42 pages • 1 hour read
D. H. LawrenceThe Rainbow
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1915A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “How Tom Brangwen Married a Polish Lady”
The Brangwen family has lived on Marsh Farm in Nottinghamshire for generations. The family’s land is highly profitable, so the family members live comfortably but are still careful to avoid overspending. The men are content with life on the farm, but the women imagine life in the nearby cities and strive to educate their children. In 1840, collieries open and are connected by a canal that cuts through Marsh Farm. A railroad is built shortly after the canal, and although the Brangwens produce supplies for the collieries, the region’s sudden industrialization makes the family feel like “strangers in their own place” (14).
Alfred Brangwen and his wife have six children: an unnamed eldest son, Alfred, Frank, Alice, Effie, and Tom. The eldest son left home at a young age and never returned. Alfred works in a lace factory, and Frank becomes a butcher. Alice marries a collier and moves away. Tom attends the Grammar School in nearby Derby and excels at literary studies. When their father dies, Tom returns home to run Marsh Farm. The siblings fight often—especially Tom and Frank. When he is 19, Tom becomes fascinated with sex, but he finds his first sexual encounter upsetting. Tom’s mother dies when he is 23, and he begins frequenting the Red Lion in Cossethay. A year later, Tom sees a beautiful woman when he stops at a hotel. He takes her for a horseback ride. Tom watches the woman and her husband at dinner, and he is captivated by their relationship. When he returns home, Tom begins drinking heavily. Effie marries and moves away, leaving Tom alone with Tilly, their longtime servant.
When Tom is 28, he sees a woman out in town and instinctively knows she will be his wife: “‘That’s her,’ he said involuntarily” (29). Tilly tells him the woman is Mrs. Lensky, a Polish widow who has a young daughter named Anna. Mrs. Lensky is the vicar’s new caretaker. One afternoon, Mrs. Lensky stops by Marsh Farm because she is out of butter. Tom invites her and Anna to visit again, and they begin spending time together. On one outing, Tom notices Mrs. Lensky still wears her wedding ring. One night in March, Tom walks to the vicarage where Mrs. Lensky lives, and he watches her tell Anna a story before bed. Tom proposes; Mrs. Lensky says yes, then no, and then yes again.
Chapter 2 Summary: “They Live at the Marsh”
Lydia Lensky was born to landowners in Poland. Despite having social status, her family also had many debts. Lydia marries Paul Lensky, a young doctor and “patriot.” Lydia trains as a nurse and joins Paul in political rallies. They have two children who both die from diphtheria. Lydia trains as a nurse, but she is depressed, following her husband “like a shadow, serving, echoing” (49). They arrive in London as refugees. They have another child, Anna, and Paul dies shortly after her birth. Lydia travels with Anna to Yorkshire to care for a dying rector. Lydia is still depressed and finds that life in Yorkshire makes her depression worse. When the rector dies, Lydia and Anna move to Cossethay. Lydia continues to struggle as she adapts to life in England, but her mental health improves while she works as a caretaker for a new vicar. Lydia does not know what to make of her newfound happiness after being so depressed for so long.
One afternoon, Lydia sees Tom while she is out walking, and she “fe[els] Brangwen go by almost as if he had brushed her” (54). She desires him, but while they are courting she finds it difficult to connect with him. Tom fears they are “foreign” and “strangers” to each other, and he does not understand much of what she shares with him about her life in Poland. After the wedding, Tom becomes afraid Lydia may leave him because he is not the father of her child: “She was not really his, it was not a real marriage” (58). When Lydia becomes pregnant, they argue frequently and intensely. Lydia withdraws from Tom, and his drinking increases.
Anna does not readily accept Tom as her stepfather; she often asks Lydia when they can go home and accuses Tom of stealing her mother. Eventually, Anna joins Tom working in the fields. He teaches her to gather eggs and feed the horse. They become close, and their bond brings Tom peace. When Lydia goes into labor, Anna hears her mother crying in pain and is frightened; she sobs and demands to see Lydia. Tom wraps Anna in a warm shawl, and they go out to feed the animals until she calms down. Tom puts Anna to bed, then visits Lydia. The sight of her in pain from childbirth overwhelms him momentarily, and he stands outside in the rain. Tom goes back in the house, feeling humbled.
Chapter 3 Summary: “Childhood of Anna Lensky”
Lydia and Tom name their first child after Tom, but he struggles to feel connected to his newborn son. Lydia begins ignoring Tom more often, so he focuses on bonding with Anna. He teaches her how to count and recite the alphabet, and he sings nursery rhymes with her. Every week, they go to the market together. The crowds unnerve Anna at first, but she enjoys being the center of attention among Tom’s friends. She jokes with the men and feels that she and Tom are important people.
Tom learns that his brother Alfred is having an affair with a Mrs. Forbes in Derbyshire. Mrs. Forbes is an educated lady, and her late husband was a doctor. She and Alfred have similar cultural and literary tastes. Tom is envious of their relationship, and he feels inadequate in his own life. When he goes home, he and Lydia argue about the state of their marriage. She accuses him of seeking an extramarital affair, which he denies. They have a breakthrough when they both admit that they do not make each other feel wanted, loved, or appreciated. Tom and Lydia reconcile, and their intimacy after the argument feels like “entry into another circle of existence” (90). Anna observes the change in Tom and Lydia’s attitudes, and she no longer feels like she has to be their mediator.
Chapters 1-3 Analysis
The novel opens with a description of the Brangwen family: their land, their way of life, and their anticipation that change is coming. The sweeping overview establishes the novel’s central themes, such as gender difference and the rise of industrialization. The family’s land, Marsh Farm, is soon affected by the rapid expansion of the coal industry. Multiple collieries open nearby, a canal connecting them bisects the Farm, and a railroad is constructed shortly after the canal is completed. The Brangwens of that generation feel like strangers in their own land, a sentiment that hints at future generations’ disappointment with the ways that industrialization permanently changes the natural world around them. The opening pages also foreshadow the Brangwen women’s independence and ambition, introducing the theme of Gender Roles in Domestic Life. While the men are content with life on the farm, the women look outward and want a different form of life. This gender difference not only establishes the opposing perspectives that will cause much tension in the future protagonists’ marriages, but it also highlights a core component of that tension: The men cling to what the world was, while the women look outward to what the world is becoming.
The first protagonist is Tom Brangwen, whom Lawrence avoids depicting as a flawless hero. Tom is an attractive man, but he struggles academically and is often insecure. He desires love and a sense of belonging in the world, and he frequently criticizes himself. His struggles introduce the theme of Society, Family, and the Self. Tom is imperfect, a realistic everyman. Tom’s siblings are not given much narrative attention, but their lives are noteworthy. Alfred pursues a career that aligns with the Industrial Revolution and later “marries up” with a wealthy woman. Frank, on the other hand, displays a fascination with blood and death from a young age. He becomes a butcher, and there is something sinister in his demeanor, but the novel does not explore that quality. In Chapter 3, when Lydia gives birth, Tom likens the sound of her pained crying to the owls he heard in his youth. From the novel’s earlier description of Frank, one may reasonably assume that Frank was the brother who shot the owls, leaving Tom with a disturbing image of the dead birds that he remembers with remarkable clarity to the present day.
Tom’s early sexual experiences are fraught with complex feelings of inadequacy and shame. He struggles to understand women as nuanced beings, and it is hard work for him to unlearn the binary of “women one can sleep with” and “women one cannot/should not sleep with.” Tom’s first sexual encounter is with a sex worker, and the experience disrupts his understanding of who women are and what they can be or do in the world. Afterward, his sexual desires make him feel ashamed, but he cannot avoid them. When he meets Lydia, he first sees her from a distance, and he instinctively knows they will be married. However, the distance between them never fully closes because of their cultural differences and vastly dissimilar life experiences. Lydia is a widowed refugee from Poland, while Tom is comparatively spoiled and has more limited life experiences. Although Lydia hopes she will not be subservient to her husband in her second marriage, Tom foists his life onto her shoulders and relies on her to complete his sense of self.
As Tom and Lydia’s relationship becomes more fraught and distant, he turns his attention to his stepdaughter, Anna. For the most part, their bond is endearing and relatively innocent. He teaches her counting and nursery rhymes, and she does her best to help him while he works on the farm. However, the tender moments are undercut by the ever-present sense that Tom is pursuing this close bond with Anna because of the distance between him and Lydia. He seeks companionship and belonging, and he does not receive that from his wife. Anna ends up carrying Tom’s burdens—doing emotional labor for him after he finds that his wife doesn’t adequately fill that role—and he invests so much of his selfhood into being her father that when she finally accepts him as such, he feels triumphant.
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