Mourning Becomes Lawrence: Giving Sorrow Words in “Odour of Chrysanthemums” and the Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd

Abstract

Lawrence portrays widows mourning husbands in two early works—his story Odour of Chrysanthemums and his play The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd. Both works center on a marital conflict that can end only with the death of one of the partners. In The Work of Mourning (2001), Jacques Derrida writes, “One should not develop a taste for mourning, and yet mourn we must” (95). Lawrence did develop a taste for mourning, as his growing recognition of “the dignity of death” in these moving texts reveals. ...