The Rainbow Summary / Study Guide

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The Rainbow | Introduction

In September 1915, one month after Methuen first published The Rainbow, Scotland Yard confiscated more than one thousand copies of it from the publisher and printer. Later that year the novel was successfully prosecuted for obscenity. Not until 1924 was D. H. Lawrence able to find an American publisher for The Rainbow. Eventually, the work came to be considered one of Lawrence’s finest, due especially to its intricate study of the tensions that often exist between men and women. Covering the pre–World War I period from about 1840 to 1905, the novel explores the relationships between three generations in the Brangwen family, describing in the process the emergence of English society from the Victorian period and its entrance into the modern period. Lawrence shows how characters are determined in part by the time and place in which they live, and he also dramatizes how they struggle to reconcile conflicting feelings and impulses. Lawrence shows how feelings cannot be conveyed adequately by conventional language, and his poetic prose style also illustrates the importance of imagery in conveying meaning to the text.

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