A Study Of Disintegrated Individuals In D. H. Lawrence's Short Novels

D. H. Lawrence is one of the most prominent modern writers in the gallery of English literature. His great genius is best shown in the novel writing. His short fictions are compact in structure and coherent in narrative. More importantly, they are noticeable for their recurrent theme of disintegrated individuals. Researches have been done in various aspects concerning narrative and structure. However, study on the recurrent theme of disintegrated individuals in his short novels is comparatively a new attempt to approach D. H. Lawrence.This thesis studies the theme of disintegrated individuals in Lawrence's short novels with an exploration of the causes of disintegration made through perspectives of socio-historical environment and philosophy. The causes are narrowed down to the alienation of industrial civilization and its segregation, the consequence of the Great War and the consciousness of the anti-logocentrism. Then an analysis of the validity of disintegration is made according to four pathologic categories which are anxiety, narcissism, Electra complex and transference of Freud's psychoanalytic theory. Foucault's theory of discontinuity is also employed in the discussion of the effects of disintegration. The effects are classified into four categories as sex, marriage, solitude, hope and despair and discussion of them is developed through an analysis of endings that Lawrence offers to the individuals in this series of works.Through the detailed study of the recurrent theme of disintegrated individuals in Lawrence's short novels, this paper attempts to demonstrate that when depicting the sensibilities modern men in his age have, D.H. Lawrence focuses his attention on the disintegration of modern men. And it also tries to argue that disintegration is an inevasible result of the westerners under the alienation and dissolution of individual selfhood. Through his description of disintegrated characters we could see that the modern society in the west has gone wrong in the aspects of politics, economy, and environments. This critical effort taken by Lawrence in his short novels is not more a negative exposure of the society and a blaspheme against the English than a pursuit of remedy to solve the problems the modern men in the west face. Uncertainty of the deliverances he offers is the reflection of Lawrence's doubts for the possibility of development of individual selfhood in contemporary Britain. And the indicated futility of these deliverances vindicates his lack of confidence in a favorable social environment for the development of individual selfhood in the future. The study of Lawrence's theme of disintegrated characters could render a new perspective to the study of D. H. Lawrence as a whole.