Growth Of A Chrysanthemum
D. H. Lawrence’s 1914 short story, "Odour of Chrysanthemums", is still in print and considered worth reading in 1999. Perhaps it’s printed and reprinted as a matter of habit. Perhaps editors like it because other editors have. But maybe it’s a success because it’s an exceptional work. Of these three possibilities, the last is certainly the most appealing. Luckily, it seems most likely to be true. Lawrence made a conscious effort to improve and focus the story, as differences between the 1910 draft and the 1914 final version reveal. Lawrence succeeded in this endeavor, carefully revising an already excellent work to create a classic.
The claim that "Odour of Chrysanthemums" is a ...
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his story exactly. He has an authoritative mind. (Ford 257)
As a fiction editor, he is quite receptive to Lawrence’s descriptive gifts. He is impressed with Lawrence’s sense of purpose. But readers needn’t assess the short story by Ford’s methods alone. Modern readers have a very different perspective than Lawrence’s contemporaries, ensuring that many different analyses of "Odour of Chrysanthemums" are possible.
However, the plot itself is very simple. In the 1914 version, Elizabeth Bates spends most of the story waiting for her husband to return from the mine, fretting that he is once again dallying at a favorite pub. His coworkers drag him home, but he is not in a drunken stupor. He is dead, suffocated in an accident at the mine. Initially it seems that the moment when Elizabeth learns that her husband is dead is the story’s climax. However, this is not the story’s most riveting moment, for Lawrence’s foreshadowing has already given this ending away. Elizabeth often unknowingly ...
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other stories, then perhaps the unique, final moment is key evidence in the search for the reasons why "Odour of Chrysanthemums" is successful.
Furthermore, the epiphany must be considered carefully, for it is of vital importance to the story and its readers’ perceptions of it. The position of the epiphany in the story’s structure clearly suggests its importance. If the moment when Elizabeth discovers that her husband is dead truly is the climax, then why does Lawrence spend pages describing the period following this supposed climax? In other successful Lawrence short stories, such as "Second Best", the defining moment comes in the last pages. The fact that Elizabeth’s epiphany, not ...
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"Growth Of A Chrysanthemum." Essayworld.com. August 4, 2008. Accessed April 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Growth-Of-A-Chrysanthemum/87780.
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