A Study Of Class Consciousness In D.H. Lawrence’s Novels

D. H. Lawrence is one of the most gifted and the most controversial writers inthe20thcentury British literature. From the perspective of class consciousness, thispaper intends to study three major novels–Sons and Lovers, Women in Love, andLady Chatterley’s Lover of Lawrence in three different stages his writing career. With“Marxist Class Analysis” to study these works and analyze the class identities of themain characters, this paper shows three different phases of Lawrence’s classconsciousness. In his early work Sons and Lovers,“class” only serves as abackground for the novel and his class consciousness is demonstrated in the form ofclass identity crisis of the hero Paul Morel, which stems from the wide gap betweenhis parents contradictory class backgrounds. In his middle stage novel Women in Love,“class” is not merely background but determining force that significantly influencedthe heroes’ destiny; through his mouthpiece–an unidentified hero Birkin, Lawrencecriticizes the ruling class of mine-owners and tries to solve class identity crisis, whichdisplays his class consciousness transition. In his last masterpiece Lady Chatterley’sLover,“class” becomes a major theme of the novel; Lawrence attacks on the rulingclass more fiercely and obviously, and the awakening of his class consciousness toeliminate the class barriers for a harmonious wholesomeness is achieved through theconnection of Connie, a used-to-be Lady, and Mellors, a working-class game-keeper.These gradual developments in Lawrence’s class consciousness reveal that under thesurface of bold sex descriptions are Lawrence’s reflections upon the dehumanizingeffects of modern industrialization, capitalism and the class relations, and moreimportantly his proposal for the elimination of class barriers and the return ofhumanity and life revival.