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The text under analysis is entitled " Second Best". It is a story written by David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) who was an English writer and
a poet. Coming from a working-class family, D. H. Lawrence witnessed the problems which the working class went through in early 20th century Britain. As such, several of his novels and short stories explore the passions, complexities of relationships in families and lives of the working class. He satirizes the hypocrisy of the high society and the class consciousness prevalent in those times. Besides all that, Lawrence is known for his conventional grammar and syntax, and fairly straightforward plots, which is the reason for the popularity of his works.

To start the lexical-semantic analysis, I would like to dwell upon the title of the story. The title “Second Best” can be interpreted in two ways. If we turn to the Oxford Dictionary (2018, p. 136) we can learn that the word “second” have some different meanings. One of its definition as a numeral is “a constituting number two in a sequence” and as an adjective it means “next to the first in value, excellence, or degree”. As for the word “best”, its definition in the Cambridge Dictionary (2017, p. 22) is “something of the highest quality, or being the most suitable, pleasing, or effective type of thing or person”. On this basis, we can say that the author gives his readers the opportunity to comprehend the title’s meaning in their own way. On the one hand the title means that the second best is something of not superb quality and not the best, apparently. On the other hand it can be understood as the best short period of time in someone’s life – the best second. To confirm or refute these assumptions, I suggest turning to the text.

From the very beginning we are not given a setting or an introduction of the story: it seems that the reader is pushed to development which is served as a mix of introduction and setting. In the first line we can see the name of the first heroine and her name is Frances. According to the source on the Internet (en. wikipedia. org) in Latin the meaning of this name is “a free one” or “the one from France”. If we pay attention to the lexical side of the first sentence, we can notice that the words that Lawrence uses to describe Frances’s actions are mostly negative and indicate some kind of tenseness: she is “tired”, she exclaims “petulantly”, which is “easily annoyed and rude, like a child” (Cambridge Dictionary, 2017, p. 91), and finally she “drops down” on the turf which adds a humorous and ironic tone to her. Then in the second sentence we are introduced to another female character Anne and compared to Frances, Anne’s actions are described with stylistically positive words: she thinks of her sister as of her “beloved Frances”, she is “accustomed to her vagaries” and she “plumps down” beside her. It is also worth to mention that according to the same source on the Internet (en. wikipedia. org) the name “Anne” is originally a French version of “Anna” meaning “favor, grace and beauty”. And here we can see that even with notable differences on a lexical level, the author gives both sisters one thing in common which is their French names. Notwithstanding this, the sisters are complete opposites of each other.

Anne is described with an oxymoron “a wise young body of fourteen”, she is “self-confident” which means “behaving calmly because one have no doubts about their own ability or knowledge” (Cambridge Dictionary, 2017, p. 185) and all her actions are pretty smooth. Frances is about twenty-three and despite the fact that she is “the beauty and the clever child of the family”, she is also “whimsical” meaning “unusual and strange in a way that might be funny or annoying” (Cambridge Dictionary, 2017, p. 215), “spasmodic” which definition is “something that happens suddenly for short periods of time and not in a regular way” (Cambridge Dictionary, 2017, p. 192) and every movement of her is very nervous and unnatural. Moreover, in the story D. H. Lawrence calls Frances “creature” and I would like to emphasize it. According to the Oxford Dictionary (2018, p. 31) the word “creature” has the following meaning: “it is any large or small living thing that can move independently”. For now I suggest keeping this detail in mind so we return to it later for more detailed consideration.

When the sisters have a conversation, we can see their differences not only in appearance and character, but also in their manner of speech. Frances speaks in short sentences and her replies are frequently accompanied with such words as “sharply”, “shakily”, “sarcastically”, “coldly”, “ironic” etc. As for Anne, there’s the intentional violation of the graphical shape of her words (graphons) that may indicate her low level of education. But despite this and the fact that she is in her “unvexed teens”, where “unvexed” is “free from disturbance” (Oxford Dictionary (2018, p. 179), the narrator hyperbolizes that Anne is almost mother to Frances, who has “suffered a good deal” in love. So here we see the main conflict of the story.

In the next paragraph Lawrence gives us the descriptions of picturesque surroundings which serve as an illustration of Anne’s inner world. Since she is too young to fill her head with men and love, deep down she is calm and full of warm colors such as “red”, “orange”, “brown”, “pink”, “hazel”, “whity-green” and everything there is morning-still and in silence. That is why she easily tells her sister about their old friend Tom Smedley who promised to take her to the feast, but went there with a servant eventually. While telling all that, Anne is eating nuts which may represent her attitude to love problems – she takes them easy and cracks them like nuts. But a few sentences after, we can witness the description of the same surroundings through the prism of Frances. Her inner world is also in silence but in comparison with Anne, this silence is not peaceful, but seems like the silence on a battlefield. There are weeds and plants burned by the heat. Everything inside her is moody and devoid of colors: “blonde-headed thistles”, “brown-husked gorse”, “white stubble”, “khaki patches”, “blackish haze”. But we can notice the frequent alliteration of the sounds [s], [t] and [d], which gives us hope for Frances despite her gloom and tension: “blon d e-hea d e d thi st le, i ts heap s of s ilen t. .. ”, “ s unshine s eemed visionary”, “ s tubble showe d d i st inc t ”.

In the development the sisters notice a mole coming out from a rabbit hole. Alliteration of the sound [s] is amplified here: “and, a s s uddenly bri s k, and a s s ilent, like the gho s t”. The narrator colorfully describes every movement of the blind animal that discovers the outside world, and finally calls it “the ghost of joie de vivre”. According to the Collins English Dictionary (2016, p. 86) barbarism “joie de vivre” translates as “exuberant enjoyment of life”. Frances subconsciously compare the mole with herself, feeling a keen pity for this “ little creature ”. We have already mentioned that Lawrence calls his heroine “creature”, too, so this parallel confirms that the mole metaphorically illustrates Frances and her blindness in love. Next we can see the repetition of the sound [t], which seems to symbolize someone’s slow steps: “…sunligh t and the ho t, s t range things tha t caresse d i t s belly and i t s nose” and the next moment Anne traps the pest and holds his resisting body in her hands. She asks her sister about Jimmy Barrass and Frances tries to hide her real emotions behind the mask of nervousness. As the mole makes efforts to escape from its pitfall, Frances mirrors its actions and snaps that Jimmy Barrass is now engaged. The use of the word “snap” in the text defines two meanings: “to say something suddenly in an angry way” and “to bite someone” (Cambridge Dictionary, 2017, p. 199). It is also worth to mention that the name “Jimmy” is a pet version of “James” which means “supplanter” from Latin. “Supplanter” is “a person who takes over or takes the place of someone else, usually on purpose” (Collins English Dictionary, 2016, p. 147). Moreover, Jimmy’s surname sounds similar to the word “embarrassed”. It may tell us that he feels uneasy towards Frances for breaking her heart, however, maybe he wasn’t going to marry her from the very beginning. Even so, it can be assumed that he will remain in Frances’s heart and no one will take his place.

The mole suddenly bites Anne and “drops” to the ground – just like Frances did in the very first sentence – but it doesn’t manage to escape, as at the same moment it turns out to be killed by Anne herself. The use of parallel constructions in the text shows us how much the mole’s death strikes the protagonist: “With one blow the mole was dead. Frances was startled and shocked”. Anne, on the other hand, is satisfied with her deed and calls him “vicious little nuisance” as if she talks about some man.

After a drop of blood falls on some harebells from the mole’s snout, something changes in Frances and here we reach the climax. D. H. Lawrence gives us small hints as symbols throughout the whole story and another symbol here is aforementioned harebells. The source on the Internet (bardgarden. blogspot. com) says that harebells symbolize everlasting love in Scotland but in Britain they retain their association with death and grief, and are often planted on graves. So with the death of the mole Frances also buries a part of herself and her love for Jimmy. In this paragraph, we can see a large number of alliterated and assonated sounds, expressing different range of the main character’s emotions. The repetition of [r] and [d] indicates her hidden aggression: “ce r tain r ather dr ea r y in d iffe r ence succee d e d to he r g r ief”. But alliterated [l] and [i] in the next sentence show that deep down she is glad of this sacrifice: “the tw i nk li ng crabapp l es, the g li tter of br ill iant w ill ows…”. Now even the surroundings look white in the eyes of Frances, as if she is ready to start over with a clean slate.

Then the author turns the negative into positive and the protagonist rises from the
turf – as if she rises from the dead – and walks to the bridge while Anne is coming tumbling after her. She finds herself in the middle of her “embarrassing” past and “visionary” future without knowing what to do, and then she sees a young man with a scythe. Here we see another symbol since the scythe is associated with the Grim Reaper, and is often used as a reminder of death. Besides, there is a repulsion hidden on the stylistic level: “he was mowing with scythe some f odder f or the a f ternoon f eed o f the cattle” as if Frances sniffs in contempt looking at the young man, who is actually her old friend – Tom Smedley. But she realizes that she has been in love with Jimmy for five years and now she needs to live forward since there is simply no way back. Frances starts to approach Tom and her lack of agitation makes him nervous. Here we can see the omniscient narrator, who penetrates into the minds of his characters and knows their thoughts and their feelings.

Lawrence describes Tom in a positive way using mostly positive lexis: “medium stature”, “energetic in build”, “fair-skinned face”, “good humor”, “easiness” etc. In the continuation of the color seme, in his description the predominance of red color is noticeable. It is believed to be the color of passion and love and further we can learn that Tom is in love with Frances, but she doesn’t respond to his feelings. However, Frances makes her choice: if she can’t have the best – Jimmy, – she accepts taking the second
best – Tom. And here we can turn back to the title of the story and the mystery of its meaning which is now unveiled. During the prolonged conversation between Tom and Frances, Tom metaphorically breaks her with his stubbornness; she is agreed to his unspoken terms and on the next day she brings him a velvet corpse of another mole as a symbol of her killed love to Jimmy. This scene can be interpreted as the sacrifice of love to the Grim Reaper, but in fact, not only love is killed here, but Frances herself since no one will replace Jimmy Barrass in her heart.

Apparently, the main heroine chose what was best for her even though it was the second best. But was it her best second? The story ends with the phrase: “there was a thrill of pleasure in this death”, so there is hope that Frances did not regret her choice.

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