odour of chrysanthemums

1.
The author likes to describe things that are not human with human qualities, for example 'flames like red sores licking it's ashy sides' or 'a large bony vine clutched at the house, as if to claw down the tiled roof'. These said qualities are altogether undesirable and create a stricken landscape. The atmosphere sounds desolate and uninspired, like a grey winter. He makes everything sound decaying and old, and uses words like stagnant, insignificant and pitiful which makes me feel as though the story is set in a stale, pathetic and depressing area.
2.
The people in the extract seem to be pretty fed up with each other and also quite irritable. The mother only berates her son and there is no obvious signs of love displayed between them, and the description given of her is 'a tall woman of imperious mien, handsome, with definite black eyebrows' so i suppose she would be quite a hard faced, matronly and conservative woman. Judging by Lawrence's description of the son, John, (that he has a sulky voice and that he moves resentfully and slowly) as well as the fact that it's brought to our attention that he's playing somewhere he shouldn't be, i would assume that he is a misbehaving and bothersome child. His mannerisms are more like a frustrated 40 year old man than a five year old, probably due to the lifeless environment he is being brought up in.
3.
The message of the text is that people can be trapped by their own lives, and your actions are often indicative of your surroundings. In the story it is shown that these people have taken on the characteristics of the land around them (dull, cold, dejected and unloving).
4.
The story is set just after Queen Victoria died but before world war one. England was in a good place economically, and was exerting it's power through out the world, but the inhabitants of England itself were poor. The cargo and goods being exported by England seemed more important than the population. Many people were miners in lowly conditions and there were a number of strikes. This period was called the great unrest, as industrialization, factories, trains and machines were being introduced and replacing people, thus creating unemployment.