Lady Chatterley's Lover

D. H. Lawrence was a novelist, poet, playwright and painter. He advocated free development of human nature and he was against industrialized destruction of nature. His works are in the deep exploration of family, marriage and bisexual relationship. He made great impact on the novelists in the 20^th century. Lawrence was versatile in his life. Besides writing novels, he also wrote poetry, plays, and essays. During his lifetime and even afterwards Lawrence was a controversial figure because of his frank treatment of sex and his outspoken insistence upon a need for a readjustment in the relationship between the sexes. Lawrence's novels support Freud's theory of psychoanalysis and he tried to establish an ideal society based on his idea of harmony between men and women in an unpolluted natural world.Lady Chatterley's Lover is a beautiful novel of integration of naturalism and symbolism. It is Lawrence's last novel of exploring the relationship between sexes. In this novel, Lawrence continued his exploration of sexuality, industrialized civilization and healthy human nature which were discussed in The Rainbow and Women in Love. The novel indicates love and sex are the salvation of lives lost in the 20^th century civilization. Lawrence's deep blood-consciousness and his strategy of sexual reform are embodied in the complete and perfect sexual description.The novel describes the rebirth of Connie and Mellors. Constance is married to Sir Clifford, an intellectual and landowner, who is confined to a wheelchair through injuries from the First World War. He is paralyzed and impotent. She has an unsatisfactory affair with a successful playwright, then a passionate love relationship with gamekeeper Oliver Mellors, son of a miner and ex-officer from the Indian army. She becomes pregnant by him, goes to Venice with her sister partly to obscure the baby's parentage. When Mellors' estranged wife spreads scandal in an effort to reclaim him, Lady Chatterley tells her husband the truth. The novel ends with the temporary separation of the lovers as they hopefully await divorce and a new life together.My thesis is a tentative attempt to arrive at a better understanding of the two main characters' rebirth. The thesis falls into four chapters.The first chapter begins with factors that influence Lawrence's ideas in his last novel Lady Chatterley's Lover. The factors are: life experience, social background, cultural background and heritage of literature. They play a great role in Lawrence's creation. Lawrence's life was full of ups and downs. According to his wife, he was impotent at the age of 41. This year witnessed a radical change in Lawrence's creation of writing. In the late 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th century, the British society witnessed political, economic and cultural changes. In the eighties and nineties various labour organizations came into being. These organizations led many workers' strikes for more right. The English working-class movement reached a new height in the years 1911-1914. By the end of the 19th century, Germany, Austria and Italy formed the Triple Alliance, crying for the redivision of the world. Then Britain, France and Russia also formed the Triple Entente. The contradictions between the imperialist countries grew into such great tension that it soon led to the outbreak of World War I (1914-1918). After the war, Britain became a debtor nation, and London lost its position as financial center of the world. The industrial unrest was rising and the agriculture was declining. The conflict between industry and nature became sharper. Darwin's theory of evolution convinced people that man was the product of natural selection and evolution rather than the creation of God. Modernism influenced Lawrence greatly. "Lake poet" and Hardy's idea of returning to nature was also reflected in this novel.The second chapter focuses on the block of Clifford's rebirth. The hero, Clifford Chatterley, is the representative of such "a tragic age". Wounded in the war, Clifford was maimed and was made sexually impotent forever. Clifford has no "physical" life. What he has is "spiritual" life, therefore, he invites all kinds of intellectuals home to talk about rational topics in order to enrich Connie's spiritual pursuit. Under his influence, Connie, like the crippled Clifford, lives her spiritual life without sexuality. What Clifford represents is the dying modem civilization. And it is the English modern civilization produced by combination of the Victorian civilization and the 20thcentury industrial civilization. Opposite to Clifford is Mellors who is the gamekeeper of flourishing forest. Full of energy and passion, Mellors represents nature and vigorous life. Connie's escaping from dying Wragby to dense forest, breaking loose with Clifford and running into Mellors' hug, stems not only from her depressed desire but also from the need of rebirth. Walking toward Mellors is the only way to be reborn. Meanwhile, Mellors becomes aware of everything. Later, he says to Connie that he has begun his new life.The third chapter is about Connie, the main female character. Nature quickens Connie's awakening. Connie's sexual relationship with Mellors gives her strength and vitality. She is born again. It is Mellors who revives Connie, giving her the awareness of a new life in her body with the tender love-making. It is Mellors who endows Connie with real life of human nature and makes her a real woman. It is Mellors who awakens Connie's female sexuality. After physical contact with Mellors, Connie turns out to be energetic and vigorous and her passion becomes active after a long time of silence.The last chapter discusses the ways to rebirth which are embodied in the novel. The ways to their rebirth are returning to nature and resorting to sexuality because Lawrence is a calm supporter to the stream "back to nature". In nature, Lawrence finds the paradise for his pair, escaping from the social mechanism and industrialization, dehumanization and deterioration. Connie and Mellors find their passionate love under the shelter of nature, and become energetic, vital and confident from their physical contact. In nature, human beings can be revitalized and get a harmonious and balanced sexual relationship. To Lawrence, their rebirth is inevitable. This is the only way for people to find new hope in modem civilizaition. Through this way, Lawrence finds the impulsion and motility for the dying human world.Through the analysis of the above four chapters, it is concluded that Connie and Mellors are not isolated individuals, and they represent men and women ruined by civilization in the modem society. Their sexual relationship revives them;their love-making makes their selves both spiritually and physically balanced. Lawrence holds the view that among bisexual relationship love and sex are the most natural andtruest and the society can be salvaged by the harmonious sexual relationship, which is the unification of spirit and body. In Lady Chatterley 's Lover, Lawrence explored the theme of rebirth because he tried to find a good way for English people to get revitalized in the civilized society.