Women in Love

Women In Love contains many thoughtful literary allusions, choose some key examples and elaborate to highlight Birkin's perspective of life?

5 to 6 pages answer

Asked by
Last updated by jill d #170087
Answers 1
Add Yours

Birkin refers to a poem by Robert Browning when he travels by train to London. His quotation calls up images of a lost, mythic past while commenting on the ruin of the present moment. Birkin uses Browning’s poem to express his apocalyptic perspective of modernity. When they visit the junk market and decide to buy an antique chair, Birkin says it reminds him of something from a Jane Austen novel. This reference looks back to a moment in England’s past that Birkin thinks was more vibrant and full of spirit, when the production of crafts was an art. Near the end of the novel, Birkin refers to William Shakespeare twice - first to Romeo and Juliet and then to Hamlet. He and Ursula choose to travel to Verona to act as the star-crossed pair, even though the young lovers of literature came to a tragic end. This allusion adds a foreshadowing of romance tinged with despair. As Birkin watches over Gerald's corpse, he thinks of lines in Hamlet: "Imperial Caesar dead, and turned to clay /Would stop a hole to keep the wind away." The passage comments on the decay of all physical life, imagining the body of Julius Caesar being reduced to nothing more than dust or clay to stop up a hole. Gerald's beauty is gone, and only his body - and Birkin's memory of love - remains.

Source(s)

Women in Love, GradeSaver