The death of a man and the birth of a love affair are the subjects of two short stories by DH Lawrence and, although their plots vary considerably, Similar patterns of dark and light imagery, renewal and rebirth reinforce Lawrence's theme of regeneration. In his short stories titled "The Smell of Chrysanthemums" and "The Horse Trader's Daughter", Lawrence uses patterns of dark and light imagery to represent the stages of transformation undergone by Elizabeth and Mabel, the female protagonists of these two stories . Dark images illustrate each woman's starting point – stale, stagnant, physically alive but almost dead inside. The light imagery represents the finalization of their transformations – regeneration, rebirth. The tone of these stories correlates with the journey of their characters. Indeed, even more than a correlation, the tone seems to directly represent the situation of Elizabeth in her story and of Mabel in hers. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Elizabeth's story begins with shadows. “The miners, alone, in trails and in groups, passed like divergent shadows towards their homes” (2483). She tells her grandson to come in because "it's getting dark" and when she looks across the train tracks, she describes the darkness "settling over the spaces of the railway and the trucks: the miners, in gray and dark groups” and her husband. is not in one of these groups, he does not come (2484-2485). Even something beautiful, like a bouquet of flowers, is portrayed in a negative way. When her daughter murmurs that they “smell good,” her mother laughs and says, “No, not for me.” It was chrysanthemums when I married him, and chrysanthemums when you were born, and the first time they brought him home drunk, he had brown chrysanthemums in his buttonhole” (2487). Its beginning is so dark that even a bouquet of flowers cannot light it up. Mabel's story has a similarly dark beginning. The breakfast table is “desolate,” the dining room is “dreary” and “waiting to be done away with,” and Mabel is alone—she does not “share the same life as her brothers” (2496). Her brothers are irritable towards her, she doesn't answer them, she looks away and one of them calls her "the sulkiest bitch that ever walked" and we see that her mood is very dark. His house isn't any brighter. She is described as "servantless" and desolate, a household she has maintained "in misery for her inefficient brothers" for all the months since her father's death (2499-2500). His mood is bitter and his surroundings are bitter, so it's no surprise that his story begins so darkly. Before she achieves regeneration but long after her desolate beginnings, Elizabeth in “The Smell of Chrysanthemums” gains some light in her life. When she learns of her husband's death, she "lights a candle and goes into the little room" and the candlelight shines while her mother-in-law sits by the lit fire (2492). The room is dark, but not dark, as she and her mother-in-law begin to wash his corpse and Elizabeth kisses "her husband's body, with cheeks and lips" and when their work is done, he appears to be “a man with a handsome body and whose face showed no trace of drink. He was blond, fleshy, with beautiful limbs” (2494). The process is not joyful, but there are glimmers of light and hope as she cares for her husband's body and comes to terms with his death. The realization that one's life will never again be clouded by worryregarding her drinking and continued absence from her and her children's lives is enough to begin the process of bringing her back to life. The middle of Mabel's story is also illuminated. When she visits her mother's grave, she arranges flowers and cleans the marble tombstone in a "state close to pure happiness." By cleaning and caring for her grave mother, she feels intimately connected to her - more connected to her than to any of the living human beings in her life. When she leaves her mother's grave and enters the water to attempt to end her life, she is saved by the doctor and, once again, we see the word "dim". He takes her out of the water and looks out at the “dark” world and when he takes her home, a fire is burning in the fireplace (2503). Although its surroundings are still dark, it is no longer completely dark; she gained a little light. Because the doctor saved her, we understand that he feels a certain attraction for her, a certain connection with her; it's possible that she feels the connection she feels with her deceased mother with a person who is actually alive. This possibility fills his story with hope. The most brilliant images conclude Elizabeth's story and symbolize her final rebirth. As she cleans and wraps her husband's corpse, it is "clear, pure and white, beautiful as never a child was created" (2495). She looks at his body cleared of all smoky life and she understands that "they had met in the dark and fought in the dark", but this episode of her life is over (2495-2496). It is not the death of her husband that illuminates her life; rather, it was the change of heart, the realization that even though he was flawed, she had a husband with whom she would always be bonded through their children. She no longer sees a man who is flawed, a man exhausted by the daily grind of his life and work and who has turned to alcohol for relief; she sees a changed man, a man she didn't understand when she was alive because she was too busy denying him and being angry with him. But now she is seeing another man. She sees a man who will no longer disappoint her, but who she will remember as a father of children and a human being who struggles in a difficult life. She hadn't loved him in her life because she never tried to know him, but that's all over now. All she has to focus on is life - her life and the lives of her children. She therefore covers him with a sheet and quietly begins to “tidy up the kitchen” (2496). Similar to the conclusion of Elizabeth's story, DH Lawrence uses bright imagery in the final moments of Mabel's story as she is reborn. The light from the streetlights shines through the windows and the doctor lights the gas with matches and she is wearing her best dress and her hair is neatly done. They kissed passionately several times because Mabel realized that the doctor loves her. She knows he loves her because he saved her. He was stagnant, isolated, and had only witnessed real, raw emotions through his patients and their interactions with the people in their lives. He had experienced them vicariously. And Mabel's only connection was to her deceased mother. But they connect to each other. The doctor is finally directly involved in the emotion that he has always witnessed from the outside. And she finally found the connection she had to her deceased mother's grave in a living, breathing human being. She is no longer alone, nor is the doctor. These are two seemingly isolated individuals who have finally found each other. When they come out of the water together, it's a kind of rebirth for both of them and the romantic relationship that..