| Among the many social and psychological phenomena portrayed in the industrial England in Sons and Lovers,alienation attracts the most attention.Different from previous studies on the topic in the novel,this thesis adopts the theory of Karl Marx.By analyzing the workers’ alienation in capitalist production,in humanity and in interpersonal relationships,this thesis aims to reveal D.H.Lawrence’s strong critique on industrialism,which enslaves people with forced labor,degrades conscious life-activity and sabotages human relations.The present paper consists of three parts.The introduction reviews former studies on this novel and introduces Marx’s theory of alienation:workers in capitalist society are alienated from the products of labor,from the act of production,from their species being and from other workers.The main body applies the four aspects of alienation to the analysis of Sons and Lovers.Chapter one deals with workers’ alienation from both the result and the process of the capitalist production and analyzes how the colliers and the factory girls in the novel are separated from their products and forced to work while exposing their privation and physical ruin.Chapter two illustrates workers’ alienation from their species being:the alienated labor by separating the Morels from nature,reduces their species life to a means of existence and turns their human functions to animal functions.Chapter three focuses on the alienated social relations of the Morels and discusses how interpersonal relationships in industrial society are sabotaged by class antagonism and egoism,which estrange man from his fellow human beings.The conclusion summarizes the destructive effects of industrialization on labor,humanity and relationships and proposes that by presenting the sufferings of the working-class people represented by the Morels,D.H.Lawrence launches his strong critique on the alienating power of industrialism. |
