An Analysis Of Women In Love From The Perspective Of Ecofeminism

Lawrence's masterpiece Women in Love is usually considered to be the most profound and obscure one among his novels, but at the same time, the very representative of his highest achievement in novel creation. Since its publication, it has never ceased drawing reviewers'commentaries, favorable or unfavorable. This thesis attempts to analyze the novel in light of ecofeminism and to reveal Lawrence's consciousness of ecofeminism and his unique contribution to this literary critical theory. Throughout his short life, Lawrence has been concerned with the relationships between man and nature, men and women. In the novel Women in Love, Lawrence criticizes severely the oppressive patriarchal conceptual frameworks which feature the sharp split between human race and nature, men and women. He exposes human exploitation of and ravage to nature caused by industrialization and accuses man's enslavement and oppression of animals. He also condemns the domination-subordination relation between men and women by presenting the destructive love between Gerald and Gudrun, whose strong will to conquer and dominate each other only leads to the disintegration of themselves. What's worth attention is that based on his special personal experience Lawrence reveals not only the evils of men's dominance of women and nature, but also the harm caused by will-dominating women, Hermione as a case in point in the novel. Lawrence's warning echoes the criticism towards determinism among ecofeminists. In the meanwhile, Lawrence also makes a great prospect in which human beings live in harmony with nature, and men achieve perfect mutual unison with women while still keeping their own individuality, as is presented by the relation between Birkin and Ursula. Lawrence's tentative plan may be too great to be carried out, yet in the present society in which environmental crisis becomes increasingly serious and the feeling of alienation prevails among people, his brave attempt to offer a remedy to the malady of modern civilization proves even more precious.