The story is set in the Midlands during the Great War. The main places of event in the story are on the tram, at the fair and at the depot of the tram station. The combination of the Midlands and the Great War make the setting somewhat gloomy. It is probably set in winter because the nights were “howling cold, black, and windswept.” Later on in the story there is spoken about the “black, drizzling darkness.” D.H. Lawrence describes the setting as a very dark, depressing place and time. The villages through which the tram drives are not described in a positive way as well. The villages are described as ugly, the marketplaces as stark, grimy and cold. The tramline itself is even declared to be the most dangerous tram-service in England so the whole setting is somewhat shady.

There are not a lot of characters. The main characters are John Thomas and Annie but there are other characters as

There is not much said about the other girls. They probably are all girls whom John Thomas slept with. They are all very vindictive and want to teach him a lesson. They do not really have a will of their own; they just do what Annie tells them to do and stop when Annie tells them to stop.

The story is written in an anti-feministic way. D.H. Lawrence ridicules the girls in the story. First, they seem to be tough but in the end, they are just stupid creatures that do not know what they did. I think that D.H. Lawrence wanted to slate feminism that started to come up in that time. Of course, it is reasonable that a girl wants to be more than a “nocturnal presence” but he describes it in such a way that Annie seems unreasonable in asking that. All the girls in the story are generalized as young hussies. In the passage where the girls attack John Thomas, they are more pictured as animals than as humans. They have lost all self-control and do not know when to quit.

Although I do not agree with D.H. Lawrence’s view on women, I like the way the story is written. You have to be a great writer to achieve it that the reader starts to like a character that is actually someone with not an appealing character.

When you think about John Thomas, he does not have such an appealing character but for some reason he gets your sympathy, mine anyway. He is a bastard in the way he treats women but the girls always provoke it, otherwise they would not choose to work at the service. He is always in good mood, always cheerful and gallant and that makes him get your sympathy.

At first, he did not have a special interest in Annie, that is to say, not more of an interest as in the other girls but he does like her more than he does like the other girls. At the fair he is flirting with her, he puts his arm around her when they were in the dragons, paid for her at the merry-go-round, smiled at her all the time, won two hatpins for her and eventually kissed her. When Annie wanted to get to know him better, he left her because he only wanted to be a one-night-stand. He did like

Some topics in this essay:
John Thomas, DH Lawrence, Midlands War, DH Lawrence’s, john thomas, James Joyce, , Thomas Raynor, dh lawrence, Thomas Annie, annie tells stop, midlands war, girls girls, loyal boyfriend, appealing character, setting somewhat, girls story, remains friendly, chose annie,