"The Rainbow" is about three generations of the Brangwen family of Nottinghamshire from the 1840s to the early years of the twentieth century. Within this historical framework Lawrence`s essential concern is with the passional lives of his characters andhe explores the pressures that determine their lives, using a religious symbolism in which the "rainbow" of the title is his unifying motif. His primary focus is on the individual`s struggle to growth and fulfilment within marriage and changing social circumstances, a process shown to grow more difficult through the generations. Young Ursula Brangwen, whose story is continued in "Women in Love", is finally the central figure in Lawrence`s anatomy of the confining structures of English social life and theimpact of industrialisation and urbanisation on the human psyche.