Home > The Daffodil Sky Summary & Study Guide

The Daffodil Sky | Introduction

When ‘‘The Daffodil Sky’’ was published in 1955, H. E. Bates was already well known as a prolific writer of short stories and novels. The story itself is the title piece of a collection that has been described as the crowning achievement in Bates’s later career. ‘‘The Daffodil Sky’’ and the collection’s other stories have received generous praise from reviewers. As testament to their popularity, no less than nine stories from the collection appeared in the 1963 anthology The Best of H. E. Bates. The reputation of ‘‘The Daffodil Sky’’ remains high. Critics have applauded the compelling nature of its visual and sensual images, and the story is indeed filled with sights, sounds, and smells which vividly recreate a rainy summer evening in a sooty English industrial town. The characters who populate Bates’s story have been admired for their passionate vitality, a feature which has prompted comparisons between them and those in the works of D. H. Lawrence.

Although Bates’s story shares general similarities with Lawrence’s work, a more notable literary antecedent for ‘‘The Daffodil Sky’’ is Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s Maud (1855). This poem provided Bates not only with his story’s title but also with a pattern for the plot. Just as the nameless protagonist of Maud kills the man whom he perceives as an obstacle to his happiness in love, so too does Bates’s unnamed young lover kill a potential rival for his love. The literary relationship between Bates and Tennyson lends support to Bates’s acknowledged status as a prose poet and underscores the fact that Bates’s subject matter has a universal appeal. ‘‘The Daffodil Sky’’ is about emotions; it is a tale of passion and jealousy, of rage and regret, and it plays out themes of alienation and loneliness which are common to the literature of many ages.

The Daffodil Sky Summary

Part I: The Return
‘‘The Daffodil Sky’’ opens with the story’s nameless protagonist arriving by train in an unnamed town. A sign forbidding entry to a footbridge that he used to walk across suggests to him that the town has changed since he was last there. His sense that things have changed is confirmed when he enters a pub that he once frequented and finds a new pinball machine and no familiar faces. Falling into conversation with the barman, the protagonist asks about Cora Whitehead, a woman whom he met when he was twenty-two and who used to frequent the pub. The barman does not know Cora. His repeated response to the protagonist’s comments about Cora’s occupation and her acquaintances is that it has ‘‘been a minute’’—that is, a very long time—since any of this information could be veri- fied. One of the patrons, however, knows Cora, and he confirms that she still lives on Wellington Street. The protagonist finishes his drink and leaves.

Part II: Happy Memories
Stepping outside, the protagonist is reminded of the day years before when he first visited the pub. At this point the present fades and gives way to a flashback of past events. As a young farmer bringing a cartload of daffodils to market, the protagonist was caught in a sudden hailstorm one April morning. Running to get into the pub, he collided with Cora. His attraction to her was immediate. Once inside the pub, the protagonist realized that he wouldn’t be able to get to market by noon, for he was trapped there by intermittent hailstorms. Cora reassured him that all would be well, and the luck with which Cora claimed to provide him held true. He managed to sell all of his daffodils to the crowds of late shoppers who ventured out to make purchases at the market.

The encounter with Cora did seem to bring luck to the protagonist. Full of life’s promise, he replaced his cart with a motorcycle—‘‘a Beardmore combination’’ which he purchased from Cora’s friend, Frankie Corbett—and he subsequently invested in a car. As the affair... » Complete The Daffodil Sky Summary