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3 (p. 6) “So you have come home, expecting him here?”: In The Rainbow, Gudrun is studying to be a painter, though there is no mention of her going to London, or of Mr. Brangwen’s sharp objection to Ursula’s wanting to go to London to teach. Lawrence resolves this by suggesting some conflict between Gudrun and her father.

4 (p. 12) There was something northern about him that magnetized her. In his clear nortbern flesh and his fair hair was a glisten like sunshine refracted through crystals of ice: Lawrence is establishing Gerald as a symbol of the “snow-abstraction” of northern cultures in the West, which in his view are doomed, at least in their present state.

5 (p. 13) This was Hermione Roddice, a friend of the Criches: This character is based on Lady Ottoline Morrell (1873-1938), a member of the Cambridge-Bloomsbury circle and a cultural force in her own right around whom a number of great writers and thinkers gathered. Ezra Pound immortalized her in one of his best lyric poems, “Portrait d’une Femme.” T. S. Eliot also pays her a rather begrudging tribute in “Portrait of a Lady.” Since the character of Hermione is so firmly based on Lady Morrell, naturally speculation arises as to whether she and Lawrence shared the same intimate relationship as Hermione and Birkin, Lawrence’s surrogate in the novel. There is no definitive evidence that they did.

6 (p. 13) Her long, pale face, that she carried lifted up, somewhat in the Rossetti fashion, seemed almost drugged: Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882) was a leading Pre-Raphaelite poet and painter. His sumptuous portraits of women were famous for their vague and dreamy classical style.

Chapter II

1 (p. 24) “Am I my brother’s keeper?” he said to himself, almost flippantly.... Not that he was Cain, either, although he had slain his brother: In the Bible (Genesis 4:8-9), Cain kills his brother Abel. Previous editors have noted that Gerald’s character is partially based on Sir Thomas Philip Barber, member of a prominent Nottinghamshire family who accidentally killed his brother. The point Lawrence is making, however, is that Gerald has been born with the mark of Cain.

2 (p. 26) “A race may have its commercial aspect, ”he said. “In fact it must.... You must make provision. And to make provision you have got to strive against other families, other nations”: Gerald is advocating social Darwinism, which Hermione and Birkin oppose. In later works, The Plumed Serpent in particular, Lawrence is not opposed at all to minority white rule among darker people.

Chapter III

1 (p. 36) “Do you really think the children are better for being roused to consciousness?”: Though Hermione has a very open attitude about race, she is very condescending toward members of the lower classes. Lawrence, himself a miner’s son, never makes a direct attack on the upper classes, with whom to some extent he wanted to identify On the other hand, Birkin can be scathing to Hermione when she acts grand, and Gerald is the symbol of what is wrong with Europe.

2 (p. 40) “But why should I be a demon—?” she asked. “ ‘Woman wailing for her demon lover’—” he quoted: The line Birkin quotes is from “Kubla Khan,” by Samuel Coleridge (1772-1834). Coleridge wrote the poem while under the influence of drugs; thus it is an example of a sort of knowledge or a work that bypasses the intellect and comes straight from the unconscious, or the blood, as Lawrence would put it. Unfortunately, Coleridge was never able to finish the poem because he could not recapture the same drug-induced state of mind.

Chapter IV

1 (p. 44) He waved again, with a strange movement of recognition across the difference. “Like a Nibelung, ” laughed Ursula: Here Lawrence again links one of his characters to the work of Richard Wagner and his Ring of the Nibelung, a series of four operas based on Norse mythology. This time the reference is in relation to Gerald and to the Nibelung king of the underworld who steals the ring from the fair Rhine maidens.

2 (p. 45) “Oh, eighteenth century, for