儿子与情人英语本科论文

攀枝花学院本科毕业论文

《儿子与情人》中保罗的男权主义形

象解读

学生姓名： 学生学号： 院 （系）： 年级专业： 指导教师：

二〇一一年五月

Paul, A Representative of Male Chauvinism —A Study on the Relationship Between Paul and the Female Characters in

Sons and Lovers

Tang Wenju

Under the Supervision of

Yang Shuhan

School of Foreign Languages and Cultures

Panzhihua University

May 2011

Contents

攀枝花学院本科毕业论文 Contents

Abstract .......................................................................................................... Ⅰ Key Words ...................................................................................................... Ⅰ 摘 要 ........................................................................................................... Ⅱ 关键词 ........................................................................................................... Ⅱ Introduction ...................................................................................................... 1 Ⅰ. Brief Introduction toMale Chauvinism ........................................................ 3 Ⅱ. Paul vs. Mrs. Morel—the Awakening Consciousness of Male Chauvinism in Paul. ............................................................................................................. 5 A. An Analysis of Mrs. Morel—the Representative of Women with Strong Will ..... 5 B. Paul’s Complex Feelings toward His Mother, Mrs. Morel ................................... 7 C. Paul’s Escape from Mrs. Morel—Man’s Resistence of Woman’s Independence . 8 Ⅲ. Paul vs. Miriam—Male Chauvinism’s Coming into Play at Their Relation .................. ……..10 A. An Analysis of Miriam—the Woman Representative Struggling in Patriarchal System ...................................................................................................................... 10 B. Paul’s Admiration of Miriam’s Family—Longing for a Man-centered Family .. 12 C. Paul’s Escape from Miriam —Man’s Rejection of Woman’s Maternal Ideaology ................................................................................................................................ 14 Ⅳ. Paul vs. Clara—Male Chauvinism’s Overwhelming Paul ....................................................... 16 A. An Analysis of Clara—the Representative of Women Dominated by Man ........ 16 B. Paul’s Choice of Clara—Male Chauvinism’s Victory over Feminism................ 16 C. Paul's Giving Away of Clara—Playing Woman at Man's Will…………………18 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………20 Acknowledgements ………………………………………………………………….21 Bibliography …………………………………………………………………….…...22

Abstract

攀枝花学院本科毕业论文 Abstract

Male Chauvinism mainly refers to male’s dominating status in the society and in family affairs. It is further exemplified by the male-centered standards and values about the ideal order of the society and family. This paper will attempt to interpret the protagonist, Paul’s male chauvinistic image through the analysis of the relationship between Paul and the female characters, Mrs. Morel, the mother, and his two lovers, Miriam and Clara. Because of his escape from the two women, Mrs. Morel and Miriam who represent the independent women, and his choice of the traditional woman Clara, Paul’s male chauvinistic image emerges.

Key Words

Male Chauvinism; man-domination; patriarchy; woman’s independence

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攀枝花学院本科毕业论文 摘要

摘 要

男权主义（Male Chauvinism）又称男性沙文主义,是指男子在家庭﹑社会中的支配性特权。进一步表现为以男性及其活动为中心来决定理想的社会和家庭模式的标准和价值观。本文将从男权主义角度借由分析《儿子与情人》中男主人公保罗与女性人物——莫瑞尔夫人，米莉安和克拉拉的关系从而阐释其男权主义形象。书中莫瑞尔夫人和米莉安均为具有独立思想的女性，而保罗却一步步从这样的女性身边逃开，而选择了相对更符合传统女性特点的克拉拉。这样的逃离过程让保罗的男权主义形象跃然纸上。因此，希望通过该论文进一步丰富关于对小说《儿子与情人》的理解及对D.H.劳伦斯关于和谐两性关系的理解。

关键词

男权主义；男性主宰； 家长制；女性独立

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攀枝花学院本科毕业论文 Introduction

Introduction

David Herbert Lawrence, as an English writer of the twentieth century, is quite prolific in literary works such as poems, stories, novelettes, novels, plays, literary essays and travel books. But he is first of all a novelist. As an original novelist，his artistic achievement has been affirmed by many critics. He advocates the principle of saving the decaying civilization through a rearrangement of the relationship between men and women, which is demonstrated in one of his most representative works, Sons and Lovers.

This paper will mainly focus on the novel—Sons and Lovers, the first of Lawrence’s important works. It begins with Mrs. Morel’s unhappy marriage to Mr. Morel, a drinking miner. She has many arguments with her husband, some of which even have painful results. On separate occasions, she is locked out of the house and hit in the head by her husband with the drawer. Gradually, Mrs. Morel estranges herself from her husband and takes comfort from her children, especially her sons. Her oldest son, William, is her favorite, and she is very upset when he takes a job in London and moves away from the family. When William sickens and dies a few years later, she is crushed, not even noticing the rest of her children until she almost loses Paul, her second son, as well. From that moment on, Paul becomes the focus of her life, and the two seem to live for each other. Later on, Paul falls in love with Miriam Leivers, who lives on a farm not too far from the Morel family. They carry on a very intimate, but purely platonic relationship for many years. Mrs. Morel fears that Miriam may draw Paul away from her, and, thus, does not approve of Miriam and pull with her for the possession of Paul. Yet, because of Miriam’s platonic and possessive love, Paul constantly wavers in his feelings toward her. Therefore, when he meets Clara, a suffragette who is separated from her husband, he distances himself from Miriam step by step. To seek a more satisfying love, Paul begins to spend more time with Clara and they begin an extremely

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passionate affair. And finally the affair between him and Miriam ends in nothing. However, Clara does not want to divorce her husband Baxter, which makes Paul’s complete possession of her impossible. Therefore, he again runs away and goes back to his sick mother. When his mother finally dies, he loses all his gravity of life and drifts away.

Many critics have had different interpretations of this book through various perspectives, such as the angle of Oedipus complex, in which way, many have taken it for granted that it is Paul’s Oedipus complex that makes his life a mess and it is his mother whom to blame. And the uniqueness of this paper would be its male chauvinism angle. In the novel, Paul first runs away from his mother, then from Miriam and finally went to Clara. Why does he run away again and again? Through the analysis of Paul’s relationship with them, we would know his escape is definitely not accidental. Mrs. Morel and Miriam are actually relatively different women compared with other women in that time because they are awakened to the idea of equality and the desire of possessing man as man does to them. Paul is effortless in controlling them and cannot adapt himself to this new role order of man and woman so he retreats back and gets close to a woman who is, in some degree, more typical of the traditional role of woman submitting to man’s instinctive needs and submitting to man’s will. Therefore, Paul is actually a representative of male chauvinism, and escapes into the traditional social gender order when faced with the request of woman for equality. As a result, he emancipates neither himself nor the women and ends in failure. Hope this study may further enrich the understanding of Sons and Lovers and also D.H. Lawrence’s view about the relationship between man and woman.

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Ⅰ. Brief Introduction to Male Chauvinism

Male Chauvinism refers to the dominating rights of man in the society and in the family. To be more specific, it is characterized by the male-centered idea that the focus of society should be men and their activities. Male chauvinists also take man’s body and living mode as the ideal and formal organizing format of the society and family.

Male chauvinism is mainly featured by the following ideas.

First of all, it emphasizes male-dominance. That is, within a society, whether it is in the field of politics, economy, law, religion, education, military affairs or family issues, man enjoys the authority. Besides, it evaluates women with man’s standards, while not the vice versa. Male chauvinism also puts great emphasis on the natural basis on which man rules and holds that such natural basis endows man and woman with different rights. Thus, it is quite natural that man rules.

Secondly, it highlights the masculine identity, which means that the mainstream cultural ideas about what is good, worthwhile and normal are always concerned with man, man’s traits or his ideals. For example, the word “man” represents not only the male group but the whole human kind composed of both man and woman. What’s more, it is usually the case in daily life that man makes decisions while woman makes coffee. In this way, women are marginalized and turned out of the social order and treated as exceptions; on the premises of man working and woman house-sitting, the work is clarified into the money-making and the money-making-not, of which the former is regarded as the real work and business whereas the latter is not treated as a case.

Male chauvinists’ description of man’s traits greatly approximates the main ideas of the culture. And it is exemplified by the features of being controlling, formidable and energetic, efficient, competitive, forceful, rational

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independent and so on. Yet, woman’s value is not totally negated. Woman’s beauty is viewed as the target of man’s sex desire.

Thirdly, it objectifies woman. In man’s businesses and trades, man makes use of woman as object thus limits, impedes woman’s creativity and disconnects woman with knowledge and other cultural fields. As is one of the characteristics of man-dominating society, man negates woman’s characteristics and forces man’s traits on woman; rules and exploits woman; limits woman’s body and her activities. It puts woman in an inferior status of society.

Fourthly, male chauvinists think in a dual pattern and divides things into either the black or the white, while neglects things or states existing in between.

Finally, it holds some criticism against the over-dilation of feminism. It believes that, under the strongly assertive feminism’s influence, it will again end in inequality of distribution of social resources. What’s more, if feminism raises woman’s status to the highest degree, it would result in dual standards of values. For example, it would qualify woman’s capriciousness and also man’s service to woman; in the relationship of love and marriage woman would demand freedom and independence while, at the same time, think it is man who should shoulder most of the responsibilities. Thus, in male chauvinists’ view, most feminists give up their feministic beliefs and put more emphasis on women’s rights while at the same time exclude man’s rights.

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Ⅱ. Paul vs. Mrs. Morel—the Awakening Consciousness of Male

Chauvinism in Paul

Having experienced the disappointment Mr. Morel had brought her and the loss of her oldest son, William, Mrs. Morel pins all her hopes on Paul, the youngest son of the family. Inheriting all the mother’s love, Paul stays close to his mother and take sides with her when fighting occurs between her and the father. He feels for his mother and lives under her guidance until he steps into the outside world. The difference of the two worlds, the one Mrs. Morel constructed for him and the one he experiences by himself, pushes him to grow and acknowledge the truer self of him, starting from which he begins to go astray from his mother.

A. An Analysis of Mrs. Morel—Women Representative of Matriarchal Ideology

Mrs. Gertrude Morel is a refined and strong-willed woman from the middle class. Early from her childhood, she began fighting against patriarchy. In the old burgher family, there are her overbearing father and the gentle, kindly-souled mother. It is a traditional family in which man dominates. And Mrs. Morel hates her father’s overbearing attitudes toward her mother. Growing up in a family full of “famous independents who had fought with Colonel Hutchinson, and who remained stout Congregationalists.” (D.H. Lawrence，2005:7), she is proud and unyielding. The family order of man-dominating enlightens her of the difference between man and woman, as the dialogue between her friend John Field and her goes,

“But you said you don’t like business,” she pursued. “I don’t. I hate it! ”he cried hotly.

“And you would like to go into ministry,” she half implored.

“I should. I should love it, if I thought I could make a first-rate preacher.”

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“Then why don’t you —why don’t you?” Her voice rang with defiance. “If I were a man, nothing would stop me.”(D.H. Lawrence, 2005:08)

She looks forward to equality and freedom of pursuing one’s dream. Yet, gender is the only obstacle in her eyes.

Besides, she is a puritan, like her father, high-minded, and really stern, which has drown Walter Morel and her together and also driven them apart. Because of the sternness and dullness of her life, “the dusky, golden softness of this man’s sensuous flame of life, that flowed off his flesh like the flame from a candle, not baffled and gripped into incandescence by thought and spirit as her life was, seemed to her something wonderful, beyond her.” (D.H. Lawrence，2005:12) For the curiosity and fascination the mining worker and mining life has arouse, she married Walter Morel. Yet, as time goes on, she comes to realize that her husband is far from what she has expected. She could find no satisfaction in the roughness and illiteracy of her uneducated husband. “She could not be content with the little he might be; she would have him the much that he ought to be.” (D.H. Lawrence, 2005:18) Thus begins her battle with her husband in order to make him moral and more responsible. Yet, “authority was hateful to him” (D.H. Lawrence, 2005:18) and it only drives him out of his mind and the family. Mentally isolated, she pins her hopes on her children. And after her elder son’s death, she invests in Paul all her hopes and passions. And her all-possessive love finally drove Paul away from her, too.

As the estrangement goes further and further, the battle becomes the real violence on Mr. Morel’s side. Mrs. Morel comes to despise him. Later on, when the children are old enough, she joins the Women’s Guild, a little club of women attached to the Co-operative Wholesale Society. However, “The Guild was called by some hostile husbands, who found their wives getting too independent, the ‘clat-fart’ shop that is, the gossip-shop. It is true, from off the basis of the Guild, the women could look at their homes, at the conditions of their own lives, and find fault.” (D.H. Lawrence, 2005:52) Mrs. Morel’s standards toward man and life are updated and are quite disconcerting.

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Mrs. Morel first comes to Mr. Morel with curiosity and fascination about a man from the outside world. Then, she is dawn with the reality that her husband is actually the opposite of the one she holds as ideal. As a puritan, she seeks for a man whom she will worship and if she seeks not, she strives to reform and change him into the man she wants him to be. Yet, she fails at last. Hence, she comes to despise him and to dig out the potential man in herself and in her sons.

In a word, as to Mrs. Morel, the experience of growing up in a patriarchal family and the unhappy marriage have served as catalyst for the matriarchal idea, the idea of a gynecocentric form of society, in which the leading role is taken by the women and especially by the mothers. Unconsciously Mrs. Morel stands up as a representative of matriarchy, who strives to control men especially in the identity of a mother.

B. Paul’s Complex Feelings toward His Mother, Mrs. Morel

Paul Morel is the second son of the Morels and he comes to this world when his mother and father are estranging from each other. Thus, the family he is born into is rather cold and uncaring. For this reason, his mother “With all her force, with all her soul she would make up to it for having brought it into the world unloved. She would love it all the more now it was here; carry it in her love.” (D.H. Lawrence, 2005:38) And she keeps her word; her love draws Paul quite close to her. During that time, Paul’s self-consciousness keeps dormant and he does whatever that pleases his mother; he feels for his mother; suffers with his mother. “The two shared lives.” (D.H Lawrence, 2005:111)

Yet, as he launches into life, he suffers a lot from his first contact with anything. Gradually, he feels he has to go out into life. In this way, “he went through the agonies of shrinking self-consciousness.” (D.H Lawrence, 2005:86)

When Paul steps into a bigger world and begins the lad-and-girl love with Miriam, he starts feeling the pull of his mother a kind of constraint and begins fighting away. As is usually the case, Paul always stays quite late with Miriam quite unconsciously. Due to this, Mrs. Morel feels against Miriam for she leaves not even a little of Paul for her and she opposes her. Thence began her pull with Miriam for Paul.

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Every time Paul comes home late, she will frown and complain. To her complaint, Paul’s reaction turns from puzzling to hatred. “I shall come home when I like,” he would say to his mother. Thus, he began turning self-assertive as all men do. And his love for his mother is added into the ingredient of hatred.

C. Paul’s Escape from Mrs. Morel—Man’s Resistance of Matriarchal Ideology When the woman who traditionally used to be possessed by man turns into the one who possesses, Mr. Morel withdraws him from the family life and stands aloof “to assert his independence.” (D.H. Lawrence, 2005:111). Mrs. Morel’s role, thus, fully turns from wife into the role of mother. She invests all her hopes and expectations in her sons. When she gets to know that she has given birth to a boy, she is greatly consoled and the thought of being the mother of men is warming to her heart. Why should she feel this way? The father’s complaints will be enlightening. “But they’re like yourself; you’ve put ’em up to your own tricks and nasty ways—you’ve learned ’em in it, you ’ave.” (D.H Lawrence, 2005:59). Therefore, Mrs. Morel puts her expectant man into both William and Paul, which, in some degree, becomes the hindrance of their living like man who lives traditionally. Paul’s love with Miriam is a chance to let him feel more concretely the oppressing and possessing love of his mother, which also wakens his male chauvinistic consciousness.

When there is no reference object, Paul thinks the whole of his mother and so does his mother. Whereas another woman appears in his life, the balance is shuffled and Mrs. Morel’s monopoly, of which Poplawski criticized as the “emotionally manipulative and self-serving use of the children” (Poplawski, 1996:163), over Paul is threatened. Thus begins the pull of two possessive women for their dear man. Right because of the suffering and distress the pull has caused Paul, he can see the reality more objectively. The imbalance state illuminates him about the role of man and the way of being a man, being a man not monopolized by his mom. Owing to the confrontation of male chauvinism against matriarchal ideology, Paul grows and is awakened to the consciousness of male chauvinism.

Thus, Paul distances from his mother like his father had done. This escape from

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his mother to Miriam is actually Paul’s first assertion of his male chauvinistic idea.

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Ⅲ. Paul vs. Miriam—Male Chauvinism’s Coming into Play at Their

Relation

A. An Analysis of Miriam—the Representative of Women Struggling in Patriarchal System

Miriam, Paul’s first love, is a rather shy and proud girl. Living in a family where man takes the upper hand of life, she is surrounded by the father and brothers who are quite contempt and ignorant of her. Not content as her mother is, she strives to make a change of her status in the family and of her lot.

In a family where man dominates, there is a lack of care and respect for Miriam. Most of the time, Miriam is laughed at and mocked by his brothers. And the conventional division of labor sides Miriam with her mother to preside over housework, while the man are set in the field work. With this kind of division, the status of women in the family is also settled down. As is assumed as a matter of course by most male chauvinists, the work man does is naturally superior to that of women. This can be further exemplified by an example as below. Therefore, Miriam was put in a quite inferior place in the family.

During one of Paul’s first visits to the Willey Farm, Miriam was too engrossed in Paul to attend the potatoes in boiling. As a result, the potatoes are burnt to some degree. Here goes the reaction of the men,

Edgar tasted the potatoes, moved his mouth like a rabbit, looked indignantly at his mother, and said, “These potatoes are burnt mother.”

“Yes, Edgar. I forgot them for a minute. Perhaps you’ll have bread if you can’t eat them.” Edgar looked in anger across at Miriam.

“What was Miriam doing that she couldn’t attend to them?” he said.

Miriam looked up. Her mouth opened, her dark eyes blazed and winced, but she said nothing.

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She swallowed her anger and shame, bowing her dark head. “I’m sure she was trying hard,” said the mother.

“She hasn’t got sense even to boil the potatoes,” said Edgar. “What is she kept at home for?” “Only for eating everything that’s left in th’ pantry,” said Maurice. “They don’t forget that potato-pie against our Miriam,” laughed the father.

She was utterly humiliated. The mother sat in silence, suffering, like some saint out of place at the brutal board. (D.H. Lawrence, 2005:143)

They undoubtedly assume that their work is superior and it is out of doubt that they should be treated with the best. And if their needs are not satisfied, the women are to blame and to be in shame. This kind of atmosphere, thus, nursed in Miriam’s mind the hatred and contempt against the men in her family and even the whole male sex. “She fought with her brothers, whom she considered brutal louts; and she held not her father in too high esteem because he did not carry any mystical ideals cherished in his heart but only wanted to have as easy a time as he could, and his meals when he was ready for them.” (D.H. Lawrence, 2005:140)

To get away from the dissatisfying situation, Miriam assorts to three approaches, imagination, study and religion. And imagination is the passage leading to that ideal world. “She was romantic in her soul. Everywhere was a Walter Scott heroine being loved by men with helmets or with plumes in their caps. She herself was something of a princess turned into a swine-girl in her own imagination.” Weaved through her imagination is her dissatisfaction about her life. With the imagination of life else where and in another kind, she holds aloof from others in order not to be “set at naught” (D.H. Lawrence, 2005:139).

When Paul entered into her life, the specimen of an ideal man is shaped in Miriam’s mind. The hospitality and respect Paul receives from her family fascinates Miriam about the big difference knowledge could make to a person and his status. For “he was quick, light, graceful, could be gentle and was clever, and who knew a lot.” “The boy’s poor morsel of learning exalted him almost sky-high in her esteem.” (D.H. Lawrence, 2005:140). She was enlightened that knowledge might change her life. As

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is said by her,

“I want to do something. I want a chance like anybody else. Why should I, because I’m a girl, be kept at home and not allowed to be anything? What chance have I?” “Chance of what?”

“Of knowing anything—of learning, of doing anything. It’s not fair, because I’m a woman.” (D.H. Lawrence, 2005:151).

Therefore, the idea of independence is roused. Besides, Miriam also took her shelter in the sacred world of religion.

Religion is something she inherits from her mother. She treasures religion and breathes it in her nostrils, and see the whole life in a mist there of. And to her, “Christ and God made one great figure.” In God and Christ, Miriam conceives the ideal man in her heart which furthermore aggravates her scorn for the men in her family. When what Miriam wants is not available in the world, she looks for it in the world beyond. She thought her great value of existence in sacrificing either to God or to the one she loved and also making others dependent on her. She fought against being controlled yet on the other hand fought to possess. Her way of loving her little brother would be suggesting. “She madly wanted her little brother of four to let her swathe him and stifle him in her love.” (D.H. Lawrence, 2005:140). And when Paul was ill, she thought, “He would be weak. Then she would be stronger than he. Then she could love him.” (D.H. Lawrence, 2005:140). This kind of sacrificing and possessive love would finally drive Paul away.

From the original girl scorned by men, Miriam gradually grows up to a girl with independent ideas and is making great efforts to change her life. Yet, the fear of being ignored by the beloved finally turns into the possessive love used to guarantee her happiness. However, her independence and love makes Paul feel Miriam is too deep to understand and Miriam is asking for too much as a woman.

B. Paul’s Admiration of Miriam’s Family—Longing for a Man-centered Family

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After the first visit of Willey Farm, Paul was continuously drawn there by certain some kind of power. Then what is the power? Is it the man there? Or is it the atmosphere there? We may get the answer confirmed in a further elaboration.

The difference comes to Paul’s mind after several visits of Willey Farm. “The atmosphere was different from that of his home, where everything seemed so ordinary. When Mr. Leivers called loudly outside to the horse…” (D.H. Lawrence, 2005:142). With the man acts as the ruler and the woman submits to the background and an inferior role, the family of Miriam is indeed common and ordinary because it is ranged in a traditional order. When the two families are compared with each other, we can easily find the similarity in the composition of the family of three sons and a daughter. Yet, the atmosphere varies. In Paul’s family, the father denies the God in him and retreated to drinking, and left the family to the care of the mother. Thus, it is the mother who rules. She brings up the children in line with her expectation and tries to put them in a track different from their father, the middle class life. She expects her sons to fulfill the dream that failed her. So the mother is the pivot and the sons revolve around her. However, it is not the case in Miriam’s family. The father is the pillar who set a model role for the sons to learn after. He stands for the traditional role, the bread-winner, the authority of the family, and the speaker of the house. And he wins over the three sons. While the daughter modeled on the mother who is quite submissive and religious. As is said in the book, “Miriam was her mother’s daughter.” (D.H. Lawrence, 2005:145). Her mother teaches her to tolerate and sacrifice. In this arrangement, nothing in the family is special and everything is ordinary. So Paul’s love of this atmosphere is actually a longing for the traditional family in which man dominates.

What’s more, Miriam’s mother always draws Paul out. The two mothers are also different from each other. When both are faced with dissatisfaction about their fate and the family life, Mrs. Morel chooses to reform while the other one chooses to conform and sacrifice herself. Mrs. Leivers sympathizes with Paul and almost worships Paul and his pictures. “Mrs. Leivers and her children were almost his disciples. They kindled him and made him glow to his work, whereas his mother’s

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influence was to make him quietly determined, patient, dogged, and unwearied.” (D.H. Lawrence, 2005:146). On the Willey Farm, Paul’ vanity as a man to be worshipped is satisfied. Here he enjoys the dominating status as the father does. His male chauvinistic thoughts are further tempted into being.

C. Paul’s Escape from Miriam —Man’s Rejection of Woman’s Independence.

As what has been analyzed above about Miriam’s character, she has the possessive aspect in her soul. She is possessive to the people she loved such as her little brother and Paul. And the failure of their love owes to two reasons, Paul’s rejection to the new woman being possessive and independent, his dissatisfaction of the soul-love and also his capriciousness.

In Miriam’s love to Paul, there is always a kind of intensity that is quite unbearable to Paul. To Paul, her intensity would leave no emotion on a normal plane and irritate him into frenzy. Not only the love to him, Paul feels her love went intensely almost to everything she loved. As the following dialogue goes when she was fondling with the loving flowers all the while,

“Why must you always be fondling things!” he said irritably. “But I love to touch them.” She replied, hurt.

“Can you never like things without clutching them as if you wanted to pull the heart out of them? Why don’t you have a bit more restraint, or reserve, or something?” “You wheedle the soul out of things,” he said. (D.H. Lawrence, 2005:212)

He has been telling the truth. She “wanted to draw all of him into her”. As the metaphor suggests “is it worse than a weasel with its teeth in a rabbit’s throat? One weasel or many rabbits? One or the other must go.” (D.H. Lawrence, 2005:213). He was, in fact, the rabbit and Miriam’s love the weasel. Her love was too oppressing to let Paul breathy. Thus, Paul thinks of going, of escaping. Instead of being possessed by him, she attempts to possess him. Towards this new type of self-assertive woman, Paul again repels

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While on the other hand, Paul makes great efforts to possess Miriam both spiritually and physically. Yet, he fails both ways. The intimacy between them has been kept so abstract a matter of the soul. But, Paul asks not only the spirit but also the body. Like the male chauvinistic doctrines, the man seeks to control both the activities and the body of woman. So does Paul. He has wrestled with the male chauvinistic one in him and the latter one wins him over.

As the symbol of horizontals and the arch of the Gothic church would suggest, “to the Gothic arch, which, he said, leapt up at heaven and touched the ecstasy and lost itself in the divine… Miriam was the Gothic.” (D.H. Lawrence, 2005:175). Miriam loves in the belief of sacrificing either one to the other. When she could not keep Paul, she sacrifices herself to him. Yet, this sacrifice makes him guilty. Paul still runs away to search for the kind of woman who is not that deep, spiritual and possessive.

Having been mocked by the men in the family, Miriam exerts herself to get

independence and leave the whole of the man she loves to herself. Yet, this kind of imbalanced relation further makes it clearer to Paul that what he longs for is a relation in which the man takes the upper hand. Therefore, this love affair further identifies Paul as a male chauvinist.

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Ⅳ. Paul vs. Clara—Male Chauvinism’s Overwhelming of Paul

A. An Analysis of Clara—the Representative of Women Dominated by Man

Among the three women, Clara can be the most pitiable. While Mrs. Morel possesses the true love Paul could give; Miriam keeps the soul, the best of Paul, Clara gets nothing but another bitter lesson about man.

Clara is a married woman who has been separated from her husband. Because of the failed marriage, she doubts about man and shuts herself up against the man. This marriage has taught her to stand on her own feet, to be independent. As is recorded in the book, “During the ten years that she belonged to the women’ movement, she had acquired a fair amount of education, and, having had some of Miriam’s passion to be instructed, had taught herself French, and could read in that language with a struggle. She considered herself as a woman apart, and particularly apart, from her class.” (D.H. Lawrence, 2005:255). She is enlightened by knowledge and is educated about the idea of women that vary from the convention. As to the idea of happy life, Clara replies, “So long as I can be free and independent.” (D.H. Lawrence, 2005:226). Yet, this kind of rebellion against man and shackles that bound women is only Clara’s efforts to avoid to be hurt again and to set herself apart so as to be loved. Within the love of her and Paul, she first holds aloof then draws close and gives up herself to Paul and finally depends on him spiritually. Step by step, she loses her independence and meets her love’s end. Therefore, she is an independent being in appearance while a dependent being in the soul. She does not rid herself of the conventional. The extraordinariness that has in the beginning attracted Paul finally turns into something ordinary and stifles their love.

B. Paul’s Choice of Clara —Male Chauvinism’s Victory over Feminism

Being dissatisfied with Miriam’s love in which spirit took the upper hand, Paul repelled and searched on for his satisfaction, as is said in the book, “The male was up

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攀枝花学院本科毕业论文 Body

in him, dominant.”(D.H. Lawrence, 2005:284).

When spirit and religion faded into the background, Paul began to see the beauty in Clara and to be drawn by Clara who appears to be sensuous and mysterious yet not a bit deep as Miriam is. In his own words, that is, “And she seems straight, you know—not a bit deep, not a bit.” (D.H. Lawrence, 2005:303). When he is asked about the reason why he likes Clara, he answers, “Because, I don’t know—a sort of defiant way she’s got.” It is this defiance and mystery that partly stimulates the curiosity and urge to conquer in the man. In addition, what has been most described about Clara in the book is her physical beauty. And that’s the primary thing that has drawn Paul to her.

Paul is in search for the “fire baptism of passion”. (D.H. Lawrence, 2005:306). As a character being opposite of Miriam, Clara is only “woman” to Paul, “But then Clara was not there for him, only a woman, warm, something he loved and almost worshipped, there in the dark.” (D.H. Lawrence, 2005:339). Paul has acquired enough reason and spiritual things from his mother and Miriam. Thus, he takes Clara only as a tool to satisfy his instinctive needs and his growth.

To seek the further reason that why Paul finally chooses Clara, we should have a comparison between her and Miriam. First of all, the two both begin independent but the latter ends dependent. Yet, Miriam tends to be more possessive than Clara. She wants to “draw the whole of Paul to her”, while Clara is totally the opposite. Though having some feministic ideas, she waits to be loved and, if not, she appears to be quite forlorn and her life is not wholesome. As we can see from Paul’s description of her, “Whatever I see you doing, you’re not there; you are waiting —like Penelope when she did her weaving.” (D.H. Lawrence, 2005:225). She is waiting to be loved. Therefore, she is not a woman who can merely live independently. Then as to the quality of their love to Paul, Miriam’s love is mostly on the level of soul while Clara’s is mainly about sex. So as the book has summoned for us, “Paul could choose the lesser in place of the higher.” With the latter being more like a woman conventionally; Paul chose her and identified himself more undoubtedly with the male chauvinists.

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C. Paul's Giving Away of Clara—Playing Woman at Man's Will

However, it is the male chauvinistic idea that has made Paul chooses Clara and it’s also because of it that Paul gives away Clara.

When Paul’s needs have been satisfied, Clara’s tragedy begins. After their intimate contact, Clara starts to manifest her love for Paul. Yet, Paul’s response prophesies something failing.

“But love should give a sense of freedom, not of prison. Miriam made me feel tied up like a donkey to a stake.”(D.H. Lawrence, 2005:346)

“She made him feel imprisoned when she was there, as if he could not get a free deep breath, as if there were something on top of him.” (D.H. Lawrence, 2005:342)

He feels her burdensome and impeding his freedom. As to Paul, the male chauvinist suggests, a woman seems merely to serve man’s instinctive needs and in other situations they expect woman as independent as man is. As is analyzed by Lai Li in her paper, to Paul, “she is inadequate to be an independent being and unable to take care of the troubled soul he has.” (Lai Li, 1996:139). And later on, he begins finding faults with Clara. Being nursed in the patriarchy idea, Paul searched the monopoly of Clara. Thus, he first fought with Mr. Dawes to assert his possession of Clara. Then he comes to the realization that somewhere in Clara’s mind she does not want to divorce with Dawes. For, between the one who possesses her and the one she possesses, Clara choose the latter because she feels respected by him. This identification of Clara’s feelings formally justifies Paul’s estrangement of her. Gradually, Clara becomes a question mark in Paul’s mind. He says of Clara, “Not much more than a big white pebble on the beach, not much more than a slot of foam being blown and roiled over the sand.” (D.H. Lawrence, 2005:343). He starts to contempt her and ignores her.

The relationship between Paul and Mr. Dawes is also quite interesting. Paul’s compassion toward Dawes decides from another direction that the love affair a failure.

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攀枝花学院本科毕业论文 Body

They grow from the dead rivals to friends in the end because they share more feelings and values in common as men. For example, Paul blames Clara for having treated Dawes cruelly to turn him to the bitter and shrinking way. The shaping of their friendship finally announces Paul’s siding with the male chauvinists. And the biggest victim of this love, Clara, is put into a rather embarrassing status beyond her will.

We can clearly see the similarity of the route of the two love affairs. They develop like circles, the repetition of failures alike. And what dooms them is the unchanging doctrine of male chauvinism, which acts to man’s will, for man’s will and at men’s will. Clara, as a pro-feminist, would draw more lessons from this almost cruel experience.

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攀枝花学院本科毕业论文 Conclusion

Conclusion

Through the analysis of Paul’s relationship with the main women characters in the book, we can see that it is not only the element of Oedipus complex that makes Paul’s life a mess. The factor of male chauvinism is not to be ignored either.

The gradual estrangement of Paul from his mother, Miriam, and Clara is the progressing process of Paul’s submitting to male chauvinism. As a male chauvinist, he wants to possess but not to be possessed. While on the other hand, the women in the book are more independent than others. They are no longer content about the life before and they want some change of it. Instead of being possessed, each of them wants to possess Paul totally. In the competition, the women ran after Paul and Paul strives to escape. He can’t get him used to these strong-willed women. The traditional order and values of man and woman is what he is familiar with. Thus he retreats to the tradition, to the woman who is more typical of the traditional role of woman submitting to man’s instinctive needs and to man’s will.

Therefore, Paul is actually a representative of male chauvinism when faced with the request of woman for equality, escapes into the tradition social gender order. As a result, he emancipates neither himself nor the women and ends in failure. And we can also get some idea about the ideal relationship that D.H. Lawrence supports. It is not about who occupy or conquer whom or extremes seen as “a waste of life, a waste of the essential life force, of the potential that is in each human being” by D.H. Lawrence (James, 1992:2055), but the balance of mutual efforts, that is the rounded perfection of relationship and the pure balance of two single beings.

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攀枝花学院本科毕业论文 Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

This paper finally presented in front of you, my dear teachers, is the result of various efforts of my tutor, my roommates, my families and also I.

Here I would like to take this opportunity to thank my tutor, Yang Shuhan, who has given me great help in every phase of paper writing. Besides, I’m also quite grateful to her about her encouragement and patience in tutoring both my paper and study. Furthermore, I’m also thankful for her timely information and her careful correcting of my paper.

Then, I would also like to thank my families. I wrote most of my paper at home and as is known by many it is too comfortable a place to be suitable for serious paper writing. So it is lucky of me to have my aunt around to remind me of my task. What’s more, the winter vocation is actually a vocation for celebration because of the spring festival. There were guests almost every day and it is busy at home. Yet, in order not to interrupt me, my families took on all the housework and spared me enough time to finish the paper. So I owe my great gratitude to all of them.

Thirdly, I want to say thanks to my roommates for their consideration and care. Thank them for the fee-free boiled water, lunch, the prepared bed when I went back, soothing words when I was down and all warmth they have given me.

In a word, I extend my most sincere thanks to all of the people who have helped me not only in paper writing but also in my study and life.

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攀枝花学院本科毕业论文 Bibliography

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