultivated movements, and was not going to allow such a thing as

the stirring of his innate self. He was a man of passionate temper, who had always kept

himself suppressed.” (Lawrence 203)

Is it jealousy or a concealed desire that drives the Captain to the violent actions he later

takes against his servant? It is clear that such a thing, as attraction and desire for someone of the

same sex would have been most taboo in that era and certainly more so for someone in the

Military, therefore in lieu of acting upon these base desires, often other harsher emotions take its

place. Lawrence describes the Captain’s growing obsession in this manner,

“In spite of himself, the Captain could not regain his neutrality of feeling towards his

orderly. Nor could he leave the man alone. In spite of himself, he watched him, gave

him sharp orders, tried to take up as much of his time as possible. Sometimes he flew

into a rage with the young soldier, and bullied him” (Lawrence 203)

Professor Roger Austen writes about this issue in his paper titled, “The Homosexual

Imagination: But for Fate and Ban: Homosexual Villains and Victims in the Military”. He states,

“First, within the military setting, it is both psychologically sound and realistically

possible that an officer might turn into some sort of villain to exorcise the baleful

influence of a young man that he can neither get in bed with nor get out of his system.

His superior position in the chain of command may enable him to assume power over this

young man: when he gives an order, the subordinate is supposed to obey. An officer thus

has some compensation for not being able to become the lover or even buddy of the

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tantalizing enlisted man – he can become the master. He is in a position to lash back and

make the beloved suffer…” (354-355).

The Captain grows madly irritable with his servant. He can’t rest when the soldier is

away, and when he’s present, he glares at him “with tormented eyes” (Lawrence 204). It’s

obvious the Captain is agonizing and doesn’t know how to channel this fixation he has

developed for his servant so he becomes even harsher, crueler, bullying his servant with

contempt and satire. He is quickly eroding his servant’s self-esteem in a furious fashion and

seemingly taking delight in doing so.

The soldier forges on, clinging to hope that his time with this demon of a man is almost

up and thinking of the sweetheart he’s been courting. Upon discovering this, the Captain

becomes further enraged and his sadistic tendencies become even more cruel and violent.

“The officer tried hard not to admit the passion that had got hold of him. He would not

know that his feeling for the orderly was anything but that of a man incensed by his

stupid, perverse servant. So keeping quite justified and conventional in his

consciousness, he let the other thing run on” (Lawrence 205).

He begins to beat his servant, feeling at once “a thrill of deep pleasure and of shame”

(Lawrence 205) even as he sees the blood on his mouth and tears of pain on his servant’s face.

The Captain finding the situation extremely exasperating and seeking to vent his frustration goes

away some days with a woman but it becomes “a mockery of pleasure” (206). It’s not the

woman he wants. It’s his servant and if he cannot have him, no one can, so upon his return, in

one last violent act against his servant, he finds the occasion to kick and beat him so severely

giving his “heart a pang, as of pleasure, seeing the young man bewildered and uncertain on his

feet, with pain” (207). This incident becomes a turning point for the servant, who until now has

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shown restraint and resolve in the midst of these horrible circumstances he has been forced to

endure.

The servant feels trapped. Emotionally, he is destroyed, “wasted and vacant” (Lawrence

209). Physically he is in pain, suffering the scars of abuse inflicted by his master. His

movements are mechanical now. He is a disintegrated individual - incapable of love, but now he

has become a man filled with hatred.

I do not believe it was the servant’s intention to harm his master but the consequences of

his master’s actions, which seem compelled by his jealousy for this youth, result in the actions he

took that fateful day.

They have gone out on a march, the servant denied even water to drink, which makes him

“mad with fever and thirst” (Lawrence 211). He’s made to march beside his cruel master, who

sits on horseback. The servant feels “disemboweled, made empty, like an empty shell… as

nothing, a shadow creeping under the sunshine” (211). All he longs for is an end to his misery,

which is something his Captain is unwilling to give him. As the servant’s despair increases, so

does his rage. Tension grows in the orderly’s soul. His heart is like fire in his chest and he is

breathing with difficulty. Only the outside of his body is obeying so humbly, so mechanically.

“Inside has gradually accumulated a core into which all the energy of that young life was

compact and concentrated”(214).

In a moment where it is just the two of them, the Captain senses a confrontation is at

hand. “The Captain watched the rather heavy figure of the young soldier stumble forward, and

his veins, too, ran hot. This was to be man to man between them” (Lawrence 215). The rage is

palpable in the servant, it nearly suffocates him. He knows the Captain is watching him and he

senses nervousness and fear and in an opportune moment, he exacts revenge and kills the

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Captain in a brutal and vicious manner - the tension he felt until that moment releasing into a

vapor. Still it shocks and distresses him once he realizes what he has done, although he chooses

that moment to de-humanize the Captain, much as he had tried to do to the solider. The author

writes, “It was a pity it was broken” (216). He is satisfied in his heart because “he had hated the

face of the Captain. It was extinguished now” (216). He feels relief and that is how it should be

but he also realizes that “here his own life also ended”(217). Things would never be the same.

He could never go back to the ways things were. He has gotten rid of his abuser but he has lost

all in return. And the sad ending to this story is that the soldier, in ill condition and in his feeble

attempts to run from what he has done, realizes that he is dying. Another person’s jealousy has

robbed him of all he had, even his very life and his end is described as follows, “He stared till his

eyes went black, and the mountains, as they stood in their beauty, so clean and cool, seemed to

have it, that which was lost in him” (222).

The story concludes with a description of how contrasting these two individuals were,

even in death because while their bodies lay together in the mortuary, “the one white and slender,

but laid rigidly at rest, the other looking as if every moment it must rouse into life again, so

young and unused, from a slumber” (Lawrence 222). The cords of jealousy and its horrible

consequence bind the Captain even in death while the servant dies a free man, released from the

chains that once enslaved him.

The second of Lawrence’s story, “The Shadow in the Rose Garden” also tackles the

theme of jealousy, albeit in a more subdued manner than the first but the outcome is solemn

nonetheless resulting in two tortured and deeply discontented souls. The story evokes a sense of

overwhelming sadness for the reader who can grasp the agony and despair the young woman

protagonist experiences in this story. She is newly married yet continues to pine over her former

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and lost love. On her honeymoon she visits the place of their intimate encounters, the Rose

Garden behind the Rectory. By chance, she encounters her former lover, a man she thought dead

discovering that he is now insane. Because he does not recognize her, she realizes he is lost to

her. Their once passionate bond of love is lost forever. As she leaves the garden that fateful

afternoon, she deeply grieves over the loss of her true love and as intensely as she aches for this

one, she spurns the other - her new husband.

She feels a great disdain for her husband. When he approaches her after she returns from

the garden, his questions are like “torture to her” (Lawrence 134). He becomes angry at her

responses and when he finally leaves her, the writer describes her feelings in this manner, “she

disliked him because he tormented her” (134).

The emotion of jealousy rears its head throughout the story in even more subtle ways as

the woman tells her husband about her chance encounter with her former lover. She is a woman

experiencing great loss but in its midst she lashes out at her spouse with hateful, cutting words

and actions. “She felt hatred towards him, because he did not leave her free” (135). “She hated

him, but she could not withstand him” (136). Nevertheless, she wants to be free of it. “It was not

him so much, but it, something she had put on herself that bound her so horribly. And having

put the bond on herself, it was hardest to take it off. But now she hated everything and felt

destructive” (136).

As passionate as her experience of love once was, so now is her hatred. This whole

circumstance causes a breach between her and her new husband that is irreparable. She distances

herself from him until he rages,

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“All his suppressed anger against her who held herself superior to him filled and

blackened his heart. Though he had not known it, yet he had never really won her, she

had never loved him. She had taken him on sufferance” (Lawrence 135).

She feels helpless to take away the bitterness and madness. Madness, as in what inhabits

the mind of her former lover, and madness, as in the rage that wells up within her husband. The

author, Delavenay writes,

“At the thought that she married him as second best on learning of the other man’s

supposed death, his fury reaches a climax and he is “mad with anguish”. The story ends

as he comes to realize what an abyss of pain and incomprehension separates them, and

both remain shocked, impersonal, “locked in silent thought” (192).

The consequence of “mad” jealousy in this story is the heartbreaking fact that this

marriage is already doomed even as it has scarcely begun. The wife’s actions provoke a lack of

trust in her husband and in his confidence to win her heart. Once destroyed such a thing is

almost impossible to repair. The harm is done and what are left are remnants of broken hearts

and shattered lives.

In the last story, “The White Stocking”, the emotion of jealousy is exhibited early in the

story by the husband, Ted Whitson. The Whitsons are still newlyweds, married about two years

and Mrs. Whitson is described as “a pretty little thing” whose “careless abandon made his spirit

glow” (Lawrence 156). He’s very much in love with his young, beautiful and vivacious wife of

his. He loves everything she does and she obviously makes him happy. Mrs. Whitson, on the

other hand is harboring a secret. A secret, that when discovered will unleash a regretful action

and a painful consequence.

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As the story begins, she awakens early much to Mr. Whitson’s surprise. She is awaiting

packages from the postman and those packages contain valentines – not from her husband, but

gifts from another man.

In one of the packages, she receives a long white stocking and in the toe of the stocking is

a small box containing a pair of pearl earrings. She puts the earrings on and admires herself in

the mirror.

“She turned to look at the box. There was a scrap of paper with this posy:

“Pearls may be fair, but thou art fairer.

Wear these for me and I’ll love the wearer” (Lawrence 158).

As she goes to find her husband, she does so guiltily. When he asks what she received

she tells him, “Valentines,” (Lawrence 158), news that displeases him. He has obviously dealt

with this before because he responds, “They’ve no right to send you valentines, now,” (158) to

which she replies, “Ted! – Why not? You’re not jealous, are you?” (159) and then she proceeds

to lie to her husband. On the face of it, these are the actions of a deceptive woman, yet when

they come together for breakfast, she breaks and confesses her lie by telling him the truth behind

these gifts received.

She is the object of another man’s affections. Sam Adams, a man who was her former

employer and who she once had a fondness for is the giver of these gifts. The year before he had

sent her the first white stocking with an expensive brooch, a gift which she kept and never

revealed to her husband. Understandably, Mr. Whitson is upset at this bit of news and reacts by

throwing the slip of paper with the posy into the fire.

Mrs. Whitson’s actions are indicative of an individual who derives pleasure from

provoking deep emotions and reactions in others. This is notably so throughout the story as she

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drops distressing bits of news and information to her forlorn and exasperated husband. In one

instance, directly after the slip-burning incident, he roughly asks her, referring to Sam Adams,

“You haven’t been seeing anything of him, have you?” (Lawrence 161). To which she replies,

“Yes, he got into the tram with me and he asked me to drink a coffee and a Benedectine in the

Royal” (161). When she responds positively to his next question, “And did you?” (161) the

author writes, “the blood came up into his neck and face, he stood motionless, dangerous” (161).

And as if rubbing salt into old wounds, she continues by saying, “It was cold, and it was such fun

to go into the Royal” (161). A reply to which he retorts “in anger and contempt, and some

bitterness” (162).

Mrs. Whitson is playing a dangerous game by saying things or acting in a manner that

serves to incite her husband. Jealousy as mentioned previously in this paper is a powerful,

sometimes uncontrollable emotion that pushed to an extreme can reap horrible and even deadly

consequences. Mrs. Whitson doesn’t seem perturbed by at all by these possibilities as she

continues throughout the story to rouse this sentiment in her husband.

Mrs. Whitson’s actions make her husband anxious. All he yearns for from her is

“surety”, (Lawrence162) - a certainty that she loves him unconditionally. He seeks an assurance

that her heart is undivided and that she doesn’t long for another. But he’s “kept tense by not

getting it” (162).

In Part II of this story we learn more about Sam Adams and where their mutual

admiration comes from. He is different from her husband. He is described as “a bachelor of

forty, growing stout, a man well dressed and florid with a large brown moustache and thin air”

(Lawrence 162-163). It does not seem quite like the description of what would be considered

irresistible qualities in any man yet “she had a great attraction for him” (163).

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The white stocking takes it place in this story during a Christmas party she attended at

Sam Adam’s house just before she married. She attended the party with Ted and as she entered

the party with him, “in an instant Sam Adams was coming forward, lifting both his arms in a

boisterous welcome” (Lawrence 164). Seizing her hands, he leads her forward and she feels as if

she’s floating into the throng on his arm. She describes Sam Adams as “very gallant” (164). He

proceeds to fill her dance card, as Ted does not dance and when the moment is ready, he comes

to her.

“Now then Elsie, he said, with a curious caress in his voice that seemed to lap the outside

of her body in a warm glow, delicious. She gave herself to it. She liked it” (Lawrence

164).

She describes her time with Mr. Adams as thrilling, gratifying and “she felt a little grudge

against Whitson, soon forgotten when her host was holding her near to him, in a delicious

embrace” (Lawrence 165). Her dances with him are intoxicating and it is exquisite, leaving her

dazed and scarcely breathing. Mr. Adams was irresistible to her and yet she asks herself, “why

was she aware of some part shut off in her?” (167). It is a paradox. She seems to have distinct

affections for both men but she obviously cannot have them both.

As the evening winds down, she is engaged in one last dance with Mr. Adams and as she

stoops for her pocket-handkerchief, she realizes she has brought a white stocking instead. In an

instant, Adams picks it up, saving her from certain humiliation and placing it in his pocket. It

becomes a souvenir of their evening together, an observation not lost on her then beau, Ted

Whitson. When he confronts her later about the lost stocking, at first she seems detached and

apathetic in her response as if she does not care that Mr. Adams has her stocking or that the

whole situation is irritating to Ted. Her response “made him black with rage” (Lawrence 171).

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She remains silent and when at last she speaks, it is with cries of distress. This weakens his

resolve and he feels compassion and deep, deep love for her, so much so that she perceives and

with anguished sobs says to him, “Oh, be good to me” (172).

“And he held her very safe, and his heart was white-hot with love for her. His mind was

amazed. He could only hold her chest that was white-hot with love and belief in her. So

she was restored at last” (Lawrence 172).

A few weeks after this incident she marries Whitson. She loves Ted with “passion and

worship, a fierce little abandon of love that moved him to the depths of his being, and gave him a

permanent surety and sense of realness in himself” (Lawrence 172). At this point, whatever

doubts he has of his beloved are dissipated – he is in love. “She was quite happy at first, carried

away by her adoration of her husband. Then gradually she got used to him” (173). In her

marriage, she finds a freedom she never before possessed. “She was rid of the responsibility of

herself. Her husband must look after that” (173).

After some months she runs into Sam Adams again and realizes that he is in love with

her, “and, sportive, she could not help playing a little with this, though she cared not one jot for

the man himself”(Lawrence 173). This is the folly of using jealousy as sport. It becomes a

precarious diversion, something she would soon suffer the consequences of.

When her husband comes home that evening, he is tired and depressed. “She knew he

was in a state of suppressed irritation…Yet she could not help goading him”(Lawrence 174). He

has asked her to get rid of the white stocking. She refuses. Instead she goes up to her room and

puts them on and then proceeds to show them off in a defiant and provocative manner. She

annoys him with her dance of insolence until infuriated, he responds with hurtful words. “Yer

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nasty trolley,” he cried. “Put yer petticoats down, and stop being so foul-minded.” “She was

rousing all his uncontrollable anger” (175).

He begins to alarm her with his cruel words and frightening manner but she continues to

argue with him until he strikes her and “she was flung back blinded against the wall” (Lawrence

177). The jealousy has driven him mad with anger and he has reacted viciously and violently,

hurting the woman he loves. Her sobs move him to look at her “in contempt and compassion

and in rising anger” (178).

He goes upstairs to their room and retrieves the gifts she received from Mr. Adams

intending to return them to him. These trinkets have come between them. They have provoked

jealousy and callous and violent actions. They are a burden within their marriage. When he

returns from posting the package, he finds her still crying and,

“A great flash of anguish went over his body. He went over, slowly, and very gently took

her in his hands. She let herself be taken. Then as she layed against his shoulder, she

sobbed aloud: ‘I never meant---’ ‘My love – my little love---’ he cried, in anguish of

spirit, holding her in his arms” (Lawrence 179).

Mrs. Whitson’s ego, displayed in her desire to be the object of affection for both her

husband and Sam Adams could have resulted in a much worse consequence if not for her

husband’s restraint. It is indeed folly to think that provoking jealous sentiments in others will

not have an adverse effect. They were lucky indeed that their love survived in spite of all this.

D.H. Lawrence wrote a poem called “Jealousy”, where he describes the jealousy of an

ego-bound woman as “hideous and fearful… so much stronger than her love could ever be… a

fearful thing to behold, the ego revealed in all its monstrous inhumanity” (Lawrence 475). His

description of jealousy in this poem as a “monstrous inhumanity” (475) is what is reflected in the

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actions of the protagonists. The Prussian officer allows this horrible emotion to change him into

a grotesque and inhuman sociopath, incapable of compassion, mercy or love provoking intense

reaction in another and ultimately resulting in both their deaths. The woman of the Rose garden

taunts her husband, deepening his insecurities and arousing his fury resulting in a loss of a

marital relationship scarcely begun. The Whitson’s experience was marked by a moment of

violent action brought on by the folly of a woman’s unchecked ego.

In conclusion, what we learn from this theme of insane jealousy as seen within these

stories is the danger of inciting such a powerful emotion. When jealousy is provoked in others,

whether deliberately or not, it can only reap heartbreak, tragedy or even the awful consequence

of death.

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Works Cited

Austen, Roger “The Homosexual Imagination: But for Fate and Ban: Homosexual Villains and

Victims in the Military” College English 36.3 (1974): 352-359

Becket, Fiona “Part I Life and Contexts” The Complete Critical Guide to D.H. Lawrence.

London: Routledge, 2002: 10

Delavenay, Emile “ II. Evolution of Lawrentian Themes” D.H. Lawrence The Man and His

Work. Carbondale, United States: Southern Illinois University Press, 1972: 192

“Jealous.” Def. 1a Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary. 10th ed. 1986

Lawrence, DH. “Jealousy” The Complete Poems of DH Lawrence Ed. Vivian De Sola Pinto and

F. Warren Roberts New York: Penguin Classics, 1993: 475

Lawrence, DH. “The Prussian Officer.” The Prussian Officer and Other Stories Ed. Antony

Atkins Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. 200-222 ---. “The Shadow in the Rose

Garden.” Atkins 126-139 ---. “The White Stocking.” Atkins 156-179

Wreen, Michael J. ”Jealousy” Noûs 23.5 (1989): 635-652

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