D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930)

Major works

The White Peacock (1910) Sons and Lovers (1913) The Rainbow (1915) Women in Love (1921) Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928)

Major themes

Relationship between men and women Criticism of the modern world of money

and machines Oedipus complex

A Strong Reaction against the Mechanical Civilization

The dehumanizing effect of mechanical civilization on the sensual tenderness of human nature

Passionate Love for Nature

Strongly advocated a return to nature, to a primitive way of life.

Man can derive energy, power and a dark sort of joy only by getting his life into contact with the elemental life of the cosmos, by keeping a harmonious relationship with nature.

Psychological Penetration

Reveal the deepest instincts of human nature

Dark self ---active unconsciousness --- the true source of passion

White self --- social ego

Human Relationship --- chief concern The core of his writing is to make this

relationship free and healthy. In all his life, he had been seeking the

idealistic human relationship. To him, balance, not dominance, is the best

guiding principle in the relationship --- “star-polarity”.

Frank discussion of sex

Style

Fusion of realism and modernism Traditional --- form Innovative --- combining psychic

exploration with social criticism Rich symbolic images Combine dramatic scenes with an authorial

commentary

Sons and Lovers

The abnormal love brings about a splitting personality in Paul, which in turn produces paralyzing effects on his relationships with other women like Miriam and Clare.

Themes

The dehumanizing effect of the industrialization

The complexity of human relationships The emotional possession of one person by

another The spiritual liberation of the protagonist in

search for identity and fulfillment as an artist

Paul, consciously or unconsciously, tries his best to keep his soul independent;he struggles frenziedly to break away from the possessive ties that have been strangling him.

This psychic conflict in human relationships is the central theme of Sons and Lovers.

Structure

1. The nature of human relationships --- three destructive forms of love:

The oedipal love between Paul and his mother;

The spiritual love between Paul and Miriam;

The physical love between Paul and Clare

Wave pattern --- the rhythmic rise and fall of the hero’s emotions

Paul fights desperately against the dominant mother and the possessive girl friends to keep his soul independent.

2. “S” curve structure

Gradually revealing “the long and half-secret process” of a son’s develoopment away from his parents.

Paul swings his sympathy from his mother towards his father

The main line of Paul’s emotional development.

3. Myth

Pluto, the king of the underworld, who fell in love with the fair princess, Pesephone, and took her to his dark kingdom to be the queen;but she soon felt tired and yearned to return to the land of light. The dark king fought hard to prevent her from going back,but he finally yielded to her wish. So Pesephone spent half a year up on the land of light and half a year down in the kingdom of darkness.

Darkness --- passion, energy and primitive --- the father

Light --- reason, intellect and civilization --- the mother

The ending of the novel

After his mother’s death, Paul feels lost, unable to paint any more. Rejecting Miriam’s last appeal to him for romance, he feels suicidal one night, but changes his mind and resolves not to “give into the darkness.”

Paul is beginning to understand

that his mother’s love was smothering, jealous, and ultimately destructive,

that he must live without her, and that his release from her feels like a

victory.

A reformed, determined Paul The ending ,with the city’s gold

phosphorescence, signifies Paul’s choice of life over the “darkness” of death.

Women in Love

Birkin and Ursula have realized a fulfilled love in their marriage by maintaining their integrity and independence as individuals and by achieving complete polarity with each other in marriage.