The Reconciliation Between Man And Nature:an Ecocritical Study Of D.H. Lawrence’s The Rainbow

The ecological research about Lawrence’s works has become the focus in the research community on Lawrence. After industry revolution, natural environment has deteriorated. Facing the tense relationship between man and nature, some scholars attempt to explore the effective ways to alleviate the tight relation between man and nature. Living in the developing period of Industry Revolution in the 20th century, D.H. Lawrence, a British novelist, is sensible to perceive the predicaments caused by the deterioration of natural environment. The relationship between man and nature has been covered in more than one of his works. With the rise of ecocriticism, many scholars try to interpret his works from this new perspective. They discuss about Lawrence’s pursuing the harmony between nature and culture, symbolism for emphasis of expression of nature, and the relation between humans and non-humans. However, few studies are made from the aspects of spirit, nature and society defined by the ecocritics, Lu Shuyuan. Lu Shuyuan’s three aspects will lead a fresh look at the relation between nature and man as well as Lawrence’s works and Lawrence himself. So with these three aspects in the direction of ecocriticism, the thesis aims to discuss the dialectical relationship between them in The Rainbow. Only when the relations between them are balanced, can the reconciliation between man and nature be realized.This thesis is composed of three parts including introduction, main body and conclusion. In introduction part, the research question, literature review and methodology are covered. And the aspects of spirit, nature and society defined by Lu Shuyuan act as an approach to analyze the dialectical relationship between them. In Chapter One, the thesis intends to introduce the conception and the development of ecocritcism to set up the theoretical foundation. In Chapter Two, the thesis mainly talks about the changing influence of nature on man’s spirit before and after Industry Revolution in The Rainbow, aiming to reveal the positive affection of nature on man’s spirit and indicate the damage industry brings not only on nature, but also man’s spirit. In Chapter Three, this part demonstrates the alienated spirit and social relations under industry’s control. Man is controlled by the machine in The Rainbow. In Chapter Four, with analyzing the character in The Rainbow, Ursula, bond with nature, who tries her best to get herself back out of industry control, it can be indicated that the people with natural spirit can walk out of the predicaments caused by industry and make their efforts to rebuild the reconciliation between man and nature. At last, the thesis concludes the undesirable relationship between nature, spirit and society in the book and finds the way from these three aspects to solve the existing problems between nature and man. Humans should step over the barrier between man and nature to be closer to nature psychologically. This is the basic way of calling for the natural spirit. Spirit does influence humans’ behaviors. Thus the natural spirit can make man more closed to nature, trying to protect nature. And also good natural surroundings will lead to the good spirit and further improve the social relations. Spirit acts as a composer to usher people how to march on the harmonious way of man and nature.