Lawrence’s upbringing in an East Midlands mining
community gave his work more than a physical setting. It also provided him with a particular tone
of voice which, at its most distinctive, contributes to the appeal that so many
readers have found in his best work:
They
came to the silent house. He took the key out of the scullery window, and they
entered. All the time he went on with
his discussion. He lit the gas, mended the fire, and brought her some cakes
from the pantry. She sat on the sofa quietly, with a plate on her knee. She
wore a large white hat with some pinkish flowers. It was a cheap hat, but he
liked it. (Sons & Lovers)
Here the story is developed in short, simple sentences which
parallel narrative speech. His tone can be characterised as natural and
informal, with a touch of sardonic humour that sprang from his working -class
roots, the product of generations of scraping by, with the expectation that
life is unlikely to improve. At the heart of working -class culture is the
instinct for deflating humbug and pomposity, as in this description of Baron
Skrebensky:
When
Anna was about ten years old, she went with her mother to spend a few days with
the Baron Skrebensky. He was very unhappy in his red-brick vicarage. He was a vicar
of a country church, a living worth a little over two hundred pounds a year,
but he had a large parish containing several collieries, with a new, raw,
heathen population. He went to the north of England expecting homage from the
common people, for he was an aristocrat. He was roughly, even cruelly received.
But he never understood it. He remained a fiery aristocrat. Only he had to
learn to avoid his parishioners.(The Rainbow)
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