Publisher's Synopsis
The Virgin and the Gipsy is a short novel (or novella) by English author D.H. Lawrence. It was written in 1926 and published posthumously in 1930.The story is a romance of blossoming spirit. The character of young Yvette contains the spirit of youthful unrest, curiosity, free-thinking and unprejudiced innocence. Yvette represents the desire for experience and freedom that Lawrence recognized as dominating the imaginations of the younger generation in England. The theme of aspiration for authentic experience is carried by her rebellious attitude and is further developed in her natural attraction to the gipsy man. Her day-to-day experience and the responses of her family are intended to contrast the inexperience and desires of youth with the limitations imposed by the strictures of conventional society.Social propriety for its own sake, a propriety that imposes inhibitions and crushes the possibilities of genuine free-thinking and loving experience, is one of the main enemies in Lawrence's work. Even Mrs. Fawcett is shocked at the notion Yvette could be attracted by the gipsy despite the fact that she herself is living with a younger man even before her divorce has come through.The gipsy represents male sexuality as well as individual freedom. The theme of virginity, and its almost unconscious aspiration for experience, is synonymous with the collective desires for the entire society before it has been perverted by an education made of prejudice and inhibitions. The virgin is inexperienced, and is therefore purely free to see the world as it is before others have had time to cause damage. Lawrence portrays Yvette as unrestrained in a positive sense: She visits the gipsies and the unmarried couple without thinking about any social consequences. She has an innate curiosity for an interesting and genuine life. The themes of her purity and innocence equate closely with a being absolutely untainted by prejudices or judgment. At home, the stifling environment created by her Aunt Cissie and the indolent, annoying Mater drive Yvette to search for uncharted social waters. She is not ashamed of her response to nature when she confesses her strong attraction to the gipsy during conversations with her sister Lucille as well as Mrs. Fawcett and Mr. Eastwood.
