The Logic Of Capital And The Right Of Body

D.H.Lawrence(1885-1930)was a celebrated English novelist,poet and painter in the twentieth century.Lawrence devoted his life to expressing his thoughts on life and to revealing the instinctive power of the human body through his literary works and paintings.The thesis contends that the novel constructs a world that combines reality and imagination with innovative form and profound metaphors,depicting a wasteland of life corrupted by the industrial civilization of British capitalism and a Garden of Eden rebuilt through the human body at the same time.Lawrence not only criticizes the logic of capital in the novel,but also expresses his Utopian imagination of a future world.This thesis is a study of Lawrence’s most significant novel Women in Love.Based on Marx’s critical theory of the logic of capital,this thesis aims to explore the representation of Utopia in the novel,interpreting Lawrence’s artistic pursuit of resisting and dissolving capital’s enslavement of human body,of gender relations and of art with Utopia.The thesis focuses on the analysis of Lawrence’s representation of Utopia from three aspects: human body,gender relation and art.Firstly,it discloses the subjugation of human body,gender relations and art caused by capitalist private ownership and capitalist ideology.Then it analyzes the Utopia constructed by Lawrence to resist the oppression of the logic of capital.The Utopia manifests itself specifically through three aspects,including the natural state of the body and unity of body with nature,Utopia of gender relation in which men and women are harmonious on both sexual and spiritual sides,and Utopia of art that works for life.Lawrence’s Utopia implies his reflections on social and human development.That is to say,in order to achieve a free development of the human life,it is imperative to liberate people from the logic of capital and to break the oppression of the human body and spirit by capital.Human beings are expected to return to the logic of the body so as to realize the comprehensive development of their dual consciousness.Lawrence’s criticism of the logic of capital serves as the foundation of his Utopian imagination in Women in Love.He yearns for an ideal world in which the human body can fully express creativity rather than a world ruled by the logic of capital.It reflects his concern and emphasis on the state of the human life.