The Ethical Thoughts And Moral Ideals In Sons And Lovers

D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930) is one of the greatest English novelists in the 20th century and is also "the most widely studied author in the England language" (quoted by Meyers, 1987:1). "No novelists writing since the First World War can have been entirely uninfluenced by him" (Swatridge, 1985:144) as he has breathed a new life into the novel by saving it from dry intellectualism. Sons and Lovers is one of his most important works. It is not only widely read by the public, but also makes Lawrence well known among writers and intellectuals. In the novel, Lawrence thinks that the evil consequences of industrialism are not only destruction of nature, but also repression of people's humanity, and especially of the natural relationship between men and women. So, he expresses his bitterness towards industrialization and his hope that the decaying civilization can be healed by adopting a new type of relationship between men and women. As one of the most important novels by Lawrence, Sons and Lovers focuses its concern on the descriptions of the psychosis and the moral confusion of that roaring age. With the works, the author also criticizes the oppression of rationality, calls the restoration towards humanity and puts forward his own ethical thoughts of the phase when writing the novel. It is in this sense that he is more an ethical thinker rather than a writer.With ethical literary criticism, this thesis sets out to make an analysis of Lawrence's ethical thoughts and moral ideals when he was writing Sons and Lovers. Taking the First World War as the background, it delineates the great influence on people's psychology, coming from the economic changes. What's more, the economic transformation must lead to changes in superstructure, including morality, values and interpersonal relationships. We can find that Lawrence often uses the words such as "prisoner" and "bondage" to express the state of repression of humanity. For example, the first time Paul went out looking for advertisements for a job, he felt that already "he was a prisoner of industrialism" (Lawrence, 1992:89). We feel that the personalities of characters are oppressed by the life in the industrial society. So Lawrence has been seeking a release from inhibiting social obligations and the discovery of personal authenticity through sexual passion.Based on scientific reason, the ethics of the 19th century was characterized byutilitarianism and accordingly an extreme materialistic attitude towards life. Sons and Lovers, in exploring the path to ethical freedom, challenges the absolute dominance of reason in the modern world.The first part of the thesis is devoted to the introduction of Lawrence's life and arts. It also briefly introduces the ethical literary criticism and the main content of the novel so that we can have an idea about them. The second part mainly focuses on tracing the factors contributing to his ethical thoughts and moral ideals in Sons and Lovers. On the one hand, it is closely connected with the personal experiences of the author;on the other hand, it is determined by the social and historical background of the Victorian age. For Paul, the alienated ethical relation between men in society was in the conflict with the traditional moral conception of him, so his nice moral ideals were broken, and he was slumped into the giant suffering and loneliness. The third part aims to elucidate Lawrence's ethical thoughts, including his sexual ethical ideas and eco-ethics of human and nature. Lawrence opposes to the oppression of rationality and criticizes both the spiritual and carnal lovers. The fourth part attempts to explore the author's four ways to realize his moral ideals in Sons and Lovers, which are liberation from social hypocrisy, pursuit of unity between "spirit" and "flesh", the establishment of true relationship between people of the same sex, the restoration of human nature and setting up the united relationship between man and nature. After making his ethical thoughts clear, the thesis makes its conclusion on the 5th part.From the above analysis, we can see that as one of the most important novelists of the age, Lawrence still remains a significant force in modern fiction. He had been pursuing the restoration of humanity and challenging against the old traditional conceptions with his moral ideals. Living in an age, which was full of spiritual and social crisis, he was ultimately resentful of the modern society. By writing, he attacked the traditional ethical forbidden zone and tried to rebuild the moral pillar of man with a posture of a moral revolt. As a novelist of the modernist school, by the profound descriptions of Paul's psychological barriers and spiritual perplexity, Lawrence manifests a picture of oppression of the so-called social civilization and rationality against humanity and the destruction of nature by industrialism and he also gives us the solutions to them. It is where the significance of his works lies in. We should realize that though his eco-ethical ideas are very progressive, his thoughts of reforming the English societyby readjustment between men and women and the perfect combination of "spirit" and "flesh" can only be a dream.