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.