Lawrence, A Man Searching For New Life

David Herbert Lawrence has been considered one of the "Modernist" writers in the early 20th-century Britain. But he is very different from Yeats, T.S. Eliot and James Joyce, especially in the themes he deals with and in the philosophical beliefs behind them. Lawrence was a rebel in his attitude toward the modern materialistic civilization of the West and toward conventional religion and morality, an aristocratic individualist in his absorbing interest chiefly in the relationships between men and women and in the themes of love and marriage, to the neglect of larger social issues.Apart from the introduction and conclusion, the main body of the thesis consists of three chapters. Chapter I deals with Lawrence's philosophy. The First World War made Lawrence lose his confidence in western Civilization. He was aware of the disaster the civilization brought about. He showed his great concern for the future of human beings, in his awareness of the alienation of civilized man in whom all belief had died. He tried to save human beings restricted in the modern civilization. He appealed to people for encouraging flesh and blood to revive the inner life. He declared firmly his life philosophy-to establish perfect sexual relations between men and women, which was what he prescribed for the civilized people. He held that the decaying civilization could be healed by adopting a new relationship between men and women. He envisioned a new world dedicated to love, unhampered by social classes. "Blood Consciousness" was the product of his lifelong search for a new expression of the true meaning of life.Chapter II concerns about Lawrence's searching for new life. In this novel, Lawrence shows his prospect of the new world. The Rainbow spans three generations of the Brangwen family. The lives of Tom and Lydia are satisfying, but they are confined and based on the patriarchal clan system. Therefore, Tom and Lydia find only limited expression in their marriage. Anna, brought up under therainbow-the arch of their parents, is not satisfied with the confined life. She is going to seek the new world. The married life of Anna and Will is better than their previous generation, because it is not restricted and self-contented. After Ursula is born, Anna seems to see the "rainbow". She thinks that she herself is the rainbow; she needn't go further. Her life becomes enclosed by her husband and the children she bears. It is left to Ursula, a member of the third generation, to find fulfillment. She suffers repeated frustrations in her quest for freedom and fulfillment. The rainbow appearing at the end of the novel implies not only the new life that Ursula dreams of, but also the new life that Lawrence longs for all human beings.Chapter III tells us that death and rebirth go together. Death is the prelude of rebirth. Women in Love continues the story of the sisters, Ursula and Gudrun. Ursula's search for a fulfillment starting in The Rainbow, is continued, so is Lawrence's exploration of the sexual relations. The novel takes us from the provincial world of the Brangwens and Marsh Farm to the metropolitan world of London. Lawrence reveals two kinds of love. Gerald is connected with a series of mysterious death accidents, so death has a strong appeal to Gerald. Gudrun is selfish, capricious and cynical. Both of them lack the emotional depth and capacity for sincere relationship and tenderness, and they are both the messengers of death. Their love turns out to be a catastrophe and a tragedy; as a result, they can only meet death. Ursula and Birkin implies rebirth. Birkin is a great prophet, who firmly believes that death and rebirth, destruction and creation go together. Old world is doomed to death; it is the prelude of the new world. At the end of the novel, they escape from the snow valley, symbolizing death, and go to the green, sunny valley in Italy, where rebirth is established.The Rainbow and Women in Love are generally regarded as Lawrence's masterpieces, the author attempts to show the new world that Lawrence dreamed of in hi...