A Fragment of Stained Glass was one of the first short stories D. H. Lawrence ever wrote. The story delves into the questionable beliefs of a mystical world outside our own material world.
Lawrence opens the story with an evocative image of the changing landscape he famously described as ‘the country of my heart’.
‘Beauvale is, or was, the largest parish in England. It is thinly populated, only just netting the stragglers from shoals of houses in three large mining villages. For the rest, it holds a great tract of woodland, fragment of old Sherwood, a few hills of pasture and arable land, three collieries, and, finally, the ruins of a Cistercian abbey. These ruins lie in a still rich meadow at the foot of the last fall of woodland, through whose oaks shines a blue of hyacinths, like water, in May-time. Of the abbey, there remains only the east wall of the chancel standing, a wild thick mass of ivy weighting one shoulder, while pigeons perch in the tracery of the lofty window.’
The story is a story-within-a-story narrative where both stories are told in first person. The first story, often referred to as the “frame” for the primary story, is told by an unnamed narrator who is visiting the Vicar of Beauvale Abbey, Mr. Coburn. Coburn, described as an archaeologist, explains to the narrator that he is working on a “Bible of the English people—the Bible of their hearts—their exclamations in presence of the unknown” .Coburn then shows the narrator a piece of yellowed parchment from the fifteenth century describing an encounter the monks had with a “devil” who attacked the stained glass window in their chapel one night. The monks were terrified, and when they came outside the next morning they found their statue toppled to the ground and a piece missing from the window.
Since the piece that was missing came from just behind the cross that hung inside the chapel, the monks concluded that God drove the demon away (Lawrence) Both the narrator and Coburn dismiss this interpretation of the events that occurred, and Coburn offers to give a different interpretation. He lowers the lights and moves into the darkness so that his voice seems to be coming from a faraway time. This is where the internal story begins.
The internal story is told from the point of view of a serf living in the fifteenth century. In a fit of rage, the serf kills one of his master’s horses. He is flogged for it, and as revenge sets fire to the stables, which in turn set fire to his master’s house. Running for his life through the woods, the serf comes to the home of his love, Martha, who agrees to run away with him. Traveling through the snow, they come upon the monastery. Believing that the stained glass window is some sort of fairy object, the serf climbs up a statue, and attempts to break a piece of the red glass off so they can use its powers. When the piece comes loose, he sees through the hole what he describes as, “white stunted angels, with sad faces lifted in fear” (Lawrence 194). The statue crumbles beneath him, and he and Martha continue further into the frozen forest. After lighting a fire, they study the fragment, both frightened and entranced by it. The serf becomes afraid of it, believing it to be a bloodstone that will doom them both to a hideous death. Martha, however, makes him keep it. In the morning, they wake to the sound of wolves around them. At this point, the narrative abruptly ends. Coburn, as if suddenly changing his mind says, “Nay […] they lived happily ever after,” to which the narrator responds simply, “No” (Lawrence 196).
This abrupt ending is one of the main reasons this story gets ignored so much. It gives the story a sense of being unfinished. It is flowing smoothly, carrying the reader along, making one anxious to find out what happens next, then it just stops. The stop is jarring and uncomfortable. Perhaps that was Lawrence’s intention. In any case, it is an odd end to an intriguing story. For the most part, though, it is the interaction between the inner story and the frame of the story which intrigues critics the most.
The one thematic thread that runs through all of Lawrence’s works is the dichotomy between the dispassionate, intellectual surface self and the passionate, sensual inner self so many keep locked inside. Lawrence saw most of the people of his age as being trapped within the dispassionate surface self and needing to break free, to delve deep into their inner, passionate selves and, in so doing, become free. Many of Lawrence’s main characters either share this philosophy or are repulsed by it. In this story, a reviewer named P.G. Baker sees the monks’ story as representing the passionate, superstitious side and the serf’s story as the more grounded one centering around struggle for survival in an uncaring world. He sees the same difference present between the unnamed narrator of the framing story and Coburn, in that Coburn wants the romantic, happy ending and the narrator doesn’t (318).
Joseph Baim, another reviewer, has a different perspective. He sees Coburn as someone who wants to move away from the passion exemplified by the monks’ tale and into a more rational interpretation of what happened, but the story he comes up with is one of “profane passion, no more logical, no less passionate, than the one he glosses” (324). Baim continues by pointing out that the two narratives—the monks’ and Coburn’s—are alike in tone. By dimming the lights and speaking from the shadows, Coburn “slips into the role of the spirit of England’s primitive past,” and, in doing so, “he achieves, if only for a moment, a connection with the passionate life that was mirrored more clearly in an earlier age” (324). In his story the peasant allows his rage to overpower him, both in killing the horse and burning his master’s property. The peasant and Martha are a passionate couple. And their fascination with the glass is filled with deep images like blood and fire. They believe they have a piece of something magical, something with deep power. There are few things more primitive and passionate than that.
Image - The remains of Beauvale Priory. A Fragment of Stained Glass was first published in The English Review in 1911.
Adapted from D H Lawrence Society blog
This abrupt ending is one of the main reasons this story gets ignored so much. It gives the story a sense of being unfinished. It is flowing smoothly, carrying the reader along, making one anxious to find out what happens next, then it just stops. The stop is jarring and uncomfortable. Perhaps that was Lawrence’s intention. In any case, it is an odd end to an intriguing story. For the most part, though, it is the interaction between the inner story and the frame of the story which intrigues critics the most.
The one thematic thread that runs through all of Lawrence’s works is the dichotomy between the dispassionate, intellectual surface self and the passionate, sensual inner self so many keep locked inside. Lawrence saw most of the people of his age as being trapped within the dispassionate surface self and needing to break free, to delve deep into their inner, passionate selves and, in so doing, become free. Many of Lawrence’s main characters either share this philosophy or are repulsed by it. In this story, a reviewer named P.G. Baker sees the monks’ story as representing the passionate, superstitious side and the serf’s story as the more grounded one centering around struggle for survival in an uncaring world. He sees the same difference present between the unnamed narrator of the framing story and Coburn, in that Coburn wants the romantic, happy ending and the narrator doesn’t (318).
Joseph Baim, another reviewer, has a different perspective. He sees Coburn as someone who wants to move away from the passion exemplified by the monks’ tale and into a more rational interpretation of what happened, but the story he comes up with is one of “profane passion, no more logical, no less passionate, than the one he glosses” (324). Baim continues by pointing out that the two narratives—the monks’ and Coburn’s—are alike in tone. By dimming the lights and speaking from the shadows, Coburn “slips into the role of the spirit of England’s primitive past,” and, in doing so, “he achieves, if only for a moment, a connection with the passionate life that was mirrored more clearly in an earlier age” (324). In his story the peasant allows his rage to overpower him, both in killing the horse and burning his master’s property. The peasant and Martha are a passionate couple. And their fascination with the glass is filled with deep images like blood and fire. They believe they have a piece of something magical, something with deep power. There are few things more primitive and passionate than that.
Image - The remains of Beauvale Priory. A Fragment of Stained Glass was first published in The English Review in 1911.
Adapted from D H Lawrence Society blog
No comments:
Post a Comment