Odour of Chrysanthemums by D.H. Lawrence

The words power and authority are often used interchangeably. Both may enable a person to influence another person in a way that can be at odds with what the individual uninfluenced would wish for themselves. But a powerful person can influence us for good as well as ill. It is from this direction I am approaching the texts, in particular to consider the part roles and social position play in the processes and shifts of power and authority.

When we approach any object, its shape and size appear different according to our position and nearness. In a similar way the role a person plays may have many shapes. Elizabeth Bates in The Odour of Chrysanthemums is at the same time in the role of woman, mother, daughter, wife, daughter in law, and at the end of the story a widow. In each of these roles her degree of personal and social ability to influence shifts, as it does anyway in the changing events of the story. This situation is slightly less complex in The Prussian Officer, as the roles are not so varied although the soldier/orderly is suggested as also having the roles of lover and peasant farmer, but these roles are not as much in the forefront of events. Nevertheless although the role of the officer doesnt shift from being the person with given authority, he becomes a victim.

In both the texts, Lawrence quickly indicates the standpoint his characters are going to take in the story he is telling. Elizabeth for instance is described as a woman “of imperious mien”. The Oxford dictionary defines the word imperious as “overbearing, domineering, urgent, imperative.” The definition goes on to give the origins of the word as relating to command and authority. Lawrence strengthens this by immediately putting Elizabeth in a position of exercised power in relationship with her son and father.

With her son, there is the suggestion of an ongoing struggle as the son is described in several ways as resisting as far as he can the woman he depends upon - as for instance, “The lad advanced slowly, with resentful, taciturn movement.” Somehow Lawrence manages to give the impression the boys attitude of non-responsive resentment is one he has absorbed from his father.

Just as the son is dependent upon his mother, and resents the authority she gains from this, so I believe the social and economic scene described places Elizabeth, in the role of wife, as being in resentful dependence on her husband as the wage earner. Lawrence suggests by events that Elizabeths means of finding some measure of power in the situation is by withdrawal of emotional warmth or sympathy from males a potent weapon in most close relationships. He does this in several places. With the son the word conciliated is used where Elizabeth softens toward her son after a small confrontation about whether he is playing in the nearby brook. Then her father is described as wincing under her verbal attack, and it is ...