| As two famous British writers,D.H.Lawrence and Doris Lessing often sit next to each other on the library shelf.However,their intertextuality and pursuit for unity,one of the most elemental and vital motifs hidden in their texts,have received little critical attention so far.This thesis juxtaposes D.H.Lawrence and Doris Lessing,two authors of different sexes and generations,and studies their communal quest for unity and harmony,which,in this thesis,is defined as "androgyny".This thesis also discusses how does the gendered difference between Doris Lessing and D.H.Lawrence participate in the process during which their androgynous vision crystallizes into their narrative,by mainly focalizing on three literary elements of plot,characterization,and narrative style.An intertextual study of Lawrence and Lessing’s androgynous vision will not only provide a new and illuminating research approach to their literary criticism,but also help to clarify the popular misconception and misinterpretation of Lawrence as a hideous "misogynist" and Lessing as an outright"feminist."The concept of androgyny was firstly used to denote the hermaphrodite status of mythical figures,and like other cultural concepts,it is always open for redefinition in different historical and theoretical contexts.This thesis proposes a new interpretation of the concept of androgyny through three different aspects:1)The androgynous individual who can embrace and overcome self-division and achieve a balance between the masculine and feminine principles,of which Mellors in Lady Chatterley’s Lover and Kate in The Summer Before the Dark are the ideal representatives.2)The androgynous man-woman relationship born out of real living contact,which is endowed with the capability of regeneration in the heavily industrialized and mechanized world,and thus occupying the pivotal position in both authors’ androgynous framework.3)The androgynous connection between human organism and cosmos to achieve harmony and oneness with the world.The three aspects are intricately interconnected.For both authors,the personal androgynous realization interacts closely with the androgynous unison between man and woman,which,in turn,serves as a vehicle to experience cosmic harmony.Underlying them is an ontological striving for unity and integration,an attempt to move to a state of dialectical unification from dualism between male and female principles,man and woman,self and other,self and nature,conscious and unconscious.D.H.Lawrence’s and Doris Lessing’s visions of androgyny are represented in a symmetrical manner due to their gender difference,but at the same time,they are intimately connected by their unrelenting effort to transcend the compartmentalizing and pigeon-holing reality and their ceaseless pursuit for androgynous harmony,which can be seen as an antidote both author prescribed for this increasingly dividing world. |
