Analysis Of Characters’ Experience And Pursuit In The Rainbow Under Dilthey’s Life Philosophy

As a famous modern British writer in early twentieth century, D.H Lawrence puts forward his unique insights for aesthetics from his perspective of writing novels, The Rainbow, a long masterpiece created in1915, fully embodies Lawrence’s philosophical theme that literary creation and its aesthetics lie in the experience of subject, furthermore, many of his literary theories, especially his concern on life is similar to Wihelm Dilthey’s life philosophy theory. Under this theoretical context, the focus of this thesis is to make a research on characters’ experience and pursuit process under the framework of Dilthey’s life philosophy, and explore the three generations’ characters’ experience and pursuits of life meaning, meantime, discuss the relation and changes of body and soul, family and society, agriculture and industry under industrial society or machine production.Study from Dilthey’s experience, understanding and expression theory, this thesis is about the integration and harmony between Dilthey’s life philosophy theory and characters’ life process, and the purpose of this thesis is to seek the characters’ experience, understanding and expression in their life process. In this novel, about experience, the characters has undergone great changes in body and soul, but they never give up the hope for a perfect life state; About understanding, after they have met some setbacks and loss, the characters begin to abandon their original thought and look for another way; About expression, because of the deterioration of external environment and the distortion of internal mind, the characters give their hope in the hands of the rainbow that does not really exist, seeking to establish an ideal poetic and humanistic world, which is the common destination for both Lawrence’s novel writing and Dilthey’s philosophy. In this way, we can reach a purpose that Lawrence expects, as Lawrence says,"Novel is the book about life", and "novel is the best means to reveal our relationship."(Hei Ma,2004:95)In this thesis, the first chapter discusses literature review of the novel The Rainbow and Dilthey’s life philosophy; the main points are the unique charm of The Rainbow and its relation and reflection of Dilthey’s life philosophy.The second chapter focuses on Dilthey’s opinions on concept of life and life philosophy, Dilthey’s life philosophy is based on ontological aesthetic philosophy, his theory takes research of individual life embedded in cultural and historical framework, which is closely related with Lawrence’s concern on individual life and social history.The third chapter is the main content of this thesis; it analyzes the three generations ’characters’ life experience and pursuits under life philosophy at the turbulent situation in people’s minds and social environment, which is a reflection of life philosophy.The fourth chapter mainly analyzes different features in changes of generation in The Rainbow, generally speaking, their life experience and pursuits in life procedures and meaning has unique charm and an upward trend, each has some changes in life and mind, with laying foundation for the next generation, and this thesis will examine this phenomenon in a macroscopic view and find the joint points in life philosophy.The fifth chapter analyzes the common opinions of life concept in Dilthey and Lawrence. Both of them hold the view that life is irrational, and through experience and self realization people can really understand life itself. The characters’ life procedures have far-reaching influences on modern people.The sixth chapter is the conclusion part, People pursue life’s rainbow in different life experience, but they only find that this rainbow will never appear in face of people as a real entity, however, it only shows people’s spiritual self-realization and perfection in life experience and pursuits.