1. Discuss the relationship title-messages

The title of Lawrence’s novel is “the Fox”. It clearly refers to the key point of the story, the fox that is symbol for animal instincts and for male power related to Henry. Therefore, the willingness of the two women to fight the fox metaphorically becomes the fight for their independence. Furthermore, the Fox represent the difficulties that one has to face during his life. Here the reader can find the relationship between title and messages.

2. Discuss the relationship men-women.

March and Banford’s life is secondly overturned when the young, wily Henry enters their lives. March sees in Henry the reflection of the fox. Indeed prior to Henry’s entry, the relationship between March and Banford, excluding men, didn’t know power struggle. After Henry’s arrival, the female side of March comes to the surface: March alternately plays the male role with Banford and the female role with Henry.  Lawrence outlines her conflicting attitudes and responses very well in order to query gender roles and relationships.

3. Discuss the social-economic and cultural background of the novel.

The story is set at the end of the First World War. Soldiers were gradually coming back home from the war to their women who had been holding the fort. The war had a devastating effect upon the society which led to a sense of ultimate chaos. The unmitigated shortage of men provoked women’s efforts especially in the fields depending solely upon themselves. Taking the First World War as the background of the novella The Fox presents those issues faced by people after the war especially the predicaments faced by women of that period. In the whole story, even if the word “war” compares only 4 times, the intelligent reader understands that war is the bearing structure of the story. Right in the first pages of the novella there is a clear reference to the war. “War conditions, again, were very unfavourable to poultry-keeping. Food was scarce and bad”. Lawrence is perfectly able to synthesize the meaning of the war as a time of famine and suffering in only two sentences. Secondly war is quoted in Henry’s presentation: Henry is a soldier who has fought in Salonika (now called Thessaloniki), a Greek port where Anglo-French forces landed on 5 October 1915.

3. Find out denotative elements by which Lawrence’s describe the fox. Collect and gather all the expressions that the narrator uses to describe the fox.

“The fox really exasperated them both. As soon as they had let the fowls out, in the early summer mornings, they had to take their guns and keep guard: and then again as soon as evening began to mellow, they must go once more. And he was so sly. He slid along in the deep grass; he was difficult as a serpent to see. And he seemed to circumvent the girls deliberately. Once or twice March had caught sight of the white tip of his brush, or the ruddy shadow of him in the deep grass, and she had let fire at him. But he made no account of this”.

“She lowered her eyes, and suddenly saw the fox. He was looking up at her. Her chin was pressed down, and his eyes were looking up. They met her eyes. And he knew her. She was spellbound--she knew he knew her. So he looked into her eyes, and her soul failed her. He knew her, he was not daunted. She struggled, confusedly she came to herself, and saw him making off, with slow leaps over some fallen boughs, slow, impudent jumps. Then he glanced over his shoulder, and ran smoothly away. She saw his brush held smooth like a feather, she saw his white buttocks twinkle. And he was gone, softly, soft as the wind. She put her gun to her shoulder, but even then pursed her mouth, knowing it was nonsense to pretend to fire. So she began to walk slowly after him, in the direction he had gone, slowly, pertinaciously. She expected to find him. In her heart she was determined to find him. What she would do when she saw him again she did not consider. But she was determined to find him. So she walked abstractedly about on the edge of the wood, with wide, vivid dark eyes, and a faint flush in her cheeks. She did not think. In strange mindlessness she walked hither and thither”.

“She took her gun again and went to look for the fox. For he had lifted his eyes upon her, and his knowing look seemed to have entered her brain. She did not so much think of him: she was possessed by him. She saw his dark, shrewd, unabashed eye looking into her, knowing her. She felt him invisibly master her spirit. She knew the way he lowered his chin as he looked up, she knew his muzzle, the golden brown, and the greyish white. And again she saw him glance over his shoulder at her, half inviting, half contemptuous and cunning. So she went, with her great startled eyes glowing, her gun under her arm, along the wood edge. Meanwhile the night fell, and a great moon rose above the pine trees. And again Banford was calling.”

“The first thing that both she and Banford did in the morning was to go out to see the fox. Henry had hung it up by the heels in the shed, with its poor brush falling backwards. It was a lovely dog-fox in its prime, with a handsome, thick, winter coat: a lovely golden-red colour, with grey as it passed to the belly, and belly all white, and a great full brush with a delicate black and grey and pure white tip.

'Poor brute!' said Banford. 'If it wasn't such a thieving wretch, you'd feel sorry for it.'  

March said nothing, but stood with her foot trailing aside, one hip out; her face was pale and her eyes big and black, watching the dead animal that was suspended upside down. White and soft as snow his belly: white and soft as snow. She passed her hand softly down it. And his wonderful black-glinted brush was full and frictional, wonderful. She passed her hand down this also, and quivered. Time after time she took the full fur of that thick tail between her fingers, and passed her hand slowly downwards. Wonderful, sharp, thick, splendour of a tail. And he was dead! She pursed her lips, and her eyes went black and vacant. Then she took the head in her hand. Henry was sauntering up, so Banford walked rather pointedly away. March stood there bemused, with the head of the fox in her hand. She was wondering, wondering, wondering over his long, fine muzzle. For some reason it reminded her of a spoon or a spatula. She felt she could not understand it. The beast was a strange beast to her, incomprehensible, out of her range. Wonderful silver whiskers he had, like ice-threads. And pricked ears with hair inside. But that long, long, slender spoon of a nose!--and the marvellous white teeth beneath! It was to thrust forward and bite with, deep, deep, deep into the living prey, to bite and bite the blood.

'He's a beauty, isn't he?' said Henry, standing by.

'Oh yes, he's a fine big fox. I wonder how many chickens he's responsible for,' she replied”.

5. Try to find out possible reason why the fox might be something different, there is an additional layer of analysis.

Fox metaphorically symbolizes cunning and instinct, but also lightness and harmony of movement. If on the one hand it shows all its wildness, on the other hand it is a very charmful animal. This is the reason why March is fascinated by her. Indeed, the narrator presents the fox as if it were a man and the form of Henry. “But to March he was the fox. Whether it was the thrusting forward of his head, or the glisten of fine whitish hairs on the ruddy cheek-bones, or the bright, keen eyes, that can never be said: but the boy was to her the fox, and she could not see him otherwise”.

6. Consider the way March is introduced stating from denotative level

“March did most of the outdoor work. When she was out and about, in her puttees and breeches, her belted coat and her loose cap, she looked almost like some graceful, loose-balanced young man, for her shoulders were straight, and her movements easy and confident, even tinged with a little indifference or irony. But her face was not a man's face, ever. The wisps of her crisp dark hair blew about her as she stooped, her eyes were big and wide and dark, when she looked up again, strange, startled, shy and sardonic at once. Her mouth, too, was almost pinched as if in pain and irony. There was something odd and unexplained about her. She would stand balanced on one hip, looking at the fowls pattering about in the obnoxious fine mud of the sloping yard, and calling to her favourite white hen, which came in answer to her name. But there was an almost satirical flicker in March's big, dark eyes as she looked at her three-toed flock pottering about under her gaze, and the same slight dangerous satire in her voice as she spoke to the favoured Patty, who pecked at March's boot by way of friendly demonstration”.

7. Why Lawrence chose the name March? 

The name March is closely connected with the eponymous month. Indeed, March marks the beginning of spring and the nature awakening after winter. Everything comes to life. It is also synonym of abundance and fertility and in March begins the period of reproduction.