The Rainbow Essay Analysis

In Lawrence’s The Rainbow a woman is unhappy with her situation in life, because, while she is conscious of a world outside the farm, she is not a part of it, nor is she thought to be able, even by herself, to understand it. Lawrence highlights this complexity through many comparisons ending in contradiction and irony, as well as anaphora and analogy.

Lawrence begins with “it was enough for the men….it was enough” (1-4) to establish that the woman is alone in her yearnings and inadequacies, separate from the men, with this anaphora. He says that “the woman wanted another form of life” (14) outside of the farm. In order to inform the reader of this “outside” place Lawrence utilizes phrases like “active scope of man” 919-20) and “enlarge their own…freedom” (12). This lends to the thought process of letting a bird fly free or the blossoming of a flower, but in a middle paragraph it states that the woman is “straining to hear…straining to see” once again using anaphora, to show that unless the woman moves her geographic location she will not be able to hear or participate. Ties must be severed.

However, this woman is unable to sever such ties that will allow her to reach the next level in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, because by leaving the farm she forfeits her substance and sense of belonging for self-actualization. This is shown clearly through the woman’s analogies and comparisons, as she equates her husband to a bull’ her husband and her “man folk” as inferior to “the vicar” (even though she doesn't understand it); and her husband as “dull and local”. The catharsis of the issue is summed up with this: the woman wants to possess knowledge, creativity, respect, to achieve self-actualization, but in doing so she gives up her food, shelter, water, and sense of belonging. She cannot leave the farm to live without dying from being apart from the farm.

The irony of the comparison of the vicar is that the woman claims “in the vicar’s nature was that which passed beyond her knowledge,” but in fact it was just that—knowledge and consciousness that set him apart. The vicar’s power was his paradox, how frail his physical self was and how evolved his psyche was—because he had achieved transcendence.

My initial essay score was a seven, this is because, as I did touch on much of the needed content, it was only briefly, and with minimal evidence. My analysis was on its way to being deeper, but it just wasn’t quite there. I think Sarah M. graded by essay a little too generously, because it was very superficial. I also based it off of Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs, which could have led to the correct analysis but because I did not know the author’s background well enough, it was not sufficient.

There are many ways I could improve my essay, mostly by addressing the correct complexity in the piece, being the contrast of blood of knowledge and the contrast of man and woman. I also should have more deeply probed the actual structure of the passage itself, and analyzed the contrasting structure of longing and recognition. I did not even comment on the rhetorical question, which almost always points to the complexity of the piece.

However a very interesting point within the scope of things is the fact that almost everyone missed the author’s true intent, because we live in the western world and knowledge (being in an AP class) is important to us, so many of us may have thought of the correct complexity but thought it was too improbable and dismissed it.  I only mentioned one true literary device, anaphora, and never stated the impact of that as it pertains to complacency.