SEX, SEXUALITY, AND MODERNITY IN THE LITERARY WORKS OF D. H. LAWRENCE

Abstract

Sex and sexuality are aspects graphically addressed in the literary writings of D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930), namely The Rainbow (1915), Women in Love (1920), “England, My England” (1922), “The Blind Man” (1922), and Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928) with profound adjacent exploration of the social and historical contexts of the Industrial Revolution and the First World War. Arguably, these two incidents catalysed a sexual transformation in the way in which men and women engaged more openly in sexual activities of uncommon nature. While traces of modernity induced such sexual emancipation, paradoxically they also endangered human sexual competence. This thesis argues that not only do the mentioned novels and short stories encode a sense of loss and trauma from the abrupt changes of society in sexual terms, the texts also present sexual experience as an integrating and regenerating organic force countering the inexorable march of technological and industrial modernity in the early years of twentieth century, which emphasises a sudden departure from the human to the mechanical.