"Ache For Being": Ontological Insecurity In Women In Love

D. H. Lawrence’s representative work Women in Love, known for its complex andcreative theme and various artistic techniques, has been attracting people from variouscountries to give diverse comments. This paper tries to explore Lawrence’s concern onthe issue of “being” through the reexamination of the main characters’ eccentricbehavior and psychology in Women in Love from the perspective of the ExistentialistPsychologist R. D. Laing’s concept of “ontological insecurity”.Researches have revealed that Lawrence was interested in fathoming humanbeing’s inner self and relationship with others. In Women in Love he was invariablyexploring the complex and paradoxical being of a group of inconsistent persons: in onesense the three main characters Hermione, Birkin and Gerald felt dead, unreal andinconsistent, and were in mad need of others to fill up their sense of void. Only theconnection with the other could restore their sense of reality and fulfillment, and inanother they greatly feared that others might come to destroy them, to deprive them oftheir infirm identity and autonomy. Consequently, Hermione, Birkin and Gerald wouldresort to the schizophrenic action towards others to keep himself/herself together, suchas regarding the other as an object, a thing, or a person without thoughts or feelings, ortaking control of the other, reducing him into a person stripped of individual identityand autonomy or even smashing or killing the other. Not until the other was destroyedmentally and physically, did Hermione, Birkin and Gerald get temporary sense of reality.But later they were still dependent on their partners to witness their existence. In sum,their relation with the other was not balanced at all, in which endless conflicts andattack on “being” exploded.Throughout the novel, Hermione and Gerald continued to be involved with theother in this negative way, depriving the other of his individual, separate identity andfighting with him all the time. Finally, Hermione broke up with her lover Birkin, whocould not bear her dominating tyranny and wanted to be a separate being withindividual identity and autonomy. Gerald was more tragic. His love with the aggressivewoman Gudrun constellated around fear of losing integral being and of void. At the endof the novel, the indifference and detachment of Gudrun has finally collapsed Geraldand made him a huge void. He made up for his weak being through strangling Gudrun,only to end up dying in the snow mountain. Birkin was the only one that finally managed to escape from similar tragedy. The contact with Ursula coupled with violentconflicts as well as his own meditation on being made his life turn over a new leaf. Theprinciple of “star equilibrium” proposed by Birkin enshrines individual identity andautonomy within relationship. Unlike the love between Hermione and Gerald, Birkin’slove with Ursula constellated around individuation of being. In spite of limitations,Birkin was to some extent restored to an integral being and pointed out a way for theothers.In light of Laingian concept, Hermione, Birkin and Gerald are the veryontologically insecure individualists who do not have integral beings or who lacksubstantial identity and autonomy. When they are in contact with others, they will takeextreme or destructive ways (complete isolation, engulfment of others,depersonalization of others) to confirm their own existence. As a result, they strayfurther and further away from the normal life.Through the characterization of the main characters, particularly through Birkin,Lawrence explores the salvation for the integrity of human beings, that is, only whenone preserves his/her own identity and autonomy in the relationship can one maintain ahealthy relationship with oneself and others.