How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
"A man needed support and comfort. A man needed to have an anchor in the safe world. A man needed a wife." (1.37)
Clifford gets married because that's just what men do. There's nothing in it about what Clifford wants, or—gasp!—what Connie wants. Men are men, ergo they take wives to be supports, comforts, and anchors. (No word about what the ladies get out of it.) Gee, something about his attitude seems off.
Quote #2
But that is how men are! Ungrateful and never satisfied. When you don't have them they hate you because you won't; and when you do have them they hate you again, for some other reason. Or for no reason at all, except that they are discontented children, and can't be satisfied whatever they get, let a woman do what she may. (1.22)
Connie and Hilda love being liberated modern women right up until they realize that all they get to be liberated with is overgrown children who play their Xboxes all day while complaining that you're way too harsh on them.
Quote #3
The four men smoked. And Connie sat there and put another stitch in her sewing...Yes, she sat there! She had to sit mum. She had to be quiet as a mouse, not to interfere with the immensely important speculations of these highly-mental gentlemen. But she had to be there. They didn't get on so well without her; their ideas didn't flow so freely. (4.40)
When Clifford's friends are at Wragby, Connie sits in the room like a good little wifey so the gathering won't turn into a sausage fest. They don't want her to talk, of course; they just want her to be decorative and bring them sandwiches.
Quote #4
The healthy boy with his fresh, clumsy sensuality that she had then been so scornful of! Where would she find it now? It was gone out of men. They had their pathetic, two-seconds spasms like Michaelis; but no healthy human sensuality, that warms the blood and freshens the whole being. (7.8)
By the time she finishes with Michaelis, Connie is so totally over men. Boys might still have a healthy sexuality—she's remembering her high school boyfriend, although if she's concerned about "two-second spasms," boys might not be the way to go—but not men. At least not the ones she knows.
Quote #5
But never warm as a man can be warm to a woman, as even Connie's father could be warm to her, with the warmth of a man who did himself well, and intended to, but who still could comfort a woman with a bit of his masculine glow. (7.16)
What really stinks about modern men is that they're not living up to their potential. When men do masculinity right, they have so much "masculine glow" that some of it spills over onto women, even if the man is just contemplating his own awesomeness. How generous.
Quote #6
She liked handling him. She loved having his body in her charge, absolutely, to the last menial offices. She said to Connie one day: 'All men are babies, when you come to the bottom of them. Why, I've handled some of the toughest customers as ever went down Tevershall pit. But let anything ail them so that you have to do for them, and they're babies, just big babies. Oh, there's not much difference in men!' (9.22-23)
Mrs. Bolton is a nurse, so she sees men when they're sick and in pain. No wonder she thinks they're babies. Might we suggest that part of the problem is Mrs. Bolton infantilizing men by treating them like babies?
Quote #7
In one way, Mrs Bolton made a man of him, as Connie never did. Connie kept him apart, and made him sensitive and conscious of himself and his own states. Mrs Bolton made him aware only of outside things. Inwardly he began to go soft as pulp. But outwardly he began to be effective. (9.63)
Mrs. Bolton encourages Clifford to think about something other than himself for a change, and that's at least a little improvement. Connie encouraged Clifford to think about his feelings too much, and everyone knows that men aren't supposed to have feelings.
Quote #8
A man! The strange potency of manhood upon her! Her hands strayed over him, still a little afraid. Afraid of that strange, hostile, slightly repulsive thing that he had been to her, a man. And now she touched him, and it was the sons of god with the daughters of men. (12.152)
"Sons of god with the daughters of men" is a line from Genesis, the first book of the Bible. In other words, sex with Mellors is so awesome that it's like having sex with a god. Connie realizes that men aren't actually "hostile" and "repulsive" but god-like and wonderful. Well, it's an improvement.
Quote #9
And he realized as he went into her that this was the thing he had to do, to come into tender touch, without losing his pride or his dignity or his integrity as a man. After all, if she had money and means, and he had none, he should be too proud and honourable to hold back his tenderness from her on that account. "I stand for the touch of bodily awareness between human beings," he said to himself, "and the touch of tenderness." (18.145)
Mellors isn't too happy about being a stay-at-home husband. But, as he's having sex with Connie, he generously realizes that he shouldn't deprive her of the pleasure of his company just because she's got money. What a self-sacrifice.
Quote #10
If he would have admitted it, and prepared himself for it: or if he would have admitted it, and actively struggled with his wife against it: that would have been acting like a man. (19.26)
Mrs. Bolton can't help rolling her eyes when Clifford flips out that Connie wants to leave him. He's being a total baby about it, when it was obvious to anyone that she'd been having an affair.