An Eco-Critical Reading Of D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover

Lady Chatterley's Lover, the last one of D. H. Lawrence's full-length novels, not only displays Lawrence's unique writing skill well but also exposes the industrial society clearly. In the 19th England, industrial revolution strengthened human's exploitation of nature. Subsequently, nature was suppressed severely. In the process of human's ruling nature, human began to rule the people around himself. The civilization of the rule is presented well. All these are reflected well in this novel. Connie in this novel is once a baroness and manor hostess. Having suffered from the civilized life, she abandons the life with abundant material, becomes the lover of a gamekeeper, and chooses to live a simple life. The change of her role symbolizes the refusal of human civilization and back to nature.Eco-criticism focuses on the position of nature in literature and holds a critique on human civilization. Eco-critics declare that human civilization leads to the inferior position of nature and human's control over nature, and that science and passion, the offspring of human civilization, generate human's control over others and further alienates human. They advocate the establishment of a harmonious eco-system, that is, harmonious relationships between human and between human and nature.Therefore, this thesis carries out a text-based analysis of the novel Lady Chatterley's Lover using the approach of eco-criticism. Lawrence's concern about human and nature and his advocating of establishing harmonious relationships between human and nature, man and woman, and man and man are explored in this thesis.The introduction gives a brief review of Lawrence and a literary review of his novel Lady Chatterley's Lover. Moreover, research methodology, research motivation, research questions and research objectives of this thesis are also briefly introduced in this part.Chapter One gives a brief survey of eco-criticism in order to provide theoretical foundation for the eco-critical reading. Meanwhile, D. H. Lawrence's life experience is also reviewed, which suggests that the thoughts of his works have much in common with eco-criticism.Chapter Two concentrates on human's control over nature and the devastated condition of nature in Lady Chatterley's Lover, and identifies human civilization as its root cause. Chapter Three reveals that science and technology generates a alienated society, by analyzing the alienations of human that Clifford enslaves human around Clifford, even himself, to industrial production, and his wife is also treated as a tool to sustain his existence and produce an heir to his family.Chapter Four traces Lawrence's way to save human from the plight—"back to nature". Connie and Mellors, victims of industrial civilization, find a refuge in the wood where their instinct is revived by nature and the true love. Hence, the significance of harmonious relationships between human and nature and between man and woman is highlighted.Finally, the analysis of this text is combed and summarized, which makes clear Lawrence's ecological thoughts further.