Topic > Longing for Freedom in Lady Chatterley's Lover

“Lady Chatterley's Lover” is an infamous novel written by DH Lawrence, which was banned in the United States until 1959 and in England until 1960 because the novel was said to contain pornography. Lawrence really uses a lot of sexual words in his book and this novel uses the post-World War I period as the setting of the time, and it was kind of taboo to bring up the sexual topic in public in that era. Aside from the explicit use of sexual words or speech still a taboo in that era, Lawrence also rebels "against Victorian norms, which did not accept sexual frankness and the insistence on desire and sensuality of the body." Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Another Lawrence's rebellion can also be seen through the character, Clifford. As the narrator introduces Clifford's character, I can see that Clifford also breaks the image of the upper class which turned out to be the same with another class, even the working class. However, Lawrence makes the point of his book that "[t]he words themselves are clean, as are the things to which they apply." But the mind drags itself into a dirty association, evokes some repugnant emotion. Well, purify the mind, that's the real work.'' (Lawrence 1998: 285) For the first time when I heard that this book was banned in that era I was a little confused, they shouldn't be literary works that don't do they have limits? Also, the use of sexual talk in the narrative of Lady Chatterley's Lover is not obscenity, but I think it is Lawrence's way of criticizing or simply expressing his thoughts. The narrator in Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover (1971) is extradiegetic, he is not the character of the story or I can say that the narrator lives outside the world of the plot, so even in this novel he presents zero focalization since the narrator cannot be located. Lawrence uses a third person omniscient narrator in Lady Chatterley's Lover for the narrator to speak as he knows everything in the story. Talking about the style of the narrator who likes to slip in and out of the narrative describes literature in a modernist era dating back to the post-war period. These styles used by the narrator, who has the eye of God, are called "free indirect" speech. According to Gerard Genette, “in free indirect speech, the narrator takes over the speech of the character, or, if you prefer, the character speaks through the voice of the narrator, and the two instances are then merged; the narrator is erased and the character replaces him rather on a stylistic criterion, which is the necessarily formless nature - according to him - of the character. interior monologue: «a speech without an listener and without words, through which a character expresses his most intimate thoughts, those closest to the unconscious, before any logical organization, or simply, although in a nascent state, expresses it through direct sentences reduced to a syntactic minimum, so as to give the impression of a mixture”. the intimacy of the thought and its non-logical and unarticulated nature is, clearly, a prejudice of the time. Molly Bloom's monologue fits that description quite well, but those of Beckett's characters are, by contrast, rather hyperlogical and reasoning. " The narrator slips in and out of the characters' consciousness. He seems so greedy or perhaps selfish that he speaks throughout the entire story. The characters also speak through the narrator's voice. Sometimes the narration seems so confusing that we can hardly distinguish which point view is presented in that line; of the narrator or godspersonages. At the beginning of the story, the omniscient narrator said that "[o]ur life is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically." (Lawrence 1) Post-war people want to feel some freedom and yet feel inside reality, they were not that freedom. But "[we] must live, no matter how many heavens have fallen." (Lawrence 1) In this era freedom of speech and expression was being questioned and I think this is what is being criticized by Lawrence through the narrative. As we can see from this verse, the narrator seems to glorify freedom and emphasize that freedom of speech is above all the kind of freedom: “Free! That was the big word. Out in the open world, out in the forests of the morning, with lusty, splendid-throated young men, free to do as they pleased, and, above all, to say as they pleased. (Lawrence 4) It seems that the narrator wants freedom, as do the characters. The narrator wants the freedom to say whatever he liked. The unknown narrator even says that “[it] is the speech that mattered supremely: the passionate exchange of speeches. Love [is] only a minor accompaniment.” (Lawrence 5) Love and lust are not something to liberate the soul but the speech, in my opinion, which clearly states that what matters in Lady Chatterley's Lover is not the sexual speech but the impulse to criticize the limit in expression and speech. The narrator presents it somewhat explicitly in this line: Both Hilda and Constance had had their timid love affairs when they were eighteen. The young men with whom they spoke so passionately and sang so vigorously and camped under the trees in such freedom wanted, obviously, the love connection. The girls were doubtful, but then there was a lot of talk about it, it must have been so important. And the men were so humble and greedy. Why couldn't a girl be regal and give of herself? Thus they had given themselves, each to the young man with whom she had had the most subtle and intimate arguments. The arguments, the arguments were the most beautiful thing: making love and intercourse were just a sort of primitive return and a bit of an anti-climax. Afterwards you were less in love with the boy and a little inclined to hate him, as if he had violated your privacy and inner freedom. Because, of course, being a girl, all the dignity and meaning of life lay in the attainment of absolute, perfect, pure and noble freedom. What else did a girl's life mean? To shake off old and sordid ties and subservience. (Lawrence 5) I also agree with Penda Peter in his essay entitled Politicized Sex and Identity in “Lady Chatterley's Lover” that if “[t]he abundant sexual discourse in Lady Chatterley's Lover is related to freedom. This is especially true at the beginning of the novel, when sex is opposed to "a tragic age". The novel opens with the narrator's statement that "ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically." . Soon after, a description of Connie's premarital sexual affairs equates them to free speech. Sexual intercourse is seen as a liberal act of free will without submission of the woman, “without surrendering her inner and free self” (Lawrence 1999: 7). Sex is also considered “a form of speech, in which words are acted out rather than spoken” (Lawrence 1999: 34) and this is why “sex should be as free as speech” (Lawrence 1999: 35) . considered an aspect of faith. When asked what he believes, Clifford's friend Tommy says: ''Me! Oh, intellectually I believe in having a good heart, a cheerful penis, a lively intelligence and the courage to say shit! in front of a lady.'' (Lawrence 1999: 37) Relating thesex with freedom of speech and with knowledge, Lawrence raises the question of general freedom, which is still a political question. “True knowledge comes out of the entire corpus of consciousness, from your belly and your penis as well as from your brain and your mind.” (Lawrence 1999: 37). Lawrence implies that if the subject of sexual intercourse in art is obscene, immoral and therefore censored, then our freedom is questionable.” Maybe the war is over and people think that they have freedom but the truth that they were not completely free because they have the limit to express their thoughts. Lawrence presents this situation through this narrative: “Both sisters had had their experience of love when the war came, and they were rushed home. Neither of them had ever fallen in love with a young man unless he and she were very close verbally: that is, unless they were deeply interested, talking to each other. The incredible, the profound, the incredible thrill of talking passionately to a truly intelligent young man every hour, continuing day after day for months... they never realized this until it happened! The heavenly promise: You will have men to talk to! - had never been uttered. It was fulfilled before they knew what the promise was. And if after the intimacy aroused by these vivid and enlightening discussions the topic of sex becomes more or less inevitable, then let's forget it. It marked the end of a chapter. It also had a thrill of its own: a strange vibrating thrill within the body, a final spasm of self-affirmation, like the last word, exciting, and very much like the row of asterisks one might place to indicate the end of a paragraph. and a pause in the theme. When the girls returned home for the summer holidays of 1913, when Hilda was twenty and Connie eighteen, their father clearly saw that they had had the love experience. L'amour avait passe par la, as some say. But he himself was a man of experience and let life take its course. As for the mother, suffering from nervous disorders in the last months of her life, she wanted her daughters to be "free" and "fulfill themselves". She herself had never been able to be completely herself: it had been denied to her. Heaven knows why, because she was a woman who had her own income and her own path. She blamed her husband. But in reality it was an old impression of authority in his mind or soul that he could not get rid of. It had nothing to do with Sir Malcolm, who left his nervously hostile and lively wife to rule her own roost, while he went his way. So the girls were “free” and returned to Dresden, to their music, to the university and to their youth. They loved their respective youths, and their respective youths loved them with all the passion of mental attraction. All the wonderful things that young men thought, expressed and wrote, they thought, expressed and wrote for young women. Connie's boyfriend was musically talented, Hilda's was technical. But they lived simply for their young women. In their minds and in their mental excitements, of course. Somewhere else they were a little rejected, even if they didn't know it. Even in them it was evident that love had passed through them: that is, the physical experience. It is curious what subtle but unmistakable transmutation it operates, both in the bodies of men and women: the woman more luxuriant, more subtly rounded, her young angularities softened and her expression anxious or triumphant: the man much calmer, more introverted. , the very shapes of his shoulders and buttocks less assertive, more hesitant. (Lawrence 6-8)Through those lines the characters seem to have freedom but instead of feeling free to do whatever they want, the characters seemprisoners of the environment in which they live, even the Chatterleys who seem to have everything are not that free: The Chatterleys, two brothers and a sister, had lived curiously isolated, closed in on each other in Wragby, despite all their bonds . A sense of isolation intensified the family bond, a sense of weakness of one's position, a sense of helplessness, despite or because of title and land. They had been cut off from the industrial Midlands in which they lived. And they were cut off from their own class by the brooding, willful, closed nature of Sir Geoffrey, their father, whom they ridiculed, but to whom they were so sensitive. We can also see the narrator describe Connie's situation as if she does not feel free with Clifford: “Connie and he were attached to each other, in a detached and modern way. He was too wounded in himself, from the great shock of his mutilation, to be casual and irreverent. It was a hurt thing. And as such Connie remained passionately attached to him. " (19)Underline with these lines:"And yet he absolutely depended on her, he needed her at all times. As big and strong as he was, he was defenseless. He could move around in a wheelchair and had a kind of bath chair with a motorized attachment, with which he could slowly go around the park. But alone it was like a lost thing. He needed Connie to be there, to assure him that she really existed. " (19-20)"Only this life with Clifford, this infinite tangle of webs, of minutiae of consciousness, these stories that Sir Malcolm said contained nothing and would not last. Why should they contain anything, why should they last? Its evil is enough for the day. For the moment the APPEARANCE of reality is sufficient. “ (24)“So the men, especially the older ones, were really very kind to her. But, knowing what torture poor Clifford would feel at the slightest sign of flirtation on his part, he did not encourage them at all. She was silent and vague, had no contact with them and did not intend to have any. Clifford was extraordinarily proud of himself. “Her relatives treated her very kindly. He knew that kindness indicated a lack of fear and that these people had no respect for you unless you could scare them a little. But once again he had no contact. He let them be gentle and disdainful, made them feel that they did not need to draw their ready weapon. He had no real connection to them. " (24-25)"His room was the only cheerful and modern one in the house, the only place in Wragby where his personality was revealed. Clifford had never seen it and had invited very few people. Now she and Michaelis sit on opposite sides and talk. She asked him about himself, about his mother, about his father, about his brothers—other people were always something wonderful to her, and when her sympathy was awakened it was entirely devoid of class feelings. Michaelis spoke about himself frankly, with complete frankness, without affectation, simply revealing his bitter, indifferent, stray dog ​​soul, then showing a glimmer of vindictive pride for his success. “But why are you such a lonely bird?” Connie asked him; and he looked at her again, with his full, inquiring, hazel gaze. “Some birds ARE like that,” he replied. Then, with a touch of familiar irony: 'but look, what about you? Aren't you a lonely bird yourself?' Connie, a little surprised, thought about it for a few moments, then said: 'Only in a certain sense! Not quite, like you!” “Am I really a lonely bird?” he asked with that strange smile of his, as if he had a toothache; he was so ironic, and his eyes were so perfectly unchangeably melancholic, or stoic, or disillusioned, or frightened. ” (33-34) From the passages above I can see that Connie cannot show her true self in..