The death of a man and the birth of a love story are the subjects of two short stories by DH Lawrence and although their plots vary greatly, similar patterns of imagery of light and darkness, renewal and rebirth reinforce Lawrence's theme of regeneration. In his stories titled “The Smell of Chrysanthemums” and “The Horse Dealer's Daughter,” Lawrence uses light and dark image schemes to represent the stages of transformation undergone by Elizabeth and Mabel, the female protagonists of these two stories. The dark images illustrate each woman's starting place: stale, stagnant, physically alive but almost dead inside. The images of light represent the finalization of their transformations: regeneration, rebirth. The tone of these stories correlates with the journey of their characters. In fact, even more than a correlation, the tone seems to directly represent the situation of Elizabeth in her story and Mabel in hers. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Elizabeth's story begins with shadows. “The miners, individually, in queues and in groups, passed like diverging shadows towards home” (2483). She tells her little son to go inside because "it's getting dark" and when she looks beyond the tracks, she describes the darkness "that settles on the spaces of the railway and the trucks: the miners, in gray and gloomy groups" and her husband is not in one of those groups, does not come (2484-2485). Even something beautiful, like a bouquet of flowers, is portrayed negatively. When her daughter murmurs that “they smell beautiful,” her mother laughs and says, “No, not for me. It was chrysanthemums when I married him, and chrysanthemums when you were born, and the first time they brought him home drunk, he had brown chrysanthemums in his buttonhole” (2487). Its beginning is so dark that not even a bouquet of flowers can brighten it up. Mabel's story has an equally dark beginning. The breakfast table is “desolate,” the dining room is “sad” and “waiting to be disposed of,” and Mabel is alone – not “sharing the same life as her brothers” (2496). Her brothers are irritable towards her, she doesn't respond, she looks away and one of them calls her "the sulkiest bitch I've ever walked" and it's clear that her mood is very dark. His house is no longer bright. She is described as “servantless” and desolate,” a home she kept together “in misery for her incapable brothers” throughout the months following her father's death (2499-2500). His mood is bitter and his surroundings are bitter, so it is no surprise that his story begins so darkly. Before reaching regeneration, but long after its desolate beginning, Elizabeth in "The Smell of Chrysanthemums" gains some light in her life. When she learns of her husband's death, she "lighted a candle and entered the little room" and the candle's light shines as her mother-in-law moves to sit by the burning fire (2492). The room is dark, but not dark, as she and her mother-in-law begin to wash the corpse and Elizabeth embraces "the body of her husband, with cheek and lips" and when their work is finished, he appears to be "a man of a nice body and his face showed no traces of alcohol. He was blond, fleshy, with beautiful limbs” (2494). The process is not cheerful, but there are glimmers of light and hope as she cares for her husband's body and comes to terms with his death. The realization that her life will never again be overshadowed by worries about her drinking and his continued absence in her and her children's lives is enough to begin the process of bringing her back to life. The middle part of Mabel's story is also illuminated. When he goes to visit his mother's grave, he arranges flowers therearound and cleans the marble tombstone in a “state bordering on pure happiness”. By cleaning and caring for her grave mother, she feels intimately connected to her, more connected to her than to any other living human being in her life. When she leaves her mother's grave and walks into the water in an attempt to end her life, she is saved by the doctor and, once again, we see the word "dark." He takes her out of the water and looks at the "dark" world and when he brings her back to his house, there is a fire burning in the grill (2503). Even if the surrounding environment is still in dim light, it is no longer completely dark; it gained some light. Since the doctor saved her, it is clear that he feels some attraction to her, some bond with her; there is a possibility that she will experience the connection she feels with her dead mother with a person who is actually alive. This possibility fills his story with hope. The brightest images conclude Elizabeth's story and symbolize her final rebirth. As she cleans and wraps her husband's corpse, he is "clear and clean and white, as beautiful as ever a child was made" (2495). She looks at his smoky lifeless body and realizes that "they had met in the darkness and fought in the darkness," but this episode of her life is over (2495-2496). It is not the death of her husband that brightens her life; rather, it is the change in her mind, the realization that, even though he was imperfect, she had a husband with whom she would always be connected through their children. He no longer sees an imperfect man, a man worn down by the daily grind of his life and work and who has turned to alcohol for relief; she sees a changed man, a man she didn't understand while she was alive because she was too busy denying him and being angry at him. But now he sees a different man. She sees a man who will never disappoint her again, but who she will remember as a father of children and as a human being struggling with a difficult life. She hadn't loved him in life because she had never tried to get to know him, but now it's all over. All he has to focus on is life: his life and that of his children and so he covers it with a sheet and peacefully sets about “tidying up the kitchen” (2496). Similar to the conclusion of Elizabeth's story, DH Lawrence uses bright imagery in the final moments of Mabel's story when she is reborn. The light from the street lamps filters through the windows and the doctor lights the gas with matches and she is wearing her best dress and her hair is tidy. They kissed passionately many times because Mabel realized that the doctor loves her. She knows he loves her because he saved her. He had been stagnant, isolated, and had only witnessed real, raw emotions through his patients and their interactions with the people in their lives. He had lived vicariously through them. And Mabel's only connection was to her dead mother. But they connect to each other. The doctor is finally directly involved in the emotion he has always witnessed from the outside. And he finally found in a living, breathing human being the connection he had to his dead mother's grave. She is no longer alone, and neither is the doctor. These are two apparently isolated individuals who have finally found each other. When they emerge from the water together, it is a sort of rebirth for both of them and the romantic bond that follows only accentuates the awakening of these two individuals. As the two sit together in his house, the doctor stokes the fire and lights the gas to keep the room bright. As the room gets brighter, their intimacy seems to grow stronger. They hug and cry together. The doctor says he has to go, but Mabel begs him to stay and he does. “I want you, I want you,” he tells her blindly (2507). The rescue and its aftermath gave as.