Plodding Out Of The Plight Of Industrial Civilization:Primitivism In D.H Lawrence’s Three Short Stories

As one of the most important and controversial writers in the20th century, D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930) is a man of literary productivity. He is a novelist, poet, essayist, critic, translator and painter. And he always focuses his attention on gender relationships, and makes criticism against the negative effects of industrial civilization. In his works, Lawrence advocates his blood philosophy, in which blood means human instincts and impulses. Lawrence uses human instincts to fight against the degenerations of modern civilization. However, such a genius had not been understood by his contemporaries and his literary works were always denounced. Fortunately, thirty years after Lawrence’s death, the judgment towards him and his writings turned upside down. His novels received popularity and Lawrence himself became a favorite among not only English literature, but also world literature. Overall, Lawrence is most noted for his novels, and his short stories have always been ignored. In fact, Lawrence’s short stories are very excellent and extraordinary because the space limitations make the themes of his stories stand out and the conflicts centralize. Thus, the author of this paper gives her attention to Lawrence’s short stories, rather than his novels and some famous poems, and makes a probe into the primitivism manifested in the selected tales, which will help to get a new and deeper understanding towards Lawrence and his writings.This paper focuses on primitivism manifested in Lawrence’s three short stories:"The Woman Who Rode Away","The Princess", and "The Man Who Died" on the basis of textual analysis. And there are altogether five chapters in the thesis. Chapter One is introduction, which gives a brief abstract about primitivism, Lawrence’s life and the three short stories selected in the thesis. Besides, Chapter One contains the literary reviews of Lawrence’s writings home and abroad, and then presents the originality, significance and structure of the thesis. Chapter Five is a general summary of the whole thesis.In the major part, based on textual evidence, the author of this thesis analyzes every tale and gives a detailed comparison between the five aspects. There are altogether five typical features of primitivism:the call for vitality; the highlight of unconsciousness; the return to nature, to myth and to primitive cultures. Then the author tends to find the causes of the existence of primitivism in Lawrence’s short stories from four aspects. Lawrence’s personal experiences include not only his relationships with his parents, Jessie and Frieda, but also his physical conditions. These experiences make him understand the significance of vitality in human life. Also he is greatly influenced by Sigmund Freud and his theories. And in fact, the disastrous consequences of modern industrialization and pastoral convention also contribute to Lawrence’s primitive thoughts.The author of this thesis holds that everything has two sides. The primitive thoughts in Lawrence’s literary works have realistic roots and it gives a clear display of the negativeness of industrial civilization. However, Lawrence has gone too far in his criticism. He denies the whole civilization and industrial society. He has got no limits in his emphasis on primitivism. In fact, his advocating of pre-history and Indian tribal cultures is, in a way, against the progress of human civilization.