BOOK REVIEW – D. H. LAWRENCE – THE MINER AT HOME Lawrence wrote three quite short back-to-back
stories based on the
disastrous miners’ strikes of 1912. The first was
The Miner At Home, in which a woman struggling to take care of her baby, becomes frustrated by her husband’s lethargy and unwillingness to have a bath after he has finished his shift down the pit. He sits around getting coal dust and dirt over everything. She finally convinces him that he should take a bath, and has to get the tub, and water for him. As she prepares everything, she finds a letter he has signed, agreeing to support a union walk out that is due to start in a week’s time. He has not discussed this with her, and she remembers the previous two unsuccessful strikes proved financially disastrous for the family. As she baths him, they argue bitterly, with her child crying all the time for its own attention. She
accuses him of wanting to strike just to get time off, though he points out that it was a trade union decision and not a personal one. She accuses him of being lazy and not having as much to face as she has to cope with ((a sensitive point of view given the obvious dangers of his vocation). Angered and disgusted, he stomps up, gets dried and dressed and goes off to the pub without another word, leaving her alone to cope with her restless child, and spending the money they will soon need to survive on through the coming industrial action. There is a simple stark, grim domesticity to the story, capturing the claustrophobia and despair of the relationship strained to breaking point by the hardship of the times. The remaining two stories of the trilogy are less filled with despair. The trilogy continues with Her Turn.