Discussion Questions for D. H. Lawrence’s “The Horse-Dealer’s Daughter” (1922)
- What does the title of the story reveal about the portrayal of Mabel?
- On reading the 1st paragraph, what sense do you get of the relationship between Mabel and her brothers? Do the following opening paragraphs reinforce this view? Why? Why not? Please provide examples from the other paragraphs to justify your opinion.
- Identify the animal imagery used in the description of each of the brothers and comment on what such imagery signifies about the characters and the social values of their time.
- Comment on the following quotation: “His [Joe’s life] was over, he would be a subject animal now.”
- In relation to the following quotation, comment on the reason(s) for Mabel’s silence: “They had talked at her and round her for so many years, that she hardly heard them at all.”
- How do you think the way Jack Ferguson is dressed up in earlier parts of the story helps you understand his personality?
- Comment on the significance of the following quotation: “At this point Mabel rose from the table, and they [Mabel’s brothers and Jack Ferguson] all seemed to become aware of her existence.”
- The narrator seems to emphasize the eye contact between Mabel and Jack. Identify in which sections of the story these eye contacts are emphasized and discuss how they contribute to the story’s thematic concerns and development. (Suggested reading: “D. H. Lawrence and Tradition”, by Jeffrey Meyers, Studies in Short Fiction, Summer 1989, Vol. 26 Issue 3, p. 346)
- Identify the paragraphs in which the narrator tells us about Mabel’s father, her mother and her mother’s grave. How does this information in these paragraphs help you understand Mabel?
- Why does the narrator describe Jack Ferguson as “slave to the country-side”?
- Comment on the significance of the following quotation: “It was grey, deadened, and wintry, with a slow, moist, heavy coldness sinking in and deadening all the faculties.”
- What does Jack Ferguson think about working class people? What makes him think so?
- The pond is a major symbol in the story. Examine its symbolic value by providing quotations from the story. Discuss whether it always symbolizes the same thing whenever used or whether it is polysemic. What really happens in the pond?
- Think about what the following can symbolize in the story: the kitchen fire, the whisky, the blanket, the hand, the flame.
- How does D. H. Lawrence portray Mabel and Jack after Mabel regains consciousness in the kitchen? For example, why is Jack Ferguson described as “amazed, bewildered, and afraid”? Why does he kiss her “half in anger”?
- Towards the end of the story, after Mabel and Jack change their clothes, we can see a change in their behaviors. How? Why? For example, why does Mabel tell Jack that she does not like him “in those clothes”?
- What does the story tell you about the nature of love in general? What does the story reveal about social class and love? What do you think will happen to Mabel and Jack in the future?
© Ali Nihat Eken, Istanbul, January 2009
Useful links: D. H. Lawrence: Biography – Penguin Books / The Life of Lawrence: BBC World Service /
Buy the book here /
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“… Lawrence seems to be saying that “love”isn’t something planned, it defies reason and when it happens you cannot question or wonder about it, it simply is. Finding the definitive “moment” is a major reoccurring theme in modernist writing. This is an excellent example of that”
Thanks for your comments, Luke. I’ve included only one section in order to encourage students/blog readers to also think about the answers.
For Mabel, the pond symbolizes a new life and the death of her old self. By falling in love with Dr. Fergusson, her shame is forgotten.
…” She looked up at him with flaring, humble eyes, of transfiguration, triumphant in first possession.”
For Dr. Fergusson, the pond is representative of finding his new life. He find the beauty of Mabel and the frightening, unexpected pleasure of caring for her.
“He was amazed, bewildered, afraid… He revolted from it. And yet-and yet-he had not the power to break away.
The pond is a polysemic symbol. It does not illustrate only one idea. Just within the story, the pond sustains two different purposes.
It seem as though the pond put a spell upon Mabel and Dr. Fergusson- an inexplicable draw between the twosome.
I would say that the pond does most often symbolize the same thing.
When she went into the water, she came out a different person. Both she and the doctor did.
13. The pond in The Horse Dealer’s Daughter was a symbol of depression, the lowest depths, of death itself. It is polysemic because it represents different things to the different characters in the story; to Mabel it was a release, but to the doctor it was his worst fear. In the story, Mabel loses hope and drowns herself while the doctor overcomes his fears, rescues, and revives her.
Response to question number 13:
The pond, deep, dark, devastatingly amazing, never moving, but always on the mind, symbolizes the loss as well as the dawning of a better time. The pond reals in its prey slow and steady and as it’s “clasped dead cold round” its prey, its victim morphs into something new. The pond takes “in the hideous cold element” hiding within its prisoner, and opens the eyes of its captive. The pond is like the cocoon of a measly caterpillar, which protects the insect inside and slowly allows it to transform into a beautiful butterfly.
The pond is like the lake in The Awakening by Kate Chopin. They both symbolize an escape from a world so strict your voice will never be heard. While in the lake, Edna escapes pain and heartache by finally being set free on her own to swim alone and do as she pleases. In both stories, the pond, the lake, they both represent an awakening to a new light, but they are also harmful. The lake consumes Edna, and she is finally free of all her troubles, brought down by the water she loved so much. Mabel, she is also consumed by the water. She gets lucky though, and has a saviour who comes to her rescue. In other words, the pond seems to symbolize the same thing whenever used, but it may take on different form.
As Mabel slowly walks into the midst of her death, she begins to let go, not caring that she is going to die. She tries to drownd herself. The doctor sees her and slowly wades in, he trips, he falls, but he doesn’t give up. He feels for her, and when he finally finds her, he slowly carries her back to land and revives her. In the pond, Mabel is dying. The doctor himself almost drownds as well while trying to save her. He regains control though, and gets himself and Mabel back to shore safely.
Mable from “The Horse Dealer’s Daughter” is like Edna in the “Awakening”. The pond and lake seem to be their only escape, even as other characters are “[relieved] to be out of the clutches of the pond” and lake they see it as their door to freedom. The simple act of being “absorbed in the slow process” of the water gives them a relief that is unlike any the real world can give them. Even if freedom and independence seems like [an unthinkable long way] from where they start off at, they know that it is their only option.
In response to question #13:
The pond symbolizes the uncertainty of death and its pull on human life. The references to the “water [which] clasped dead cold round his legs” and the “bottom [that] was so deeply soft and uncertain” emphasize this symbolism. Although representative of death, the pond also offers Mabel a new life. She enters the pond with the intent of ending her life. When Jack rescues her and revives her, she awakens with a new lease on life and is free from her oppressive situation. Once Jack realizes he has fallen for her, he knows that what happened in the pond has forever changed his life as well. He did not intend to love her; he did not even want to love her, but he “had not the power to break away”. After their encounter, they are forever bonded and now have each other to begin a new journey.
I believe that the pond symbolizes death, but also serves as a setting for new beginnings. Jack describes that “the bottom was so deeply soft and uncertain”, which much the same can be said about death. Mabel is in the grasp of death when Jack brings her back, thus her old life has ended and a new one can begin. The symbology of the pond can change as people can interperate differently and have a diverse answer for the pond’s meaning. As for what really happened, Jack overcame his fears and saved Mabel from drowning, opening the door for future interaction between them, whereas before there was none if any.
I think the lake is polysemic. The sentence “The bottom was deep, soft clay, he sank in, and the water clasped dead cold round his legs.” I think represents the hold of death. Mabel felt as if she had nothing to lose, and until she suddenly loved Jack, but before then, The was living dead, cold and desolate with nothing but awful in front of her. The pond was like a gateway to death, as if the moment she touched the grave she was pulled into this other world and told to go to the pond to go to death. The pond also represents baptism…as if when she came up she was a new person, a person slowly being born again with hope. He was the baptist and he awoke a new life in her. The part of the story where she says ‘Was I out of my mind?’ she asked, while her eyes were fixed on him all the time.
‘Maybe, for the moment,’ he replied. He felt quiet, because his strength had come back. The strange fretful strain had left him.
‘Am I out of my mind now?’ she asked.
‘Are you?’ he reflected a moment. ‘No,’ he answered truthfully, ‘I don’t see that you are.
It was as if kind of they were both born again him into a slightly darker world or her into a lighter one.
The pond symbolizes the door between the world the doctor is living in and the world Mable is living in. Before they had entered they barely acknowledged one another. The pond was a catalyst that set off the reaction of their love; love that they themselves were unaware of.
The two hardly gave each other the time of day before they entered the pond. When he came to the house he “…did not address her. He did not greet her.” Mable did not seem to mind that he gave her little to no attention. She kept an “…impassive and unchanged” face.
In the pond their hearts were in play. Their unknown desires came forth. The doctor “touched her clothing. But it evaded his fingers. He made desperate effort to grasp it.” Her heart was in his grasp but she shied away and he would grasp for it again. His heart reached out to grab her in great effort as her being (love) swayed in the water in front of him. He grabbed her and drew her in. Then he brought her back to the world of the living so he could have her love.
The pond ignited their flame. It was the door to one another. He stated many times that he had not “intended to love her” and he had only seen her as a patient before, but the traumatic experience changed their lives.
Ponds often symbolize doors to other worlds or renewal. Baptisms are sometimes held in ponds and in the novel series City of Glass a pond is used as a portal to the world of the Fae. Ponds are widely used as a symbol.
Question 13. The pond symbolizes the bridge between the girl and the doctor. “He had crossed over the gulf to her” illustrates that the pond is the bridge. And that he would have never gotten to here if she have never gone into the pond. The girl nearly drowns in the pond and the doctor just comes and saves her, in the process, nearly drowning himself.
@ #13
In our AP Lit class we were assigned to read chapter 8 so all of my assumptions are based solely on that chapter.
The pond is a symbol or rebirth. After Dr. Ferguson pulled Mabel from the cold lake, “he worked to restore her,” and then after a few moments “he could her [life]” return to her body. She is given a second chance at life; almost like a baptism.
# 13. Symbolic value:
“..Walked slowly and deliberately towards the centre of the pond, very slowly, gradually moving deeper into the motionless water, and still moving forward as the water got up to her breast. Then he could see her no more in the dusk of the dead afternoon.”
“His eyes seemed to penetrate the dead water.”
“He slowly ventured into the pond. The bottom was deep, soft clay, he sank in, and the water clasped dead cold round his legs. As he stirred he could smell the cold, rotten clay that fouled up into the water. It was objectionable in his lungs. The lower part of his body was all sunk in the hideous cold element. And the bottom was so deeply soft and uncertain, he was afraid of pitching with his mouth underneath. He could not swim, and was afraid.”
“And so doing he lost his balance and went under, horribly, suffocating in the foul earthy water, struggling madly for a few moments. At last, after what seemed an eternity, he got his footing, rose again into the air and looked around. He gasped, and knew he was in the world.”
I think the pond symbolically meant the same thing. It was almost as if the pond wanted to kill Mabel and the doctor itself seeing that it was cold like death and at the same time, wanting to keep the prisoners captive until they were long gone. Even though the doctor was afraid he knew what he had to do. He had to enter into something risky just like a lot of people do every day, not knowing whether everything will turn out alright or not.
The pond represented many things: death and rebirth. When the pond is first introduced into the story when Dr. Fergusson saw Mabel from a distance, the pond was a symbol of death: cold, deep, and depressing. When he tried to save her from drowning, he had trouble finding her, but “his eyes seemed to penetrate the dead water.” Along with death, the pond was a depressing place due to the fact that it was the location of her attemped suicide. When Dr. Fergusson finally saves Mabel from the dark abyss of the cold pond, it represented a rebirthing for her. She no longer wished to die because she felt his love for her. When he was “full of relief to be out of the clutches of the pond” with Mabel, she realized that she did not want to die, but to live.
13. In the story, the pond represented not only the grasp and temptation of death but also a sort of rebirth or renewing. While Jack saves Mabel from her attempted suicide, he walks “down into the depression” as “the water clasps[s] dead cold around his legs” and “he smell[s] the cold, rotten clay that foul[s] up into the water.” The pond represents the temptation of death, a cold, dark, rotten depression, that momentarily engulfs Mabel. Because Jack is able to resist this temptation, he saves Mabel, who, in the end, realizes how crazy her actions were. Mabel thought death would be a release from a world that did not care about her, but Jack’s altruistic actions renew her look on life, as she becomes aware of another’s love and care for her. In most other stories, a pond (or some other kind of body of water) always seems to represent some sort of release or renewal, which is very similar to these representations, but I also believe in a few others, it can represent something different. Therefore, the pond symbol is polysemic.
13.
In the story, the pond is described as “dead” and “cold” which also symbolizes Dr. Ferguson’s feelings toward Mabel before the incident in the pond. I don’t think that a pond symbolizes the same thing in all stories–this pond was “rotten” and dirty. When Dr. Ferguson saved Mabel, I think he grew feelings for her.
13
The pond itself is a kind of cleansing renewal, a rebirth, if you will. It is both a cold place of nonexistence and a womb from which the doctor pulls a figuratively newborn Mabel.
Before she goes into the pond, the doctor comments that “he felt, if he looked away from her, in the thick, ugly falling dusk, he would lose her altogether.” This signals that she is about to be gone, lost not just to Jack, but to the world. And it’s not a physical death that awaits Mabel in the pond, it’s a death of the person she is, the sumbissive, unaffected mouse who wanted to join her mother rather than leave her home for her sister’s.
The lines “…something transmitted rather than stirring in voluntary activity, straight down the field towards the pond. There she stood on the bank for a moment. She never raised her head…” transmit that Mabel is no longer in control of her self. The hesitation on the bank was more of a moment of adieu than a flash of reconsideration. Keeping her head down shows how utterly defeated she was, led to her choice of suicide by her defeat rather than going there of her own initiative, with her head held up.
That the pond symbolizes birth and death simultaneously is clear. The first is seen when “the water clasped dead cold round [Jack's] legs.” The second is seen later, when Mabel wakes up clean, wrapped in cloth, and completely naked, like a newborn baby.
In the pond, the old Mabel, and maybe the old Jack, die. She emerges from that “foul, earthy” grave as an entirely new person, with new eyes and a new future, a brand new child.