Return To Naturalness---Studies On Primitivism In D.H. Lawrence’s Short Stories And Novellas

As one of the most outstanding and controversial British modern writers in the20century, David Herbert Lawrence (1885-1930) paid a lot of attention to the harmonious relationship between the mankind and the nature as well as the men and women. Deeply disappointed by chaos of modern society, he passionately dealt with the issues about the human emotion, instinct and unconsciousness, which showed his strong primitive inclination against industrial civilization’s trample on the nature and repression of humanity in his novels, poetry, essays and travelogues.This thesis tries to analyze the primitive inclination in Lawrence’s short stories and novellas with the employment of the theory of psychoanalysis and mythical archetype. It starts with a brief literary review of Lawrence and his works. Then, the thesis elaborates the origin of the primitivism in the modern literature movement as well as the modernism, anthropology and psychology’s influence on its development. Last but not the least, based on the four main features of the primitivism reflected in the modern literature, the thesis takes a research of the primitive inclination in Lawrence’s short stories and novellas, the manifestation of the unconscious mind, the pursuit for the exuberant vitality, the employment of the mythical archetype and the quest for the minor culture in The Horse Dealer’s Daughter, The Woman Who Rode Away and St. Mawr. This thesis points out that with the help of the primitivism, Lawrence spared no effort to awaken the numb mankind to their humanity, returning to the nature and restoring their instinct and vitality so that the harmonious living environment could come back. He put forward that abandoning the mechanical civilization and releasing the primitive emotion was the only way to modern people’s self-salvation which also gave a reference to the lost modern people nowadays.