Trauma In Women In Love

Drawing on the theories of trauma by Sigmund Freud and Judith Herman, aswell as recent studies of trauma, this thesis aims to address D. H. Lawrence’s Womenin Love as a trauma fiction. This thesis is divided into two parts. The first partdiscloses Lawrence’s internalization and conceptualization of the war trauma into thenovel in three aspects: trauma and repetition compulsion; trauma and narcissism;trauma and death instinct. The second part focuses upon Lawrence’s working throughof the trauma by protest against the world full of destruction and violence, and hisenvisioning of an alternative world in the Birkin-Ursular relationship as an escape.The issue of working through about which the latter part is concerned, to my bestknowledge, is by far seldom touched upon by other researchers.