The Rainbow: Analysis of Major Characters
"The Rainbow" explores the complexities of human relationships through its major characters, primarily focusing on the Brangwen family. Tom Brangwen, a solitary farmer, finds companionship and love in Lydia Lensky, a Polish widow who brings a sense of modernity and passion to their marriage. Their lives intertwine with their children, especially Anna, Lydia's daughter, who forms strong bonds with both her stepfather and her eventual husband, William Brangwen. William, a lace designer, becomes increasingly overshadowed by domestic responsibilities and his wife's focus on their children, leading him to seek solace in hobbies and religious activities.
Ursula, Anna and William's daughter, is portrayed as an ambitious young woman yearning for deeper experiences beyond her family obligations. She grapples with her relationships, particularly with Anton Skrebensky, who struggles to meet her emotional and intellectual needs. The narrative also introduces Winifred Inger, a schoolteacher who briefly connects with Ursula, highlighting themes of love, ambition, and societal expectations. Through these characters, "The Rainbow" delves into the tensions between personal desires and family dynamics, ultimately portraying a rich tapestry of life, love, and the pursuit of fulfillment.
The Rainbow: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: D. H. Lawrence
First published: 1915
Genre: Novel
Locale: England
Plot: Psychological realism
Time: Late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
Tom Brangwen, a substantial English farmer. He is a lonely man leading a bachelor's life, driven by his desires to sordid meetings with passing women and to frequent bouts with the brandy bottle, until his marriage to Lydia Lensky, a Polish widow whom he woos in an abrupt but successful courtship that rises above his own usual uncommunicativeness and a language barrier. Tom loves his wife, and he loves Anna, her small daughter. As the years pass, Tom becomes a kind of rural patriarch, watching his two sons, Tom and Fred, and Anna, his stepdaughter, grow to maturity and face their own problems of life and love. His good if unremarkable life ends abruptly when he drowns in a sudden flood.
Lydia Lensky, a Polish widow from an aristocratic landowning family. She is a nurse and quite an emancipated woman for her time. Lonely for a man's love and reduced to being a housekeeper in a vicarage, she readily accepts Tom Brangwen as a husband. She becomes a passionate and devoted wife to him and bears him two sons. Although she is happily married, she sometimes misses her old life and keeps up a friendship with Baron Skrebensky, a fellow exile and an Anglican clergyman. Because her first husband, a Polish doctor, was a man driven by his enthusiasm for various causes all of his life, she appreciates all the more the phlegmatic temper of Tom Brangwen and her quiet life with him at Marsh Farm. In their early married state, she is more advanced and leads Tom in their love.
Tilly, the Brangwens'cross-eyed housekeeper, a woman with a strong affection for Tom Brangwen. Having been in the household since he was a boy, she had served his father and mother before he took over the farm.
Anna Lensky, Lydia Lensky's daughter by her first husband, a bright young child of four at the time of her mother's second marriage. Forming a deep attachment for her stepfather, she goes with him everywhere and looks on him as a real parent. Anna falls in love with her stepfather's nephew, William Brangwen, and marries him. Until her children are born, she is a fond wife and eager for love. Later, her children become her chief interest, and her husband has no place in her life except as a means to enlarging her matriarchy.
William (Will) Brangwen, Tom Brangwen's nephew, a lace designer in a factory. He marries Anna Lensky, who soon comes to dominate his whole existence. After their children are born and her interest becomes centered in them, he turns to all sorts of hobbies connected with religion. He uses his artistic talents to renovate the parish church, and he directs the church choir. Before his marriage, he had been a sculptor until he learned that his enthusiasm outran his self-discipline and his craft. Years later, he takes up sculpture again, only to find that he has lost his imagination after acquiring the necessary craft. He becomes a man driven from his home by his children, and he has little feeling for his offspring, except for his oldest child, Ursula.
Ursula Brangwen, the oldest child of William Brangwen and Anna Lensky. At an early age, she helps to take care of the four sisters and the brother added to the family. She and her sister Gudrun are given a good education, after which Ursula becomes a schoolteacher. Not wanting to marry immediately after graduation from high school, she desires a wide vista of life and continually reaches out eagerly for wider, deeper experiences. Dissatisfied with teaching, she goes to college. During her final year of college, she takes Anton Skrebensky as her lover. She has loved him many years, during most of which he has been absent in Africa, fighting in the Boer War. During his absence, Ursula's one experience in love is an affair with one of her high-school teachers, Miss Inger. Anna wants too much of love and demands too much of Anton Skrebensky, whom she sends away because she finds him spiritually inadequate. While ill with pneumonia, she also loses the infant he has fathered. Her vision of the rainbow is a promise of escape from the world of Skrebensky and the world of her parents, divided by love and conflict.
Anton Skrebensky, the son of Baron Skrebensky, a friend of Lydia Brangwen. Young Skrebensky is an intelligent young officer of engineers in the British army. Although he loves Ursula deeply, he cannot meet her demands for spiritual as well as physical fulfillment. After she sends him away, he marries the daughter of his commanding officer. He cannot understand why Ursula wants a college education; as the wife of an officer in India, she will not need one. Happy in a life of parties, golf, and riding, he fails to see Ursula's need for knowledge of the world and herself.
Winifred Inger, a schoolteacher with whom Ursula Brangwen has a brief affair. She is a practical, worldly woman who, when she has an opportunity, marries Ursula's well-to-do uncle, who manages a colliery in northern England. She bears her husband a son in exchange for a life of ease and plenty.
Gudrun Brangwen, Ursula's younger sister. A background figure in this novel, she is one of the central characters in WomeninLove.