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The Question of ‘Sex’ and ‘Work’ in Women in Love

  • Journal of Humanities
  • 2012, (50), pp.95-114
  • Publisher : Institute for Humanities
  • Research Area : Humanities > Other Humanities
  • Received : July 3, 2012
  • Accepted : August 10, 2012

Jaeo Kim 1

1영남대학교

Candidate

ABSTRACT

D. H. Lawrence thinks over the question of modernity on the horizon of the history of civilization in Women in Love. The main point of this question is how a creative power has been exhausted in the anti-life flow of capitalism and what effects this destructive result has on human relationship and labor. Lawrence’s thinking reveals that the theme of ‘sex’ and ‘work’ is inseparably related with the creation of a new civilization. This paper aims to show that the achievement of Birkin-Ursula relationship takes the same trajectory as the process of overcoming maladies of modernity and that the failure of Birkin-Gerald relationship reflects Lawrence’s bleak outlook of western civilization. Brikin and Ursula become estranged each other owing to disagreement presumably traced back to the sexual difference and at this critical moment, their encounters with other people have great effects on the advancement of their relationship. To recognize the radical difference between their lover and other persons is essential in discovering ‘otherness’ of beings. Thus, their sexual relationship constitutes a mysterious experience amounting to the state where their world becomes deeper inward, keeping open outward. Of course, it is uncertain what relationship this “new One” will create with “some few other people”. Such people are difficult to find at least in this novel itself. Gudren and Loerke’s world is surrounded with ‘will to conquest’ and ‘frivolity’. The fact that Gerald with more sincerity meets his death reveals the possibility and limitation of his friendship with Birkin. That’s why Birkin’s search for a new civilization should include the breakaway from the old world and the heuristic recognition of beings hidden in the underside of western civilization.

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