Individualism and Paradox in the Works of D. H. Lawrence :: Biography Biographies Essays

Individualism and Paradox in the Works of D. H. Lawrence When you read something by D. H. Lawrence, you often discontinue up wondering the same thing does he hate people? Lawrence has a profound interest in us human beings, but its the fascination of a child picking at a scab that drives him, rather than a kind of scientific or spiritual quest for some mythical social truth. Some of Lawrences works--Insouciance, for example--question mankinds t exterminateencies forthwith what good is served by a world of white-haired ladies wasting cartridge clip caring and sounding intelligent and cultured and talking ab out(a) pretentious, mercenary issues?(2) But this work is blatant in its negative descriptions of people and their conduct in society. At one point in Insouciance, the narrator--Lawrence--comes right out and pontificates for several paragraphs on the defects of modern society. But for me, it is the more subtle pieces that holdup greatest power. When Lawrence hints, insinua tes, or implies his views, he is, in a way, letting us discover the kernel of truth, however upsetting or controversial. This process, utilized in Mercury, is of far greater interest than the almost direct missive from Lawrence utilize in Insouciance, that flatly states his view of what living really is. For not whole must we discover the meaning we must also decide whether our rendition is really Lawrences intent-- perhaps we have confused some inadvertent seepage of Lawrences military group venom with his intended meaning. It is a risk we will have to draw off as we analyze works such as Mercury. preferably of condemning society in Mercury, Lawrence actually tries to leave it, ascending to the lapse of the Merkur, where he has a new vantage point on the world. He develops some of the same ideas as in Insouciance, but at the end of the work, Lawrence redeems society, or at least apologizes for it, adding new fire to our question. By the end we cannot, with certainty, tell whe ther Lawrence hates people or not--and this reflects a sort of internal essay for Lawrence. One could lessen the scope and dilute the importance of this topic by suggesting that the Sunday people Lawrence criticizes are not humanity as a whole but rather a specific group--perhaps the vacationing, upper-middle class Schlegels, perhaps the aspiring, pseudo-intellectual Leonard Basts of the lower middle class, who think culture lies in a interpret walk through the woods.