A Study Of Lady Chatterley's Lover From The Perspective Of Biblical Archetypes

D. H. Lawrence is one of the most influential and disputed writers in the English literature and in the world as well. Many of his works have been translated into several languages, and for all the years since their publications remains the focus of dispute. Criticisms of D. H. Lawrence and his works abound in number and in intensity. Lady Chatterley's Lover, one of his novels, has been no exception as has been criticized from the perspectives of sexuality, unification of man and nature, integration of spirit and flesh, and relations of men and women, etc. Lady Chatterley's Lover is still open to discussion from other perspectives. This thesis attempts to make a study of the novel from the perspective of biblical archetypes, using the methods of textual analysis and contrast, in hope of working out D. H. Lawrence's appreciation of the Bible and his view of Christian ethics.In the thesis, Northrop Frye's theory of archetypal criticism is employed to identify the biblical archetypes attached to the structure and imageries in Lady Chatterley's Lover, and to compare the characters with their corresponding archetypes. Attention is also paid to displacement of the biblical archetypes in the characterization of the novel so as to reveal Lawrence's ideas of religion and Christian ethics.The thesis consists of five chapters. In Chapter One, the introduction, a brief overview is made on D. H. Lawrence and Lady Chatterley's Lover as well as the researches that have been done on D. H. Lawrence and this novel in the past years at home and abroad. Chapter Two introduces the theory of archetypal criticism with the emphasis on Northrop Frye's archetypal analysis of the Bible. Chapter Three identifies and analyzes the main characters, structures and imageries in Lady Chatterley's Lover from the perspective of archetypal theory. Chapter Four deals with the displacement of the main characters'biblical archetypes, and discusses Lawrence's view of religion and Christian ethics. The last part comes to the conclusion , which summarizes the findings in the archetypal analysis of the biblical archetypes associated with the characters and the structure of the novel and concludes with a further comment on the vital role of the Bible in D. H. Lawrence's literary creations and his affections for salvation of human spirit.