儿子与情人中女性角色分析

I An Analysis of the Context of Liberation of Females Reflected in Sons and Lovers 摘要摘要 男女平等一直都是世界各国范围内的热点话题 已经有大量的女权主义者 致力于将广大女性从社会制度和道德的严厉控制中解放出来 也有一些女权主 义者对通过文学作品来阐释女权主义思想 D H 劳伦斯就是一位重要的女权主 义者 本文将对他的作品 儿子与情人 从如下进行分析 包括这部作品的创 作背景 对这部作品中女性角色的重要性的分析以及对女权主义运动所提供的 启示 因此 本文能够帮助读者提高他们对于这部小说以及女权主义运动的理 解 关键词关键词 儿子与情人 女权主义运动 女性角色分析 II Abstract The equality between men and women is one of the hottest topics all over the world and there have been large numbers of feminists who have been making emitting efforts to release females from the restrict control of social system and moralities There were also some feminists who made use of literature to spread the feminism and D H Lawrence was one of the most important feminist writers In this thesis his novel Son and Lover will be analyzed from the following aspects the background of the writing of this novel the analysis of the significance of the female characters in this novel and the enlightenment on the development of feminism movement Therefore this thesis could help the readers to improve their understanding of this novel and the feminism movement Keywords Son and Lover Feminist Movement Female Character Analysis III Table of Contents 中文摘要 Abstract I Introduction 1 1 1Research Background 1 1 2 Research Significance 1 1 3 General Design of This Thesis 1 II Introduction of Important Terms 2 2 1Introduction of Sons and Lovers 2 2 2Introduction of D H Lawrence 3 2 3 The Context of Sons and Lovers 4 2 3 1Social Background 4 2 3 2The Marriage of Paul Morel 6 III The Dependence of Women 8 3 1 The Meaning of Miriam for Paul 8 3 2 The Enlightenment That Carla Brought 9 3 3 Influence of Pauls Mother 10 IV Liberation of Females Reflected in This Novel 11 4 1 The Patriarchy Root of Oppressed Women 11 IV 4 2 Mental Liberatioin of Women 12 V Conclusion 1 3 Reference 13 I Introduction 1 1 Research Background Since the 18th century women have been making efforts to change the situation in which the majority of women are facing unequal treatment Actually it was not an easy thing to make the dream of equality between males and females come true and the feminists have gone through a harsh way to reach their goals In order to succeed in winning more rights for females they turned to a series of methods and literature is the most influential ones since it could change the standpoints of people about the roles of males and females Therefore there have been large numbers of literary works about the feminism The novel Son and Lover is one of the most important one In that novel the love between the mother and her son has changed into the mixture of love between couples and the mother son love Despite the fact that there are many people who held negative attitude toward this novel it could not be denied that this novel played important roles in the feminism movement In this thesis the image of the female protagonist in this novel could provide important enlightenment on the feminism movement 1 2 Resarch Significance It is obvious that such a thesis will be useful and important for the readers who are interested in the development of the feminist movement and the standpoints of the writer D H Lawrence In other words the background under which the novel was written and the most important feminism will be introduced in this thesis so that the readers could have a better understanding of the feminist ideas of Lawrence and the background of the feminism movement Besides the readers could also get some clues about how to change the opinions of females about the male and female relationship 1 3 Research Design This thesis will be divided into five parts the first part is the general design of this thesis the second chapter is the introduction the feminism reflected in this novel will be analyzed in details from the perspective of the importance of Miriam for Paul and the Enlightenment brought by Carla about the female roles in the society In the third part the liberation of females will be introduced in details including the most important reasons why females could not gain the equal rights as that of the males and the importance of the releasing the soul of females from the restrictions set up by the social rules The last part is the conclusion of this thesis in which the major findings of this thesis will be introduced and some suggestions for the studies in the future will also be provided II Introduction of Important Terms 2 1 Introduction of Sons and Loves The novel Son and Lover is one of the most representative novels written by the famosus writer D H Lawrence who was one of the most well known novelists in the 20th century The theme of this novel is the distorted love of a mother for his son and the contemporary of Lawrence used to criticize this novel due to the fact that the behavior of the protagonist is immoral for most people in 20th century However the unique plot design finally won great reputation for Lawrence In that novel the protagonist Paul was a boy born in an unhappy family Despite the fact that the parents Mr and Mrs Morel met romantically and fell in love with each other soon they fell into a variety of quarrels after their child was born On the one hand Mrs Morel hoped that her husband shoud be capable of doing an elegant job and show great respect for his wife and families However Mr Morel couldn t be more normal so that he was frequently scolded by his wife Moreover Mrs Morel even persuaded her son to be unified with her to fight against Mr Morel which made him feel extremely disappointed Realized that is was impossible to force her husband to succeed Mr Morel decided to depend on her son to win more money and good reputation She cared so much about his son that she was unhappy and jealous when her son fell in love with other females Hence the two girlfriends broke up with Paul after Mr Morel intervened in the relationship between Paul and the two beautiful ladies actually Paul was under such a deep influence of Mrs Morel that he could not make decision by himself or cope with the problems with his relationship with his girlfriend by his own After Paul became single and felt unhappy all day long Mrs Morel realized of the mistakes that she had already made but she still could not get rid of the dependence on his son In such a bad mood Mrs Morel committed suicide Despite the fact that such a novel was used to present the distorted concept of love and concept of family it is still informative for the people who are interested in the social background in the 20th century in America 2 2 Introduction of D H Lawrence D H Lawrence is one of the most influential novelist in 20th century in AmericaEngland and he was well known for his unique writing style and special aspect that he selected to analyze the opinions of the characters in his novel Aactually the writing stly is originated from the life experiences of Lawrence To be specific Lawrence was born in a lower class family Nottinghamshire in England his father was a miner while his mother was from a family of middle class due to th elarge differences between the social status of his father and mother they often quarreled with each other which had a deep influence on the writing activities of Lawrence At the beginning of the 20th century Lawrence started to work as a worker in a factory but hie did not worke for too long de to the fact that he had pneumonia After he recovered from the sickness he participated the training courses organized by his school and got the tercher s certification when he was working as a teacher he started to publish some poems on the magazine English Review which attracted the attention of plenty of writers Encouraged by the appreciation of other critics Lawrence started to write some works for some publishers which marked the beginning of his writiing experiences In 1910 Lawrence published his first long novel The White Peacock Afterwards his mother was dead and Lawrence was extremely sad for that In 1913 Lawrence published the novel Son and Lover which was regarded as the turing point of the life experiences of Lawrence After the death of Lawrence s mother he was even sicker so that he had to quit the job as teacher and to work as a full time writer In 1914 Lawrence got married with the ex wife of a doctor in Notingham Univrsity In 1915 Lawrence published the novel Rainbow but he was sent into prison due to the filthy content in that novel which made him feel quite upset Then Lawrence started to carry out the plan of pilgrim and started a journey around Europe and America Those experiences laid solid founation for his achievements in writing In 1930 Lawrence was dead after he had already presented dozens of novels for the world Thereis no doubt that Lawrence was a successful novelist due to his unique writing style and plot design despite the fact that there are large numbers of critics who oppose his writing methods it could be denied that his novel was valuable enough to help people have a better understanding of the social background of England in the 20th century 2 3The Context of Sons and Lovers In this chapter the background under which the novel Son and Lover will be introduced That is to say the social background of the writing of this novel and the marriage of the male protagonist will be introduced The reason why such information is selected for introduction is that the former could help people to understand why this novel could be admired and criticized at the same time The second part the introduction of the marriage of the protagonist was also important in that it is the clue of the whole novel 2 3 1 Social Background The novel Son and Lover was written by D H Lawrence in the second half of 19th century That period of time was important for the development of the nation in UK since this nation had already become one of the most powerful nations in the world Liu Jiyuan 2012 24 Owning to the Great Exploration which started in the 16th century people in UK have collected large numbers of fortune Besides due to the Industrial Revolution in the 17th century people could get access to comparatively advanced production technology and the efficiency of production was also improved greatly In that case the UK became the most powerful colonist nation in the world but the fast economic development also brought some negative influence at first people attached too much attention to the economic development the moralities were ignored by most people in this nation so that people are more likely to get lost mentally Therefore the number of people who suffered from the mental disease increased sharply Secondly the development of economy allowed women to get more access to education and they started to learn that men and women should be equal Bai Yun 2013 58 Therefore they started to realize of the significance of fighting for the rights that they deserved In such a background many writers made emitting efforts to describe the experiences of female characters to fight for the equality between males and females and that is the macro background for the writing of this novel As for the minor social background of this novel it refers to the background of the writer D H Lawrence To be specific Lawrence was born in a family in which the father and mother could not get along with each other and that is why Lawrence described the marriage of the characters in his novel as a tragic one In fact Lawrence s father of Lawrence was a miner while his mother was from a middle class family Due to the differences in the family background the couples often quarreled with each other and Lawrence also had many conflicts with his mother Therefore the marriage and family relationship are problematic for Lawrence and he would show his dissatisfaction with the society and marriage in his own novel Zhang Huijun 2008 156 However there were also some critics saying that Lawrence was close to his mother and he fell into illness after the death of his mother After he was recovered from the illness he started to work as a writer Afterwards he got married with a lady named as Frida who kept him company for the rest of his life Therefore it could be seen that the experiences of getting along with his mother and wife was another important background that could account for his success in writing such a creative novel Beside the experience or marriage the works that Lawrence had done also influenced the writing of this novel After Lawrence was graduated he used to work as a worker in the factory where his father worked but then he had the pneumonia which put an end to his experience of working as a worker After that he participated in the training course for teachers and became a teacher Therefore he could be trained to be proficient enough to write novels In short the writing of this novel was closely related with the social background in which Lawrence was living 2 3 2 The Marriage of Paul Morel Beside the social background another information that should be paid much attention is the marriage of Paul Morel which is the most important clue of this novel Such information is so important in that it is the reason why the character Paul could not lead a normal life as other males and why Paul failed to tell the difference between the love for his mother and the love for his wife Wang Jing 2013 152 In general the marriage of Paul Morel was a failure and there were totally two females who play important roles in the marriage of Paul Zhao Chunhui 2006 The first lady with whom Paul fell in love was Miriam who was similar to the Mrs Moral the mother of Paul in that both of them were from upper classes and had great expectations for their lover and husband Even though Paul loved Miriam deeply and enjoyed himself when he was staying with her However there is a serious problem with their love Miriam pushed too had so that Paul gradually became terrified when Miriam was asking him to do something that he did not like at all Therefore to some extend the love between Paul and Miriam was similar with that between Paul s mother and father since the conflicts between them are similar with each other As a result of such problematic marriage and love both the two couples ended with breaking up The second lady who was in love with Paul was Clara who was a married and charming lady Since Carla s husband was a rude drunkard who often ignored her or beat her severely she was quite disappointed with such a marriage and was eager to show her charms to a man who could appreciate her As for Paul since he had been living under the deep pressure from her mother he was eager to show his strength and power Therefore Paul stayed with Carla because their needs could be satisfied at the same time However their relationship was based on the sexual relationship so that they would break up after they get rid of each other It is obvious that the two lovers of Paul could not keep him company for the rest of his life due to the problem with his opinions about marriage Besides another important reason for the unsuccessful marriage was his mother Paul s mother s love has been changed into the love for husband which made her eager to prevent Paul from getting close to other females Therefore Paul could not enjoy his marriage with other ladies and every single character in this novel was not a winner in the battle to fight for happiness and marriage In short this novel was special in that the characters point of view about marriage is problematic and that was the results of the defects of the social development Such a novel not only reminds readers of the negative influence of the unhappy marriage and the significance of paying enough attention to the roles of males and females III The Dependence of Women It has been mentioned in Chapter One that people could not reach agreement on the comments of this novel since some spoke highly of the unique plot design while some others thought it was the violation of the traditional moralities Actually one of the purpose of writing this thesis was to show that women had been depending too much on the males and such dependence would lead to serious problems Actually such dependence was the result of the feudalism which determined that the females should always be obedient in her families and behave themselves in public The females were not allowed to get involved in the political affairs and they would be insulted if they went outside participating in social activities frequently In that case the females had to be concentrated on taking care of their husbands and children and they were more likely to push their husbands to reach their goals That was exactly what happened to the character Mrs Morel and that was also the reasons for the strange love with her son In the following part the dependence of females will be analyzed from two aspects the role of Miriam in Paul s life and the enlightenment brought by Carla 3 1 The Meaning of Miriam for Paul Even though the relationship between Paul and Miriam did not last for a long time due to the conflicts between Miriam and Paul as well as the contradiction between Miriam and Paul s mother Miriam still played an important role in the life of Paul To be specific the significance of Miriam in Paul s life could be analyzed as followed at first Miriam was the first lover of Paul so she had deep influence on Paul Miriam was a beautiful lady who believed firmly in Christianity so that she took it for granted that females should depend on their husbands to get wealth and reputations instead of their hard working Therefore Miriam urged Paul to work hard which made him feel much pressure In addition her religious belief also influenced Paul to some extend Even though Paul did not like that Miriam regarded him as her brother it could not be denied that they shared some religious beliefs Secondly Miriam was a mirror of the deep influence of Paul s mother That is to say due to the fact that Paul s mother made decisions for Paul so he often felt lost when h