D.H. Lawrence's The rainbow and Women in love : a study of gender roles and values
Date
1986
Authors
Olchowy, James Richard
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Abstract
This thesis examines D.H. Lawrence's complex treatment of gender roles and values in The Rainbow and Women in Love. Its method of approach involves a mixture of historical and feminist criticism, as well as a close analysis of the two novels in question. As products of the historical period spanning from 1913 to 1917, these novels illustrate how greatly Lawrence's view of gender was influenced by both the Women's Movement and World War I.
The Rainbow is discussed inrelation to Lawrence's idiosyncratic response to the Women's Movement. Although he was antagonistic toward the political aspect of Women's Liberation, he was strongly in support of feminine values. His attitudes are evident in an examination of gender roles and values in The Rainbow. These roles and values are pertinent not only to individual characters and their relationships, but also to educational, religious, and industrial institutions within society. Ultimately, this novel shows--through its emphasis on birth and through Ursula's entrance into the man's world--how D.H. Lawrence hoped that the feminine principle might be revived.
Women in Love is analyzed m terms of Lawrence's response to both the Women's Movement and World War I. The War provided many women with the opportunity to work away from the home and family, but Lawrence increasingly saw the achievements of the Women's Movement--achievements that did not result in the feminization of human experience--as failures. Women in Love reflects both his disillusionment with women and the mounting dominance of masculine over feminine values in his characters' lives. In this novel, birth is de-emphasized and such masculine values as power, control, and death are stressed. An analysis of key chapters--including "The Industrial Magnate," "Coal-Dust," and "Class-room"--illustrates how masculine values are equally prevalent in both individuals' lives and society's structures. Women in Love thus shows how Lawrence came to see that the masculine principle had triumphed over the feminine.
Finally, three unresolved dilemmas that become evident in reading The Rainbow and Women in Love are addressed. The first dilemma involves Ursula's transformation of character from one novel to the next, the second involves the vision of inescapable violence and destruction with which Women in Love ends, and the third involves the trap of human knowledge and language which so preoccupies Women in Love as a whole. All three dilemmas point to Lawrence's changing view of gender roles and values, a glance at The Plumed Serpent bears that fact out by showing the future course his fiction took.
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UN SDG 5: Gender Equality