THE MOSQUITO- poem - D.H. LAWRENCE

D.H. Lawrence(1885-1930) is one of the best known twentieth century English novelists. He was born at Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, as the fourth child of a school teacher mother and an alcoholic, coalminer father. He was educated at Nottingham High School. His Childhood was overshadowed by poverty and parental disharmony. After leaving school in 1901 Lawrence worked as a junior clerk in a surgical appliance factory for a brief period. In the years 1902 to 1906 Lawrence served as a pupil teacher at the British School, East wood. He went on to become a full-time student and received a teaching certificate from university college, Nottingham in 1908.

 His first novel The white Peacock (1911), launched him into a writing career. Lawrence gave up teaching after a serious illness and his second novel The Trespasser, followed in 1912. Early in the same year, he fell in love with Frieda von Richthofen, a professor’s wife and mother of three children, eloped with her and finally married her in 1914. The Rainbow (1915), considered by many critics to be his best novel, was banned on grounds of obscenity. Lawrence is best known for his novels Sons and Lovers, Women in Love and Lady Chatterley’s Lover. In 1925, after a severe illness in Mexico, it was discovered that Lawrence was suffering from tuberculosis. He and Frieda returned to Europe, but his health continued to decline. He died at Venice, in France, on 2nd March 1930.

‘The Mosquito’, which is taken from the collection Birds, Beasts and Flowers, exemplifies Lawrence’s visualization of the animal world. This poem displays what John Ruskin termed the “pathetic fallacy” which ascribes human emotions to animals and inanimate objects. The poet begins the poem by addressing the mosquito as Monsieur, closely observing the mosquito and its movements, he describes the way it stands on its high, thin, shredded legs. It is almost weightless and so the poet hardly knows its presence when it alights on him. It comes and goes unnoticed. Being translucent, it appears phantom-like. The poet finds it weird and wonderful that it seems to be as harmless as a heron sailing in water, or a lifeless clot of air. Though it seems to be a ‘nothingness’ a certain aura appears to surround it. 

The aura is an evil one and it paralyses the poet’s mind beyond thought. Its smallness causes it to be invisible and its swift movements tease the eye with its antics. The mosquito prowls and circles and envelops the poet with its sealing flights. It is a ghoul on wings as it devours human blood. The mosquito eyes the poet sideways and realises that the poet is watching it. Having read the poet’s intentions, it suddenly flies off. This sly game of bluff continues. It sacks the poet’s blood and blows its high-pitched hateful bugle in the poet’s ear. 

The sound of the mosquito is like a slogan, a yell of triumph. It sucks the poet’s blood and falls into a trance. It is an obscene ecstasy. The mosquito staggers as it sucks the blood. Its imponderable weightlessness saves it from the poet. But soon afterwards the poet beats the mosquito to death and it ends up as a dark smudge. Though the poet reduces the mosquito to ‘an infinitesimal faint smear’, it remains invincible in spirit.