SELECTIONS FROM A DISCUSSION OF "TICKETS, PLEASE" ON RANANIM LISTSERV

First a bit of history about the story, "Tickets, Please":  It was first
published in _The Strand_ magazine (April 1919 issue) which specialized
in detective and weird fiction.  It was the only Lawrence story ever to
be published in _The Strand_ and at a time when the magazine was
searching for "new blood" to revitalize slagging wartime sales.  There
are a few differences from the magazine version and the version later
collected in book form.  The inspector's name was originally John Joseph
Raynor.  Lawrence then changed it to John Thomas Raynor with the hated
nick-name of "Coddy" (as in cod-piece) to drive the point home.  John
Thomas and Lady Jane are the euphemisms given the male and female sexual
organs in _Lady Chatterley's Lover_.  The other major difference is in
the ending scene which is more elaborate in the revised version.

The first thing I noticed about the story this time around is how the
first paragraph is constructed just like the tramway system.  There is a
long flowing sentence of about 12 lines, then two short sentences which
act like the terminal where the tram takes a brief break before swooping
away onto another sentence/track of about 12 lines.  Talk about form
matching content!!!  I also notice that Annie's last name is Stone and
yet the root name Ann means "graceful one," so already there is conflict
or tension established in her character.

The women who work the tram are described as "fearless young hussies. .
. .They are not going to be done in the eye--not they.  They fear
nobody--and everybody fears them."  (p. 66)  The drivers and men of the
tram are described as "men unfit for active service:  cripples and
hunchbacks" or as "rash young men, a little crippled, or by delicate
young men, who creep forward in terror."  (p. 65-66)  John Thomas is an
inspector, not a driver; but still we must wonder in this time of war
why he is in the service of the tramway rather than military service.
Is he one of these "delicate young men" who is "unfit for active
service"?  And yet he gets into trouble for being rather *too* active
with the women.  He avoids one war to get caught up in another--the
battle of the sexes.  He is in the position of being their superior as
inspector, and yet the women seem to be filled with more raw courage.
The women become like Bacchante warriors exacting their revenge and
leaving him a casualty in the love/hate game.  It's sadly ironic that
the girl he likes the most is the one to lead the attack against him.
And she is also the one he chooses at the end to be intertwined with in
a relationship of hate.

     "Nay, how can I take one," he said, laughing uneasily.  "I don't
want to make enemies."
     "You'd only make *one*," said Annie.
     "The chosen *one*," added Laura.
(p. 74-75/_Portable DHL_/Penguin)

Then there is the scene of guessing which girl *touches* him on the
back.  "Touch" is a fully loaded word for Lawrence.  It plays an
important part in many of his stories and novels (such as "You Touched
Me").  Touch can be physical contact; or emotional as in to feel touched
with pity, sympathy or tenderness; or simply to be handled or used; as
well as being slang for "hitting someone up" for money or favors or to
steal from them.

So John Thomas is touched by Annie who leads the assault.  But then he
touches her back symbolically when he singles her out.  She has finally
established (or been granted) the personal level of intimacy (as opposed
to his impersonal "nocturnal presence") that she desired from him.  But
the intimacy is one of hate not love.  She is singled out from the
crowd--AN INDIVIDUAL--But a hated individual.

Part of the revised ending centers on the key to the door that Annie
possesses and gives over for him to leave.  The *key* is a symbol of
power which she now has over him.  He has indeed been "taken down a peg
or two"; but in the new version, Annie feels regret over this change of
authority.

     "That'll learn him," said Laura.
     "Coddy!" said Nora.
     "Shut up, for God's sake!" cried Annie fiercely, as if in torture.
(p. 80)

Because the two main characters are now *locked* together, John Thomas
has cleverly brought Annie down with him.  Thus the phrase:  "He was
cunning in his overthrow.  He did not give in to them really--no, not if
they tore him to bits."  (p. 78)  He has been "cowed" with all the
female symbolism that implies, and yet remains defiant.

It's a wonderful and eerie story!  It also has links to Lawrence's own
life when he was attacked by factory girls.  I'm sure there is much more
that can be said of the story, but these were my initial thoughts.

--Tina Ferris

KEYS:

I was thinking some more about the key symbolism in "Tickets, Please."
According to Barbara Walker (a wonderful reference in critiquing
Lawrence because of the pagan/feminist slant):

     "The key was a mystical symbol of knowledge about the afterlife. .
. .Like the pagan *petra* who became Peter, key-holding deities could
grant or refuse admission through the heavenly gates. . . .The Goddess
Persephone was the original holder of the key to Hades."
(p. 140-41/_The Woman's Dictionary of Symbols & Sacred Objects_/Harper &
Row)

The key is also a male phallic symbol to the lock's female symbol.
Annie, as keyholder, can grant or deny access to her body, just as she
controls whether or not John Thomas leaves the room (the room itself
being a womb symbol).  The _Penguin Dictionary of Symbols_ states:

     "Because keys open and shut gates, they are regarded by the Bambara
as symbols of power and authority because 'all that is said and all that
is done in the individual, in the state, and in the world at large, is a
gate. . . .Keys symbolize chiefs, rulers, and mystagogues who possess
decision-making powers and responsibility."  (p. 565)

The tram itself is another phallic symbol which is run mostly by women
and often jumps the track or catches fire and is pushed onward by the
riders. (I'll let you work out the connotations of that!)  ;-)

Lawrence writes in the next paragraph:

     "The reason for this reluctance to dismount is that the nights are
howlingly cold, black, and windswept, and a car is a haven of refuge."

Then Annie and John Thomas at the Fair:

"After all, he had a wonderfully warm, cosy way of holding a girl with
his arm, he seemed to make such a nice fit.  And after all, it was
pleasant to be so held:  so very comforting and cosy and nice."

Annie likes that John Thomas is a warm, safe-haven just like the
tramcars.

The question remains has Annie succeeded in unmanning John Thomas at the
end of the story or not.  Perhaps her "torture" in the last scene is not
one of *regret* but one of *defeat* since his name is still "Coddy" and
she had wanted to "kill" him.  She has given over the keys by which he
will withdraw from the room/womb and escape.  The great thing about
Lawrence's fiction is he so often sets up this dual kind of ending which
can be read either way.  He wants us to struggle with its meaning, to
take an active part.

ENDINGS:

The ending of the two versions diverge after the lines:

"'Who wants him?' cried Laura, roughly.
'Nobody,' they answered, with derision."

The _Strand_ version then immediately goes into the last two paragraphs
which read:

     "And they began to put themselves tidy, taking down their hair, and
arranging it.  Annie unlocked the door.  John Joseph looked round for
his things.  He picked up the tatters, and did not quite know what to do
with them.  Then he found his cap, and put it on, and then his
overcoat.  He rolled his ragged tunic into a bundle.  And he went
silently out of the room, into the night.
     The girls continued in silence to dress their hair and adjust their
clothing, as if he had never existed."

I rather like that last line, but it makes for an ending that is more
decisively one of John Joseph's defeat and total castration.  The longer
version of the tale is more ambiguous and therefore more complex.
Although "his head is dropped" as he leaves, there seems a quiet dignity
about him that is created by these lines:

"He looked at none of them.  He espied his cap in a corner and went and
picked it up.  He put it on his head, and one of the girls burst into a
shrill, hysteric laugh at the sight he presented.  He, however, took no
heed but went straight to where his overcoat hung on a peg.  The girls
moved away from contact with him as if he had been an electric wire.  He
put on his coat and buttoned it down.  Then he rolled his tunic-rags
into a bundle, and stood before the locked door, dumbly."

In this version John Thomas is the one who denies the existence of the
women.  Hats are a symbol of authority, and he retrieves his and places
it back on his head (same as earlier version but more elaborately drawn
out).  They laugh but make way for him.  And he takes "no heed" of their
laughter.  An "electric wire" can be deadly if touched.  He takes the
time to make himself presentable again just as the women do and then
stands defiantly in front of the door waiting for the keymaster to give
back his command by opening the door for him.  In this version of the
story John Thomas is a much stronger character in my opinion.  He seems
more pitiful and powerless in the earlier _Strand_ version.

Also people tend to forget that Lawrence was a wit and enjoyed
word-plays.  The title of the story is "Tickets, Please" and is about
women who punched the tickets for the tramway (the medium of exchange
for the service provided):

"They pounce on the youths who try to evade their ticket-machine.  They
push off the men at the end of their distance."

So the *punchline* to this story is that John Thomas has at last had his
ticket punched and his ride is OVER!

--Tina Ferris

>     Also in reference to fertility, the Bacchic
rituals were orgiastic.
>  
>  May you explain better?
>  
    First I'd like to note that I see now most of
the differences were 
because you were using an older version(s) of the
myth.  So now I see where 
your information came from.
    The Bacchae (women followers of Dionysus) would
enter a kind of divine 
frenzy.  Most often fleeing to woods, and I think
mountains with woods most 
often.  There they would do things like attack and
kill wild animals with 
their bare hands, and eat its raw flesh and blood
(which is how they "ate" 
Orpheus, which you mentioned).  Also in Euripides's
The Bacchae, a woman 
(queen actually) eats her son and mounts his head
on a stick and brags, 
thinking he's a lion in her frenzy.  Dionysus
arranged that because the royal 
family did not believe in him.  
    To the orgiastic part in particular, it was
essentially that.  The women 
in their frenzy would grap men around them and drag
them into the bushes and 
have sex with them.  That is to not imply the sex
was heterosexual, just an 
example.  
    I'm not sure, regarding fertility, any stories
of impregnation by these 
orgies.  So perhaps it's the lack of fertility
that's important.

Jason


From: "DAX" <massetti@iol.it>
John Thomas is not able to play a better role than
a Christ at the end. He
is near Egbert in "England my England". He is a
victim. These male
characters refuse their world or use it to be
victims, but they do not help
female characters. At the end John Thomas turns Ann
into a sinner, though
she didn't want it. Fertility and in a wider way
life is near but these
characters can't catch it.

Patrizia asks of the nickname, Coddy:
>  He has even a bad nickname
> (what does it mean?)

I had assumed it means much the same as "John Thomas."  A "cod-piece" in
medieval armor is the padded metal cup protecting the family jewels.
They are sometimes quite elaborate in design!  I just now looked up the
word "cod" and it has a meaning of "pillow" or "cushion" which I guess
relates to the function of the cod-piece.  Interesting!  So by calling
him "Coddy" at the end of the story are they calling him a "prick" or
are they saying he's "soft"???

> Yes, we do not know exactly him, notwithstanding he is a sort of "eaten
god"
> at the end

and Randall says:
> It also has links to the Orpheus myth.