Anxiety

Quiz — Anxiety by D. H. Lawrence

1. Recall – Form & Language: How would you describe the language Lawrence uses in Anxiety, and what effect does this stylistic choice create?

1. Recall – Setting & Context: What method of communication does the speaker dread in the poem, and why would this object have carried such emotional weight for an early 20th-century reader?

1. Recall – Key Image: What two natural images open the poem, and what do they symbolise about the speaker's emotional state?

1. Recall – Key Symbol: What colour is the bicycle in the poem, and what does the vehicle represent in its historical context?

1. Comprehension – Plot: What happens when the telegram boy reaches the gate, and how does the speaker respond to this outcome?

1. Comprehension – Tone Shift: How does the tone of the poem change between its opening and its final stanza?

1. Analysis – Symbolism: Explain the significance of the gate as a symbol. What does it represent in terms of the speaker's psychological situation?

1. Analysis – Imagery: Lawrence uses the image of two black birds passing the window. What does this image contribute to the atmosphere of the poem, and how does it connect to broader symbolic traditions?

1. Analysis – Theme: Anxiety engages with the themes of love and mortality simultaneously. How does the speaker's reaction to the absence of a telegram reveal the painful relationship between loving someone and fearing their death?

1. Biographical Context: Drawing on what you know about Lawrence's life, identify the likely real-life circumstances that inspired Anxiety, and explain how this context deepens a reader's understanding of the poem's emotional intensity.

Answer Key

1. Lawrence uses simple, plain language and small, everyday images. This restraint creates a tightly wound, quietly tense atmosphere, making the emotional weight beneath the poem feel all the more immense.

1. The speaker dreads the arrival of a telegram. In Edwardian and early 20th-century Britain, telegrams delivered urgent news — often about illness or death — so the sight of a telegram boy could instantly provoke dread.

1. The poem opens with images of frost melting and steam dissolving. These suggest that a fragile, surface calm is breaking down, mirroring the speaker's own composure beginning to crumble under rising anxiety.

1. The bicycle is red. It symbolises the urgency of telegrams in that era — a telegram boy on a bicycle was the fastest bearer of critical, often distressing news.

1. The boy rides past without stopping at the gate. Rather than feeling relieved, the speaker experiences a sharper pain: no news means the loved one is still suffering, with no resolution in sight.

1. The opening tone is quiet and observational — almost composed. By the final stanza, the tone shifts to stark, raw honesty that Lawrence suggests is more painful than outright grief.

1. The gate represents the boundary between the outside world and the speaker's inner world of anxiety. Whether the telegram boy stops there or not is the pivotal question — it is the line between knowing and not knowing.

1. The two black birds moving swiftly together introduce a sense of unease and foreboding into an otherwise ordinary winter scene, drawing on the traditional association of black birds with ill omens or bad luck.

1. The speaker's greater pain at receiving no news — rather than relief — shows that deep love makes one unable to escape suffering: the loved one's continued illness is more agonising than the feared news itself would be.

1. Lawrence's mother, Lydia Lawrence, died of cancer in December 1910 after a prolonged illness. Lawrence had an exceptionally close relationship with her, and Anxiety is believed to reflect the anguish of waiting for news during her illness, lending the poem an autobiographical intensity rooted in real grief.