In 'Lady Chatterley's Lover', D.H Lawrence presents a work of fiction that, by its explicit narrative became one of the most controversial books of the 20th Century; it is a tale of tease and titillation and does not present the writer at his most creative. Instead, the author plays on taboo and the sensibilities of the era by suggesting that a forbidden relationship, a cross-cultural expedition could be a pleasurable and intoxicating one. Discuss the validity of this statement using examples of textual analysis and explore the imagery of the narrative in order to explain your response. A reading of 'Lady Chatterley's Lover' that interprets it as salacious, indicting or in any way pornographic is a reading that refuses to recognise an outstanding literary composition that demonstrates not only the nature of love but also a work of literature that is heavily enriched with emotional density. The love theme of the novel is ubiquitous, unambiguous and daringly expressed, but this does not mean that it was the intention of the writer to over-sentimentalise or publish a work that was necessarily controversial. The novel is bold, innovative and unique, it looks at love in a way that transcends cultural barriers: class culture, gender culture and the culture of the identity of the self, in terms of both characterisation and readership reception.

The structure of the novel reflects clearly, the journey taken by Connie: it introduces her as a supposedly sexual aware young female who considers her early liaisons with young men to be an internal debate by which she establishes her primitive natural sexuality. She is satisfied not so much by explicit pleasure but by the victory that she gains over the young men by allowing them to reach their crisis first and holding them erect and passive where she can ingest their masculinity without their dispute. The narrative then introduces her as a young married woman whose sex has been deterred by her husband's incurred war injuries, leading onto her initial, naive affair with Michaelis before she encounters Mellors who will become not only a sexual partner but also her most fulfilling love interest. The sexual scenes are described in detail and the language used does not submit to subtlety; Lawrence, in describing the act of climactic love, writes naturally, he does not pander to the threat of censorship and, by doing so presents not just a whiff of pleasure to the reader, but allows them to engage fully with the physical, psychological and emotional currents of modern day love. To concentrate purely on the scenes of romantic endeavor, would be to discount the narrative entirely, the reader would miss the blossoming of Connie's character, her budding as a young woman, blooming as a fully romantically endowed woman, and her flowering in the throes of the most significant relationship of her life. Each stage is natural to any human being and, to ignore this development in order to focus on tabloid taboo, sordidness and controversy will, in no way increase the depth of literary dexterity and craft that Lawrence has taken pains and risked his reputation in order to see published. However, the 1928 banning order introduces it into the public domain in 1960 under a questionable banner. To the publisher: what context could create a similar field for fame fire? "...The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about..."1; to the author: the context might well have created a slur on his professional integrity but also placed him in a position of literary heroism; to the artistic community: what better way to promote the 1960s sexual revolution, rise in feminism and liberation of free art could they wish for? The book became a watershed allowing the audience to cross over into accepting literature as a rational expression of natural love without pornographic stereotype; to the popular reader: a chance to engage with art without patriarchal or religious