"The whole thing is an astonishing feat of imagination. If we do not, in reading it, think of it as a feat, that is because it all seems so real. And this reality derives from the intensity and profound seriousness of Lawrence's interest in human life." (F. R. Leavis)

The most striking thing about F. R. Leavis' statement above regarding D. H. Lawrence's short story `The Woman Who Rode Away' is how totally I disagree with Mr Leavis on every point. While Leavis praises the force of reality Lawrence creates, I will argue that there is an absence of any `authentic realism' in Lawrence's fatalistic portrayal of the woman. I will question the notion that there is anything `astonishing' or imaginative in Lawrence's hackneyed age-old `rape fantasy', whilst also examining the curious disparity between how F. R. Leavis and I read this story, and trying to ascertain why...