I discovered “Coals of Fire” by Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews because of Alonzo Kimbault’s illustration that goes with it. On the first page alone, Andrews brings up a few of the big issues facing women of that time: World War I and suffrage. Her protagonist, Aileen O’Hara, begins the story convincing a rally of suffragists that they should give up their fight for the right to vote and put all of their effort, time and money into the war. The discussion at the rally is an incredible feat of displaying different views on the subject, views that were probably being discussed at the time. Should women put aside their longstanding struggle for suffrage to help their country? When one suffragist states that the cause is not theirs another asks if they aren’t all English to which the woman replies, “No. I am a woman first” (54). The story is a very interesting look into the issues women faced in that time period.
I first noticed the D.H. Lawrence story because I recognized his name from a modern British poetry class. I’ve read a lot of his poetry and one of his books, but I wanted to see how he handled the short story genre. The Soiled Rose is about a man returning to his old hometown and visiting an old girlfriend. The story is naturalist in that only the mundane happens and none of the characters seem to make any free will decisions. Also, Lawrence spends a lot of time making the flowers of the fields surrounding his characters reflect their emotional state. When the main character, Syson, first looks down the slope that leads to his old girlfriend’s house, he is struck by the beauty of it. Then the man he just met, Arthur, who wants to marry his old girlfriend, accuses him of wrongdoing in their relationship and suddenly the very same hillside changes to something ironic (9-10). There are no big revelations or extraordinary circumstances, just people dealing with the circumstances of their situations.
