DENOTATIVE ANLYSIS OF THE FOX

Task : find out the denotative elements by which D. H. Lawrence describes the fox from the very first time it appears and summarize them into an argumentative text

1 . One evil there was greater than any other.

 2 . Since the war the fox was a demon.  

3 . He carried off the hens under the very noses of March and Banford.

4 . The fox was too quick for them.

5 . The fox really exasperated them both.

6 . And he was so sly.

7 . He slid along in the deep grass; he was difficult as a serpent to see.

8 . And he seemed to circumvent the girls deliberately.

9 . 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.

10 . 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.

11 . 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.

12 . 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.

At the very first time the fox is depicted as a demon, an evil creature (1, 2): he represents a danger for Banford and March’s security since he kills their hens, threatening their sustenance. It is interesting to notice that the writer chooses the subject pronoun he to refer to the fox (3): it is functional to highlight the opposition between the male and the female gender. The fox becomes symbol for the male gender, whose opposite is the female sphere including March and Banford and their hens. The narrator adopts the animal conflict fox – hens  as metaphor for the relationship between men and women. In other words animals are used as vehicles to speak about the relationship between men and women.

In this conflict, the fox wins the battle: he manages to kill their hens for a year without being captured (4). He turns out to be a cunning animal, whose hunting becomes quite impossible for March (5, 6). On the metaphorical level it means that the male gender prevails on the female one. Indeed, even if March and Banford try to run autonomously the farm, they are unable to face the obstacles and to go beyond their fears. The fox is too quick and too sly for the two women: he seems to  deliberately circumvent the ladies, exasperating them both (5, 8).

In order to underline the connection between the fox and the man the writer selects those characteristics that suggest a relation between the fox and the male gender. Once again the writer exploits a metaphor taken from the animal field comparing the fox to a serpent (that is at the same time a biblical allusion and an allusion to the male behavior). Therefore the idea of man communicated by the writer isn’t that of a fair and honest man, but of a cunning, sly and self-assured one.

Considering the fox’s appearance, the narrator focuses on the color of his brush: red (9). Red is the color of blood and passion, it is a color rich of meaning that increases the importance of the fox.

Later, the third person narrator shifts on the point of view of March. When the fox is seen through March’s eyes, it acquires a mysterious fascine that attracts and bewitches her. In particular she is attracted by the dark, shrewd, unabashed eyes of the fox, that seem to know her and totally capture her mind (10, 11, 12).

Just after such analysis of the denotative level the reader might deepen the connotative – metaphorical level. That is why it is important to bring to the surface the two different layers of meaning: on the denotative level the fox represents a concrete threat and a danger for the ladies, on the connotative level it stands for the male gender with all his social and psychological characteristics. This is the interpretative key of the text.

ETYMOLOGICAL RESEARCH

fox (n.) 

 Old English fox "a fox," from Proto-Germanic *fuhsaz "fox" (cognates Old Saxon vohs, Middle Dutch and Dutch vos, Old High German fuhs, German Fuchs, Old Norse foa, Gothicfauho), from Proto-Germanic *fuh-, from PIE *puk- "tail" (source also of Sanskrit puccha- "tail"). 

The bushy tail also inspired words for "fox" in Welsh (llwynog, from llwyn "bush"); Spanish (raposa, from rabo "tail"); and Lithuanian (uodegis, from uodega "tail"). Metaphoric extension to "clever person" was in late Old English. Meaning "sexually attractive woman" is from 1940s; but foxy in this sense is recorded from 1895. A fox-tail was anciently one of the badges of a fool (late 14c.). 

A late Old English translation of the Medicina de Quadrupedibus of Sextus Placitus advises, for women "who suffer troubles in their inward places, work for them into a salve a foxes limbs and his grease, with old oil and with tar; apply to the womens places; quickly it healeth the troubles." It also recommends, for sexual intercourse without irritation, "the extremest end of a foxes tail hung upon the arm." Rubbing a fox's testicles on warts was supposed a means to get rid of them.

evil (adj.) 

Old English yfel (Kentish evel) "bad, vicious, ill, wicked," from Proto-Germanic *ubilaz (cognates: Old Saxon ubil, Old Frisian and Middle Dutch evel, Dutch euvel, Old High German ubil, German übel, Gothic ubils), from PIE *upelo-, from root *wap- "bad, evil" (cognates: Hittite huwapp- "evil"). 

In Old English and other older Germanic languages other than Scandinavian, "this word is the most comprehensive adjectival expression of disapproval, dislike or disparagement" [OED]. Evil was the word the Anglo-Saxons used where we would use bad, cruel, unskillful, defective (adj.), or harm (n.), crime, misfortune, disease (n.). In Middle English, bad took the wider range of senses and evil began to focus on moral badness. Both words have good as their opposite. Evil-favored (1520s) meant "ugly." Evilchild is attested as an English surname from 13c. 

demon (n.)

c. 1200, from Latin daemon "spirit," from Greek daimon "deity, divine power; lesser god; guiding spirit, tutelary deity" (sometimes including souls of the dead); "one's genius, lot, or fortune;" from PIE *dai-mon- "divider, provider" (of fortunes or destinies), from root *da- "to divide" (see tide (n.)). 

Used (with daimonion) in Christian Greek translations and Vulgate for "god of the heathen" and "unclean spirit." Jewish authors earlier had employed the Greek word in this sense, using it to render shedim "lords, idols" in the Septuagint, and Matt. viii:31 has daimones, translated as deofol in Old English, feend or deuil in Middle English. Another Old English word for this was hellcniht, literally "hell-knight." 

The original mythological sense is sometimes written daemon for purposes of distinction. The Demon of Socrates was a daimonion, a "divine principle or inward oracle." His accusers, and later the Church Fathers, however, represented this otherwise. The Demon Star (1895) is Algol.

sly (adj.)

c. 1200, "skillful, clever, dexterous," from Old Norse sloegr "cunning, crafty, sly," from Proto-Germanic *slogis (cognates: Low German slu "cunning, sly," German schlau), probably from base *slak- "to strike, hit" (see slay (v.)), with an original notion of "able to hit." Compare German verschlagen "cunning, crafty, sly," schlagfertig "quick-witted," literally "strike-ready," from schlagen "to strike." A non-pejorative use of the word lingered in northern English dialect until 20c. On the sly "in secret" is recorded from 1812. Sly-boots "a seeming Silly, but subtil Fellow" is in the 1700 "Dictionary of the Canting Crew."

serpent (n.)

c. 1300, "limbless reptile," also the tempter in Gen. iii:1-5, from Old French serpent, sarpent "snake, serpent" (12c.), from Latin serpentem (nominative serpens) "snake; creeping thing," also the name of a constellation, from present participle of serpere "to creep," from PIE *serp- "to crawl, creep" (cognates: Sanskrit sarpati "creeps," sarpah "serpent;" Greek herpein "to creep," herpeton "serpent;" Albanian garper "serpent"). 

Used figuratively of things spiral or regularly sinuous, such as a type of musical instrument (1730). Serpent's tongue as figurative of venomous or stinging speech is from mistaken medieval notion that the serpent's tongue was its "sting." Serpent's tongue also was a name given to fossil shark's teeth (c. 1600).