D.H. Lawrence's Concept Of Life

This paper is to study two of D. H. Lawrence's most important novels--The Rainbow and Women in Love. These works are treated as a whole in this study as the unfinished story of Ursula in The Rainbow continues in Women in Love. The examination of the story in its entirety should enable one to have a better understanding of what the author intended to express.It is well known that Lawrence wrote about sexuality, criticized mechanism and rationalism, and advocated reverting back to nature. Reading his selected critiques reveals the reasons why he was against so many things and the core value of his philosophy—life itself. Like many other writers and artists who were never understood by their contemporaries, Lawrence's works were too banned in his time and yet have become immensely popular and widely studied. The controversial aspects could have added to his fame, but it is the fundamental qualities of his works that have achieved his long-lasting impact in the literary world. Many of his values (criticisms) on civilization are still of great significance today, a world with even more problems than the one at his time.This thesis aims at exploring the overall ecological thoughts of D. H. Lawrence, his doubts, his solutions and the ecological significance of the two novels, so as to achieve a better understanding of his philosophy.Chapter One begins with an introduction to ecocriticism, including the definition of ecoliterature, its core values, and characteristics, which is the theoretical basis of this study. What relates Lawrence's works to ecocriticism is their striking characteristic of civilization criticism, which is also an important aspect of ecocriticism. Due to the fact that D. H. Lawrence often put his own experiences into his literary creation, it is also necessary to discuss some important facts in his life and to introduce very briefly the plot of the two novels. Chapter Two discusses D. H. Lawrence's civilization criticism. It can be concluded that those aspects are all related to man's various abilities, such as the ability to work, think, love, ect. Lawrence criticized each aspect when it was overemphasized by some people, which prevented one from viewing life itself as the most important.Chapter Three is a discussion of Lawrence's beliefs, or his solutions to the problems of civilization mentioned in chapter two. Two key words can summarize his philosophy: life and relationship. First, life is more important than anything. Then, life does not exist in isolation. The relationship between a human being and the outside world, including other human beings and nature, is what constitutes life itself. For the former, the most important relationship is that between a man and a woman. That's why a happy and satisfying marriage is very important. For the latter, man should not and can not conquer nature. Instead, man should try to be at-one (be careful,"at-oneness"is a noun) with nature. In addition, because the social mechanism produced various social beings, Lawrence suggested a lifestyle opposed to that of a social being, which offered clues to being"a whole man alive".Chapter Four is about the ecological significance of the two novels. First, it should be pointed out that Lawrence was antianthropocentric. Second, nature can be the source of inspirations for man, so that man can realize what's wrong with the human society and which is the right way. The main trait of the novels'ecological significance is the ecological warning expressed in them, which will also be the largest part discussed in this chapter.Chapter Five is the conclusion part, which provides another birdseyeview of this study, relates and connects the above chapters, and reemphasizes the key points in this study. First, Lawrence's life story had a lot to do with his outlook. Then the life concept is of central value in his philosophy, which is also where the ecological significance of his novels results from.