Bring on the tough stuff - there’s not just one right answer.
- There's a lot of smack talk about money and people's obsessions with earning it. Why does Lawrence hate money so much? What does he propose as an alternative to currency?
- There's no happy ending here, although we are left with some hope. Why does the book end without really ending? Does it otherwise follow conventions of plot?
- How important is it that Clifford was wounded—where he was—in the war? Could he have, say, lost an arm with a similar effect?
- Mellors gets more lines than anyone else in the novel. Is Mellors simply a mouthpiece for Lawrence's ideas, or can he be considered a character in his own right?
- Lady Chatterley's Lover takes a dim view of machinery. Does Lawrence see technology and industry as useful at all, or would he prefer to return to a pre-Industrial time?
- Some critics have accused Lawrence of the extremely intolerant and conservative ideals of fascism, an authoritarian and right-wing system of government often associated with Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco before World War II. Is that a fair accusation?
- Classism, racism, and sexism: there are some really distasteful bits in this book. To what extent are these classist, racist, and sexist views merely part of the book's time period, and to what extent might they be part of Lawrence's worldview? Can his philosophy be separated from these ugly ideas?