On Lawrences Feminist Consciousness in Sons.docx

1、On Lawrences Feminist Consciousness in Sons1. IntroductionD. H. Lawrence has been considered by many to be the most important novelist in England writing in the first half of the twentieth century. Sons and Lovers is one of D. H. Lawrences masterpieces. It accounts the relations between Paul and the

2、 other three females his mother Mrs. Morel, Miriam and Clara. Sons and Lovers was composed at the turn of 20th century, which was the heyday of the first wave of feminism, consolidated in the woman suffrage movement. From this novel, we can see Lawrence is not immune to the social-culture changes fe

3、minism advocates. Women characters in Sons and Lovers, major or minor, shadow the impact of feminism on Lawrence. It is quite easy to find the particularities of “New Women” sparking constantly in Clara, even in Miriam and Mrs. Morel etc.1.1 The definition of feminismFeminism is the belief that wome

4、n should have the same rights and opportunities as men. In the most basic sense, feminism is exactly what the dictionary says it is: the movement for social, political, and economic equality of men and women. Modern of Feminisms definition has expanded beyond the arena of equal opportunity and statu

5、s, but has now gone so far as to tell modern women what they ought to believe/advocate.1.2 The origin and development of feminism Feminism really began as a term in France (fminisme) around the end of the 1800s. However, the principals behind this actual term i.e., the struggle for equality - have b

6、een around since the beginning of the Western world. It came to the U.S. at the beginning of the 1900s via an article about a French Suffragist named Madeline Pelltier. But it didnt come into popular usage until the 1960s or 1970s. At that time, womens liberationist was actually the preferred term,

7、but that started to get a bad name, so it was abandoned for feminism. The majority of feminists want to be counted as men and share in the bounties of the dominant society, such as equal wages, child care, or other accepted social rights. Black and lesbian feminists thus argue that most women have m

8、ore in common with men than with each other. Now, has a bad name. However, what this example shows, and what I believe, is that the name is in many ways irrelevant because its whats behind the name, i.e. equality, that is frightening to people. Therefore, we should stick with the name. Read the work

9、 of Nancy Cott for more on the history of the word. 1.3 The representative figures of feminist literatureThe very act of speaking of having a language as a focus for studying women writers often silenced in the past. Examples might be Emily Dickensons “slant truth” of inner dialogues of such “quiet”

10、 characters as Charlotte Brontes Jane Eyre or Virginia Woolfs Mrs. Ramsay and Lily Briscoe. Female authors as George Eliot, Mary Wollstonecraft, Virginia Woolf, Rebecca West, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman, in Showalters context feminist literary criticism have mostly developed since the beginning of

11、the contemporary womens movement, with Simon de Beauvoir, Kate Millett, and Betty Friedan.1.4 Lawrence and Sons and Lovers Sons and Lovers is commonly regarded as a semi-autobiographical work, because Lawrences own life greatly overlaps with that of Paul, one of the Protagonists of the novel. Paul i

12、s not purely made-up when we get to know more about the writer.Lawrence was the fourth child of a struggling coal miner who was a heavy drinker. His mother, who came from a middle class family, was greatly superior in education to her husband. Lawrences childhood was dominated by poverty and frictio

13、n between his parents. They would argue constantly and he tended to side with his mother, with whom he grew very close and had a deep emotional bond, who figured as Mrs. Morel in Sons and Lovers. Living in near poverty, his mother determined that her sons should not become a miner like their father.

14、 Instead she encouraged them academically; Lawrence was then persuaded to work hard at Nottingham High School until the age of fifteen when he had to seek employment in a surgical goods factory. This period of his life and his friendship with Jessie Chambers was reflected in Sons and Lovers as Pauls

15、 relationship with Miriam. In 1910 Lawrences mother died and he was too sad to continue his work whereupon he began to write. In 1912, he eloped with the German wife of his old Nottingham professor, Frieda Weekley, and married her in 1914. However, they were very poor and their relationship was not

16、successful. In 1913, Sons and Lovers was published and readers found Frieda Weekley in Clara.As a writer, Lawrence is often concerned with the question of how to live within a new context of thought, or a new worldview. In his own words “a work of art should be judged neither by its fidelity to appe

17、arance, nor by purely aesthetic criteria, but by its tendency to intensify or diminish the will-to-life.” Sons and Lovers certainly does not stand away from ideological changes in society, which is refracted by fates of characters.Lawrence is not immune to the social-culture changes feminism advocat

18、es. Women characters in Sons and Lovers, major or minor, shadow the impact of feminism on Lawrence. It is quite easy to find the particularities of “New Woman” sparkling constantly in Clara, even in Miriam and Mrs. Morel etc.It is safe to say that the radical implication of the social-cultural chang

19、es feminism advocates produces in modernist writing an unprecedented preoccupation with female, both thematically and formally. Sons and Lovers is not just a retrospection of his life, but an ideological exploration and discovery from a males angle of view. We strongly feel the ambivalence of Lawren

20、ce, as the Victorian nurturing-domestic femininity is accompanied with that of the “New Woman”, for example, none of the women characters in the novel shows definite repellence towards remaining or reverting to “Angel in the House”, this ambivalence in identifying feminism exposes the influence of F

21、reudianism on Lawrence.2. Sons and LoversSons and Lovers is commonly regarded as a semi-autobiographical work, because Lawrences own life greatly overlaps with that of Paul, one of the protagonists of the novel. Paul is not purely made-up when we get to know more about the writer.Sons and Lovers was

22、 composed at the turn of 20th century, which was the heyday of the first wave of feminism, consolidated in the woman suffrage movement. The protagonist of this movement was known as the “New Woman”. They are independent, educated, relatively sexually liberated, oriented more toward productive life i

23、n the public sphere than to-ward reproductive life in the home.Influence from women around him inevitably impacts Lawrences literature. We notice that, in Sons and Lovers, female characters dominate the main character-relationships in the novel. Male ones are not short, but most of them except Paul

24、only exist as background or minor roles. In the novel, there are many minute descriptions on the relationships between Mrs. Morel and her son, her daughter, her husband, Pauls girl friends, etc. Paul, as the main role of the novel, is busy moving in the circle of women-his mother, his girlfriends, h

25、is sister and the shop girls. As most women characters in the novel have antitypes in Lawrences life, he seems to be looking back and trying to come to terms with his own problems and expose his complicated attitude toward women through Paul. Readers gain insight into Lawrences serious study into wo

26、mans position in the core or typical human relationships, which speaks well for womans living status in the early 20th century.The novel involves a series of repeated attempts of male/female unions, exemplified Mr. and Mrs. Morel, Pauls relationship first with Miriam, then with Clara. “These relatio

27、nships take forever to resolve and that when they do, the result is quite unsatisfactory.” All these relationships involve a power see saw of the characters, no one wins over the other completely, thus forming their in balanced relationships. It illuminates Lawrences vacillation between the desire t

28、o affirm “New Women” and to abandon completely Victorian masculine.3. Lawrences Feminist Consciousness in the relationships of Sons and Lovers.Lawrences manner in Sons and Lovers is basically realistic: his characters express themselves through their actions. At the same time, he uses other techniqu

29、es such as significant imagery or symbolism; and from this we can look into the hearts and minds of these characters, revealing powerful emotions and feelings that are not simple expressed in action.The symbolism is the practice of representing things by means of symbols or of attributing symbolic m

30、eanings or significance to objects, events, or relationships.In formulating a theory of symbolism, Lawrence is confronted with the difficulty of wanting to express the truth of the imagination as literally and “objectively” as possible without risking abstraction. One feels always in his art the ten

31、dency toward allegory and in his criticism the tendency toward its justification, but he insists that the symbol retain all the subtlety, elusiveness, and suggestiveness that life itself possesses. We have noted his tendency to literalize metaphor, to identify the symbol with the experience it is me

32、ant to symbolize.3.1 Oedipus Complex of Mrs. Morel The first part of the novel focuses on describing the unsatisfactory marriage of Morels. Mrs. Morel was born in middle-class bourgeois family, well educated. She could speak standard upper class English. She feels socially and intellectually superio

33、r to the life of the mining community going on around her. After their marriage, with the heavy labor, poverty and heavy family burden, Morel was deep into frustration. Mrs. Morel have little common in him, she cannot get any affection from her husband and often feels lonely.Some people look on Sons and Lovers as a