Lady Chatterley's Lover Youth Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #1

He was only caught in the general, popular recoil of the young against convention and against any sort of real authority. Fathers were ridiculous: his own obstinate one supremely so. (1.29)

Like all kids, Clifford is rebelling against his father. It sounds here like this rebellion against convention is something new—is Lawrence implying that youth revolt is a symptom or a cause of modernity's problems?

Quote #2

For Connie had adopted the standard of the young: what there was in the moment was everything. And moments followed one another without necessarily belonging to one another. (2.23)

Young people never think about consequences. Anyone who's ever had a parent or a teacher has heard this one—but is Lady Chatterley's Lover buying into it? Would it be better to live without thinking about consequences? Thinking too much about the future might just end up trapping you at Wragby.

Quote #3

He was the trembling excited sort of lover, whose crisis soon came, and was finished. There was something curiously childlike and defenceless about his naked body: as children are naked. His defences were all in his wits and cunning, his very instincts of cunning, and when these were in abeyance he seemed doubly naked and like a child, of unfinished, tender flesh, and somehow struggling helplessly. (3.89)

Michaelis has all the sexual stamina of a post-adolescent, but Connie finds that kind of appealing—or, at least she will until she finds herself a real man.