Question

In Trouble and Shame
By D.H. Lawrence
I look at the swaling sunset And wish I could go also
Through the red doors beyond the black-purple bar.
I wish that I could go
Through the red doors where I could put off
My shame like shoes in the porch
My pain like garments,
And leave my flesh discarded lying
Like luggage of some departed traveller
Gone one knows not where.
3. What is this poem about?
Then I would turn round
And seeing my cast-off body lying like lumber, I would laugh with joy.
1. swaling: burning
4. What is the speaker's tone?
Explain your answer using textual evidence.

Answer 1

3. What is this poem about?
- The speaker longs to escape from shame and pain by passing through a threshold (the “red doors beyond the black‑purple bar”) and shedding the physical body and its burdens. The dominant image is of discarding shame “like shoes” and pain “like garments,” leaving the flesh “discarded” and “like luggage of some departed traveller.” The poem is about a desire for release or transcendence — possibly death, spiritual liberation, or an imagined freedom from emotional and bodily constraint.

4. What is the speaker's tone? Explain your answer using textual evidence.
- The tone is yearning and hopeful with a final note of exultation.
- Yearning and hope appear in phrases such as “I wish that I could go” and the repeated desire to “put off / My shame” and “My pain,” which show longing for another state.
- The imagery of a threshold — “red doors beyond the black‑purple bar” — suggests anticipation of passage to something better.
- The closing lines express joyful release: after picturing the “cast‑off body lying like lumber,” the speaker says “I would laugh with joy,” a clear statement of anticipated elation and relief.
- The contrast between shame/pain and the imagined laughter reinforces the emotional shift from suffering to ecstatic liberation.