Flattened Primroses: Discarded Floral Symbolism in an Early Manuscript Version of D. H. Lawrence's Odour of Chrysanthemums

Abstract

D. H. LAWRENCE’S short story, Odour of Chrysanthemums, as Keith Cushman has observed, is ‘bound together by the pervasive imagery of the flowers in its title’. Chrysanthemums are used repeatedly to symbolize ‘the cycle of birth, marriage, defeat and drunkenness, and death’ associated with the marriage of Walter and Elizabeth Bates.1 However, chrysanthemums are not the only flowers which figure in the text, and manuscript evidence indicates that, at an early stage in the complex evolution of the tale, Lawrence also envisaged using primroses to symbolize the relationship between husband and wife. The evidence is contained in a six-page manuscript fragment in the Lawrence Papers (Roberts-Vasey E284a) which provides an interesting insight into Lawrence’s attempts to depict the dramatic moment, at the conclusion of the story, when Walter Bates’ body is brought home to the family cottage from the mine. John Worthen, in his edition of this fragment, has characterized it as ‘a far briefer version of the end of the story than appears in any other state of the text’ and observes that ‘the appearance of the manuscript suggests a working draft.’2 The pertinent section reads as follows: They were bringing him on a board, and the board wouldn’t come in at the door, it was too big. The women had the awful picture of a man trying to back into the house with a black board, on which they could see two heavily shod feet, and the suggestion of a figure. Then the men talked in low voices. They laid the board on the garden—on the double primroses.3