# XVI: The Rainbow explained — The Rainbow

> Chapter companion for The Rainbow by D. H. Lawrence.

## What happens

Ursula returns home to Beldover in a state of apathy after breaking her engagement with Skrebensky. She discovers she may be pregnant, which initially leads her to consider marrying Skrebensky and submitting to a conventional life. She writes him a letter of remorse and submission, but after a period of illness and feverish reflection, she experiences a profound spiritual transformation. She realizes she is not pregnant, receives a cablegram that Skrebensky is married, and comes to see him as part of the past. The chapter culminates in her vision of a rainbow, symbolizing hope, renewal, and the possibility of a new world built on truth and life, as she casts off the old husk of her former life and embraces a new beginning.

## Themes in this chapter

### Self-Discovery and Growth

Ursula's journey from apathy and despair through illness to a profound spiritual rebirth and vision of the rainbow represents a deep process of self-discovery and personal growth.

### Nature and the Land

The rainbow serves as a powerful natural symbol of hope and renewal, contrasting with the 'corruption' of industrial houses and collieries, and representing a new, living architecture.

### Industrialization and Change

The description of 'hard, brittle, terrible corruption' spreading over the land through new houses and collieries highlights the destructive impact of industrialization on the landscape and human spirit.

## Character check-ins

### Ursula Brangwen

Ursula undergoes a deep crisis after breaking her engagement, experiencing apathy, a possible pregnancy, and a transformative illness that leads to a spiritual rebirth and vision of the rainbow.

### Anton Skrebensky

Skrebensky is the former fiancé to whom Ursula writes a letter of remorse; he ultimately sends a cablegram stating he is married, confirming his place in the past.

### Anna Brangwen

Anna is mentioned as Ursula's mother, whom Ursula re-evaluates as simple and radically true, representing the conventional life Ursula briefly considers.

### Tom Brangwen

Tom is referenced as Ursula's father, part of the 'husk' of her old life that she feels she must cast off.

## Key lines

> She knew that the sordid people who crept hard-scaled and separate on the face of the world's corruption were living still, that the rainbow was arched in their blood and would quiver to life in their spirit, that they would cast off their horny covering of disintegration, that new, clean, naked bodies would issue to a new germination, to a new growth, rising to the light and the wind and the clean rain of heaven.

Ursula realizes that even the degraded, isolated people living amid the world's decay still possess the potential for renewal, as the rainbow's promise is inherent within them; they will shed their hardened shells of decay and emerge reborn, growing toward the light and purity of heaven.

_This passage encapsulates Ursula's visionary hope for humanity's spiritual and physical regeneration, symbolized by the rainbow._

> She was the naked, clear kernel thrusting forth the clear, powerful shoot, and the world was a bygone winter, discarded, her mother and father and Anton, and college and all her friends, all cast off like a year that has gone by, whilst the kernel was free and naked and striving to take new root, to create a new knowledge of Eternity in the flux of Time.

Ursula sees herself as a pure, essential kernel pushing out a strong shoot, while everything else—her family, lover, and past life—is like a discarded winter, shed so that she can grow freely and establish a new understanding of eternity within the flow of time.

_This metaphor of the kernel and shell illustrates Ursula's sense of liberation and rebirth, discarding her old identity to embrace a new, authentic existence._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_rainbow_se/chapters/xvi-the-rainbow
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_rainbow_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_rainbow_se/chapters