Explortion Of Individuality

D. H. Lawrence is one of the most controversial British writers of the 20^th century. The sexual explicitness and so-called sexual politics in his writings increasingly drew satire of reviewers, and from the time The Rainbow was prosecuted for obscenity and was ordered to be destroyed in 1915, his public image was increasingly one of notoriety. His writing, which gives a highly exhaustive discussion of sexual relationship and role, has always been the focus of feminist literary criticism. Under scrutiny have been his seemingly disparaging representation of women and the specific implications of sexual politics. In the influential arguments occurred in the early 1970s, critics disapproving Lawrence sought to expose his misogyny and preoccupation with restoring patriarchy. However, feminist appreciation of Lawrence, although much scarcer, has always not been lacking. A substantial number of writers, female and male, during the seventies and eighties expressed admiration for his sensitive insight into the nature and temperament of his heroines. His works are getting more and more established as the canon of great literature, as they are appreciated more righteously in terms of literary and moral values. In the meantime, his master place in the 20th century literature is becoming recognized, and his reputation as a male-supremacist is getting shattered as well. In Men and Feminism in Modern Literature, Declan Kiberd asserted that Lawrence is not a male propagandist, but rather an androgynous artist attuned to the lives of both sexes (qtd in Jackson 33). Kiberd expressed his appreciation of Lawrence's deep understanding of women's dilemma and insightful description of their psyche2. Lawrence himself remarked, in a letter, that his aim in The Rainbow was to show"women becoming individual, self-responsible, taking her own initiative"(Letters 2: 165). In The Rainbow, he dramatizes his own quest for a balanced sexual relationship as he chronicles the bitter struggles and little sweetness in the marriages of the three generations of the Brangwen family. He tentatively explains the...