DubiousprogressinDHLawrence27sTicketPlease

1、Dubious progress in D. H. Lawrence's"Tickets, Please"Bernard-Jean Ramadier1"Tickets, Please" is one of the short stories in the collection England MyEngland, published in 1922. It is a simple anecdote told in deceptively simple language; a young inspector of the tramway syste

2、m seduces all the conductresses on the Midlands line. Oneof them, Annie, eventually falls for him on a special occasion, but she wants more than a flirtation. As she becomesmore and more possessive, the young manlets her downand picks up another girl: Annie then decides to take revenge. As all the o

3、ther conductresses more or less consciously bear a grudge against the seducer, they set a trap for him; one evening they manageto attract him into their waiting-room at the depot where they molest him. The girls' pretext for harassing him is to make him choose one of them for his wife: eventuall

4、y he spitefully chooses Annie who, far from being proud and contented, falls prey to conflicting feelings. Freed at last, the inspector walks away alone in the night while the girls leave the depot one by one "with mute, stupefied faces" (346)1 2 Women'sstruggle for their rights and a

5、real social status was at times very violent; in August an (.)2Yet, for all its apparent simplicity, the plot is as baffling for the reader as their newly-acquired identity is for the girls. There is more than meets the eye in the story: it was written during the First World War and it uses the mora

6、l and social upheaval brought about by the conflict, insisting on the psychological consequences of the change in women's status resulting from employment and following their fight to be given social recognition and the vote. 2 At the time, that new social role of women was regarded as a form of

7、 progress by the male-dominated society and by somewomen,as Lawrence makescritically clear. The girl conductors benefit from their new status in the microcosm of the tram system before becoming aware of their real second-rate status when it comes to direct human relationship. Living under the delusi

8、on of being real actors recognised as fully responsible humanbeings, they are brutally shown by the chief inspector's offhand attitude how wrong they have been. Theirsubsequent violent reaction reveals their deep frustration and the ambiguous relationships between the sexes, marred and warped by

9、 progress.3Like the girls, the miners are both beneficiaries and victims of progress; they form the social background of the story, at the same time realistic and symbolical as the introduction of the short story shows. The miners' economic function is laden with an implicit symbolical value; ex

10、tracting coal to fuel the industry is like raping the earth by plundering its riches, which has far-reaching consequences for human beings. German mythology provides a similar image of agression when dwarves wrest gold from the earth, turning the latter into a wasteland where spirituality and transc

11、endentalism are dead. In "Tickets, Please" , the incidental effects of progress on humanity are shown through the Lawrentian central theme of the relationship between men and women. Here, the weaker sex and the stronger sex are respectively and ironically embodied by Annie Stone and John T

12、homas Raynor.4The girl conductors are "fearless young hussies" (335) who bravely face the dangers of the tram journeys and the male passengers' advances; as such, they belong to a different class of womerwhose job is exceptional: "This, the most dangerous tram-service in England,

13、as the authorities themselves declare, with pride, is entirely conducted by girls". (335) Such a positive and indirectly self-congratulatory statement is immediately tempered with the grimly humorous description of the girls, tranformed into hybrids:In their ugly blue uniform, skirts up to thei

14、r knees, shapeless old peaked caps on their heads, they have all the sang-froid of an old non-commissioned officer. (335) 3 In the description of Tavershall, "all went by ugly, ugly, ugly". Lady Chatterley's Love (.)5One of Lawrence's key-wordsugly 3 is used here to describe thedev

15、alued official uniform worn by the girls, just as the word is repeated to stigmatise the industrial landscape crossed by the tram in alliterative phrases ("long ugly villages," "last little ugly place of industry," 334). Resembling transvestites in their ugly uniforms, the conduc

16、tors retain only a bawdy sort of feminity with their "skirts up to their knees." They are the drivers' fit counterparts; the latter are "men unfit for active service: cripples and hunchbacks" (334) whocompensate for their physical deficiencies by taking foolish risks while ot

17、hers, effeminate, "creep forward in terror." (335) Excessive prudence or rashness betrays their deep imbalance, a defect reinforced by the chaotic rhythm of the syntax in the long opening paragraphs of the short story. They lack the"sang-froid" which characterizes the girls, as i

18、f they might just as well swap jobs with them. A parallel can be drawn between the drivers' loss of manhood and the conductresses' loss of womanhood. Lawrence makes it clear that the price to pay for social progress is the loss of gender differentiation:the girls assume a new authority, whic

19、h turns them intosham soldiers ("non-commisioned officer," 335) with a masculine, sailor-like behaviour:this roving life aboard the car gives them a sailor's dash and recklessness. What matter how they behave when the ship is in port? Tomorrow they will be aboard again. (336)6Annie Sto

20、ne is one of them and her name, which is evocative of a hard, mineral substance, is in keeping with her inflexible, adamant way of asserting her brand new soldier-like authority. Lawrence ironically insists on the girl's commitment to her job through tapinosis, referring to the Greek battle of t

21、he "hot gates": "The step of that tram-car is her Thermopylae." (335) In order to show the ambiguity of the relationship between men and women, the young inspector John Thomas Raynor is introduced as a central device to the meaningful melodrama that gradually develops. "A fi

22、ne cock-of-the-walk he was": the young man's numerous conquests make him an object for scandal; always on the lookout for "pastures new," he considers himself as the proprietor of the girl conductors ("his old flock," 340). This vocabulary aims at revealing his simplisti

23、c approach to his relationship with his subordinates; he is reduced to a shallow figure of a man, meant to embody a male-dominated system that gives women the outward attributes of authority within the limits of the tram car and under man's supervision. Annie's personality is more complex; s

24、he has two faces, a superficial one on board the tram and a deep, instinctive one outside the system. Impervious to one another in the first half of the short story, the two identities then begin tooverlap. As a conductor she takes her job seriously, which increases her natural shrewishness and cons

25、equently she first adopts the sameattitude with John Thomas Raynor as with the other male passengers: "Annie . was something of a Tartar, and her sharp tongue had kept John Thomas at arm's length for manymonths" (336), before allowing a gradual complicity, both intimate and distant to

26、develop between them:In this subtle antagonism they knew each other like old friends, they were as shrewd with one another almost as man and wife. (337) 4See the use of "impudent", 336 and 341, which echoes "hussies",p. 3357Each of them knows the rules of the gameand plays them o

27、n board the tram within the frame of a relationship superficially liberalised by their respective functions and their young age 4; however, Annie's feminine instincts and impulse are still there, to be given full play on a fit occasion. 5 Italics mine.8There is a drastic change of attitude betwe

28、en Annie-the-conductor and the girl who has a night off and goes alone to the November fun fair.Despite the "sad decline in brilliance and luxury," (337) manypeople are there for entertainment, and the general illusory, transient atmosphere of the event is indicated by the expression "

29、;artificial wartime substitutes" (337), describing ersatz coconuts. In an environment whose hostility is suggested by the expressions "drizzling ugly night" (337) and "black, drizzling darkness" (338) introducing and closing the fun fair scene, the place, for all its shabbin

30、ess, is a fit place for a love encounter; furthermore, "To be at the Statutes without a fellow was no fun." Lawrence explicitly links the change of place with the change of rules which at the fun fair define the status of menand women;the latter resume their traditional passive attitude, w

31、hereas men assert their long-established economic superiority. Annie is no longer the woman in charge; she has left her uniform to don her best clothes, more appropriate in this place where it is advisable to observe a ritualistic form of behaviour to be in "the right style" (337), which i

32、s in fact an intimation of submissiveness. The new quality of the relationship between Annie and John Thomas is emphasized by the repetition of "round" like the world, "The roundabouts were veering round"5, and the fair, despite its sham, allows a re-enactment of the real positio

33、ns of men and women in society:John Thomas made her stay on for the next round. And therefore she could hardly for shame repulse him when he put his arm round her and drew her a little nearer to him, in a very warm and cuddly manner. (337) 6 J. Chevalier et A. Gheerbrant, Dictionnaire des symboles,

34、Paris: Laffont, 1995, p. 962.9John Thomas's permissive attitude, accepted by Annie as a matter of course, is an implicit denial of the reality of the social progress giving women authority and autonomy. The conformist rules at the Statutes Fair are those of the society of that time: men pay for

35、women, thus resuming in civil activities the domination temporarily handed over to women in the tram service. In their Dictionnaire des symboles , Chevalier and Gheerbrandt see the conductor as a figure of the impersonal self, both a judge and a sanction whose function evokes strictness and clockwor

36、kprecision, while the ticket suggests a give and take deal.6 In thatsymbolical reading, the title "Tickets, Please" announces the girls' deep desire for real reciprocity in their relationship with men; in the reality of their daily routine aboard the tram, because they embody regulatio

37、n, the conductors' "peremptory" request is their "ticket" to respect and consideration. As a conductor, you are handed the ticket whereas as a merry-go-round rider you have to hand over the ticket or token. On the Dragons, Annie is completely passive because she has no direct

38、 part in the exchange; her partner pays for the round and hands the ticket over, thus buying the girl's complaisance: "John Thomaspaid each time, so she could but be complaisant." 7 L'Eau et les r e ves,aris: Jos e Corti, 1974, p. 159.10In this budding affair, both of them find wha

39、t they were looking for in an egocentric way; their flirtation does not imply love as hinted by the use of "liked" it remains foreplay, as superficial as the setting, the contacts remain shallow and go no further than kisses on the lips, that "terrain de la sensualit e permise" a

40、s Bachelard has it .7Their attraction for one another is genuine and uncomplicated at first: "Annie liked John Thomasa good deal. She felt so rich and warmin herself whenever he was near", "And John Thomas really liked Annie, more than usual. The soft, melting way in which she could f

41、low into a fellow, as if she melted into his very bones, was something rare and good," (339) but that sensual convergence, which seems to announce a future harmonious development, is only momentary. John Thomas and Annie, although momentarily brought together, remain poles apart; their affair i

42、s doomedas their symbolical positions on the woodenhorses makes clear. That merry-go-round (open and lit, contrary to the dragons and the cinema) is a mechanistic representation of the world and society; on it each one instinctively finds his or her place: "she sat sideways, towards him, on the

43、 inner horse", "He . sat astride on the outer horse" (338); they share the same circular movement("round" comes again twice), but while Annie sits near the centre, John Thomaschooses a horse on the outer edge of the platform, to perform eccentric antics on it:Roundthey spun

44、and heaved, in the light. And round he swung on his wooden steed, flinging one leg across her mount, and perilously tipping up and down, across the space, half lying back, laughing at her. (338)11Spatial position and behaviour are directly linked: Annie's quiet side-saddle riding contrasts sharp

45、ly with the man's eccentricity. The girl is concerned about her appearance, ("she was afraid her hat was on one side") and John Thomas plays his part as a perfect suitor, winning hat-pins for her, thus re-enacting primitive man's gift-giving to hisfemale companion. This is only, ho

46、wever, superficial behaviour, for he intends to preserve his marginality. He does not want to enter the circle of a complete sentimental relationship, characterised by possession and mechanical circularity: "he had no idea of becoming anall-roundindividual to her". (339) 8 Cf. Lady Chatter

47、ley's Lover , op. cit. , ch. XIV, p. 219. 9 Women in Love, op. cit. , chapitre III, p. 46.12The lovers are not mere anecdotal characters: they are given significance by Lawrence's irony and use of onomastics. Like Annie, the inspector's function and namemark him out; he has authority ove

48、r the girl conductors, he has "clean hands" (337) unlike the miners, and he is neither a cripple nor a hunchback, unlike the drivers, which makes him desirable. As for his nameJohn ThomasRaynor the reader's attention is attracted by the first part of it with reference to Lady Chatterle

49、y's Lover, 8 where the same "John Thomas" is used by Mellors to designate his penis. Fully exploited in the novel, the sexual connotation of the name is used here to suggest that the young inspector is only a regressed predecessor of the game-keeper and his natural, blooming phallus, w

50、hich is confirmed by the author's spelling out that the young man is "always called John Thomas, except sometimes, in malice, Coddy" (336). The explicit nickname given to the ladykiller is a diminishing alteration of "codpiece" in order to minimize the phallic identity of the

51、 character.Yet, John Thomaswants to keep his status of object of desire and as Annie becomes more and more possessive, he shies away from further involvment in a love story; after the parallelism of the first feelings ("Annie liked John Thomas," "John Thomas really liked Annie")

52、comes divergence: "She did not want a mere nocturnal presence," "John Thomasintended to remain a nocturnal presence" (339). The girl wants to go beyond superficial sexual gratification to reach a complete relationship reconciling the diurnal and nocturnal phases of human personal

53、ity: "Annie wanted to consider him a person, a man; she wanted to take an intelligent interest in him, and to have an intelligent response." To use Lawrentian terminology, Annie is then developing her "knowing-self," i.e., her conscious ego, and by developing the latter, she caus

54、es her instinct for possession to grow: "The possessive female was aroused in Annie". That desire is similar to that of Hermione in Womerin Love, as Birkin has it: "You want to clutch things and have them in your power" 9 and it is linked with the repetition of the name of the fa

55、ir in which the norm refused by John Thomasis inscribed; "The Statutes" connotes law, regulation, code, and more precisely marriage, which remains unspoken up to the dialogue between the man, Annie, and Muriel Baggaley:“Come on, John Thomas! Come on! Choose! said Annie.“What are you after?

56、 Open the door," he said.“We shan't not till you've chosen! said Muriel.“Chosen what? he said.“Chosen the one you're going to marry," she replied. (342) 10 Highwayman and horsestealer, Dick Turpin was born in 1706 in Essex and was hanged in York in 1739.(.) 11 In 1913- 1914, th

57、e ? Cat and Mouse ? Act was promulgated, enabling the release of hunger-strikers s(.) 12 Lawrence was himself aggressed by women: at sixteen, he was working at a Nottingham artificial lim(.)13In the central scene at the Statutes, Lawrence gives John Thomasenough rope to hang himself: on the horses,

58、the inspector's mount bears the name of "Black Bess," the mare that carried Dick Turpin10 to York, where hewas hanged, and in English as in French, hanging evokes marriage. On the other hand, by entering the girls' room, he unconsciously walks into the lion's mouth and becomes

59、the conductresses' plaything ("he was their sport," 343) and their prey: in that scene, the parts of the cat and the mouse, as portrayed in a famous poster of the time 11 are reversed: first "at bay", the man is compared to an animal: "He lay . as an animal lies when it

60、is defeated" / "he started to struggle as an animal might."(343) Their will for revenge sets free deep forces in the girls: "Wildfire", evoking the final burst of violence, was the name of Annie's horse. The adjective "wild" is repeated five times in the short

61、sentences used to describe the physical assault against John Thomas("wild creatures," "in a wild frenzy of fury," "wild blows," "their hair wild," "the wild faces of the girls," 343) to stress the young women's metamorphosis and to throw a differ

62、ent light on the scene. In the physical assault against John Thomas, staged like a hunt, a dream scene can be read between the lines, the Freudian Other Scene, in which the girls' unconscious desire to own the man, to "hold" him 12, emerges. Annie's desire has been frustrated ("she had been so very sure of holding him," 339) and changed into manifest aggressivity. What the tex