Odour of Chrysanthemums Alienation Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #1

The coat with which they had covered the body fell off as they awkwardly turned through the two doorways, and the women saw their man, naked to the waist, lying stripped for work. The old woman began to moan in a low voice of horror. (2.85)

The weird choice to identify Walt as "their man" is one of many moments in which Lawrence distances the reader from the person described and/or deemphasizes that person's status as an individual.

Quote #2

"Never knew such a thing in my life, never! He'd no business to ha' been left. I never knew such a thing in my life! Fell over him clean as a whistle, an' shut him in. Not four foot of space, there wasn't—yet it scarce bruised him." (2.90)

Perhaps the story's obsession with distance and alienation has something to do with the very literal separation that kills Walter. As a result of some kind of cave-in, he ends up walled off from the rest of the world—and his oxygen supply.

Quote #3

And she knew what a stranger he was to her. In her womb was ice of fear, because of this separate stranger with whom she had been living as one flesh. Was this what it all meant—utter, intact separateness, obscured by heat of living? (2.128)

Walt's death makes Elizabeth feel completely alienated, like she never even really knew her husband. She even feels completely separate from the fetus that is growing inside her, which is pretty extreme—after all, they're sharing a body and a food supply . . . how separate can they be?