Horse Dealer’s Daughter, The - D.H. Lawrence

D.H. Lawrence Wikipedia

Commentary by Karen Bernardo

D.H. Lawrence's "The Horse Dealer’s Daughter" could be described as a story in which boy meets girl. Its plot, on the surface, resembles that of any number of traditionally romantic pastorals: a country boy saves a country girl from drowning, sees something in her that he never saw before, and, at the end of the story, proposes marriage. But, as we soon see, there is nothing typical about Lawrence's story, because the psychological workings of its characters, particularly that of the rescuer, defy all our expectations of how such a story should work. Lawrence cuts through the romanticism inherent in such a plot line to reflect the dark and conflicting feelings of the so-called lovers.

"her eyes were now wide with fear, with doubt, the light was dying from her face, a shadow of terrible greyness was returning. he could not bear the touch of her eyes' question upon him, and the look of death behind the question."