Odour of Chrysanthemums - D. H. Lawrence

Question 1

‘A woman drew back into the hedge’

Answer 1

Metaphor: nature offers protection

Question 2

‘She stood insignificantly trapped between jolting black wagons and the hedge.’

Answer 2

Adverb: ‘insignificantly’. Shows the main focus of the town is business/coal and nature.

Question 3

‘A large bony vine clutched at the house as if to claw it down.’

Answer 3

Characterises nature as possessive and powerful, overrunning houses. ‘Bony’ malnourished: sinister tone. House is captive.

Question 4

‘Pit bank loomed up beyond the pond.’

Answer 4

Personifies pit bank: industry such a vital figure in the town’s people lives, same importance as a person.

Question 5

‘Flames like red sores licking it’s ashy sides.’

Answer 5

Simile and personification. Painting a scene of work/industry to the reader.

Question 6

‘Miners … passed like shadows diverging home’

Answer 6

Similie: workers so common within the town, blend in like a shadow. Adds slight mystery/tension.

Question 7

‘She was a tall woman of imperious mien, handsome’

Answer 7

Adjective: imperious (impressive). Characterizes her as unusual, masculine, almost unapproachable.

Question 8

‘Her smooth black hair was parted exactly.’

Answer 8

The character is shown to be meticulous over her looks.

Question 9

‘Her face was calm and set.’

Answer 9

The character is in control of her emotions and physical manner.

Question 10

‘It was chrysanthemums when I married him, and chrysanthemums when you were born and the first time they ever brought him home drunk he’d got brown chrysanthemums in his button-hole.’

Answer 10

Chrysanthemum motif throughout the text, added to here. The flowers are present at all the key events in her life.

Question 11

‘She said, more gently.’

Answer 11

The character has the ability to adapt.

Question 12

‘She silenced herself.’

Answer 12

Displaying to reader her great emotional control, and control of her physical manner.

Question 13

‘Her anger wearied itself, lay down to rest, opening it’s eyes from time to time and steadily watching, it’s ears raised to listen.’

Answer 13

Personifies anger to stress to the reader the size of it.

Question 14

‘Her heart burst with anger at their father.’

Answer 14

Metaphor/hyperbole: exaggerating to reader stress

Question 15

Repetition of ‘trouble’ and ‘hope so’ in rambling speech made by Mrs Bates (senior). Unfinished sentence ‘I don’t know how it is…’

Answer 15

Unlike Elizabeth, Mrs Bates is not in control of her emotions or speech.

Question 16

‘There was a cold deathly smell of Chrysanthemums in the room.’

Answer 16

Adding to motif of Chrysanthemums, present at key events. Contrast: flowers symbolise life/growing with ‘deathly’.

Question 17

‘Elizabeth embraced the body of her husband … trying to get some connection. But she could not. She was driven away. He was impregnable.’

Answer 17

Theme of grief: the different effects it has upon people.

Question 18

‘He was blonde, full-fleshed, with fine limbs. But he was dead.’

Answer 18

Unacceptance of death.
Contrast of the imagery: a healthy young man and death.

Question 19

‘He was dead, her living flesh.’

Answer 19

Juxtaposition: their incompatibility.

Question 20

‘White as milk he is, clear as a twelve month baby.’

Answer 20

Similes, showing purity and innocence (juxtaposed with the idea of death)

Question 21

‘A great dread and weariness held her.’

Answer 21

Personification: exemplifying the size/relevance of the emotions.

Question 22

Repetition of ‘peace’. ‘Peaceful as sleep’.

Answer 22

Acceptance, simile, showing the calm and tranquillity.

Question 23

Repetition of ‘lamb’.

Answer 23

Signifies spring/innocence, metaphor (murdered in religious texts e.g Bible).

Question 24

Semantic field of children/innocence.

Answer 24

Stress to the reader the underserving aspect of his death, his mother’s perspective upon him.

Question 25

‘Life had left him apart and utterly alien to her.’

Answer 25

Metaphor: their incompatibility, moment of realisation that she didn’t truly know him.

Question 26

‘She was grateful to death, which restored the truth.’

Answer 26

Moment of realisation/turning point, she didn’t truly know him.

Question 27

‘They had met in the dark and fought in the dark.’

Answer 27

Metaphorical and literal for their relationship: unknowing of each other, truly.

Question 28

‘The children belonged to life. This dead man had nothing to do with them.’

Answer 28

Life and death are personified, possessive.

Question 29

‘She knew she submitted to life, which was her immediate master. But from death, her ultimate master, she winced with fear and shame.’

Answer 29

Personification of life and death: possessive and powerful, feared. Death takes superiority.