An-Ecofeminist-Reading-of-Lady-Chatterley’s-Lover

An Ecofeminist Reading of Lady Chatterley’s Lover 1. Introduction

1.1 Brief introduction of D.H.Lawrence

As one of the most significant authors in the history of English literature, D.H.Lawrence also appeared to be a controversial one in the 20th. During his literary career, Lawrence has written twelve novels. The close but peaceful connections among man, woman, and nature are always the emphasis of his novels. The White Peacock, his first novel, gained positive comments. But in his later period, the book Lady Chatterley’s Lover, suffered opposite voices. As a controversial figure, Lawrence’s public reputation still remains ups and downs. Frank Raymond Leavis, an influential British literary critic, advocated his works and highly praise his moral seriousness. Leavis believes Lawrence “relates his special theme with great power to the malady of industrial civilization” (55). Later, In Leavis English novel, The Great Tradition, Lawrence is acclaimed with “the sign of The Times” (23).

Lady Chatterley’s Lover has suffered the strongest censure after it was published. The

novel reflects Lawrence’s criticism of industrialization and patriarchy and it was considered as a famous novelist’s shameful book. The government regarded Lady Chatterley’s Lover as “pornographic” at that time. The writer, E.M.Forster, believes Lady Chatterley’s Lover is a literary work of importance. The playwright J.B.Priestley says that Lady Chatterley’s Lover is without any obscene element or intention, it represents an experiment by a novel

of genius.

1.2 Brief introduction of Lady Chatterley’s Lover

The work mainly tells a story about Lady Chatterley’s miserable marriage life and her extramarital affair. Connie is a young pretty woman. She comes from a middle class family. She married with a man from the upper rank, Clifford Chatterley. Clifford who owns the mine is an aristocracy. Clifford joins the army and goes to the field. However, he gets injured and paralyzed from the waist down when the peace came. Her lover Mellors is their gamekeeper. He is a former miner and retires to the woods. Connie lives a monotonous married life due to Clifford’s physical limitations. Connie’s miserable marriage frustrated her and she was always by herself. Clifford only cares about himself. Because he ignores Connie in the mental, the barricade was gradually built between them. Clifford incites his wife to develop some connection with some man in her rank, while she should start a relationship with Mellors. One day, however, Connie meets Mellors by chance. Due to her sexual frustration, she has affair with this gamekeeper. The love pulls herself together. Then Connie heads to the cottage in the woods from time to time in order to see him. Mellors becomes the lover of Connie. And Mellors awakes Connie’s self-consciousness. After Connie gets pregnant, she decides to break up with Clifford and to live with Mellors. In Lady Chatterley’s Lover, the story of Connie has a complicated plot. The story concludes in

Mellors and Connie’s waiting for the realization of their dream, living together and expecting their child.

1.3 Research status of the novel at home and abroad

The study on Lady Chatterley’s Lover has never been stagnating. Since the novel was published in 1928, different comments appeared to the board both inside and outside the country. In China, the scholar Yu Dafu in On D.H.Lawrence’s novel-Lady Chatterley’s Lover, thinks that Lawrence describes natural background, psychological description, sexuality and social surroundings between man and woman successfully. In Lawrence Criticism and

Idealism in Lady Chatterley’s Lover – Criticism of Industrial Society & Idealism Reflected in a Harmonious Society, Zhu Liya analyses that men and women loss the harmony between

them because of man’s control over woman and nature. It points out Lawrence’s Ecofeminism in Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Lawrence wants to establish a balanced relationship among man, woman and nature. At abroad, Michel Foucault, the French philosopher, criticized the description of sexuality in the Lawrence’s novel. Janice H. Harris hails as “the voice of proclaiming a woman’s liberation through the recognition of her sexual self”(70). Lady Chatterley’s Lover depicts the oppression of a female struggle for her liberation with great success. The author of this thesis will reinterpret the book through the standpoint of ecofeminist criticism, revealing the author’s feminist consciousness and the profound consideration on the relationship between man and woman, human and the natural world. The purpose is to demonstrate the ecofeminist consciousness embedded in his works.

2. Ecofeminism and D.H.Lawrence

Lawrence pays his attention to nature and women both in his works. He argued against the patriarchal society and was not optimistic about the rapid expansion of industrialization. As a novelist, Lawrence is the prophet of Ecofeminism.

2.1 Brief introduction of Ecofeminism

Ecofeminism is a theory originated in the 1970. The term Ecofeminism was first coined by the French writer Francois d’ Eaubonne in her book Le Feminisme ou la Mort published in 1974. In her works, d’ Eaubonne calls attention to save the planet. The pioneering works draw public attention to women’s possibility for ecological revolution. This unites women

with the nature. Based on the growth of Ecology and Feminism, Ecofeminism states an interpretation of the theories.

During the 1970s, the women’s movement was intertwined with the environmental movement. The American ecofeminist Ynestra King made a statement about ecofeminism:

Ecofeminism is a joining of environmental, feminist, and women's spirituality concerns. As the environmental movement along with environmental crisis raised the consciousness of women to the decay of the earth, they began to see a parallel between the devaluation earth and the devaluation of women. Women began to see the link as not a false construction of weakness, but as a strong unifying force that clarified the violation of women and the earth as part of the same drama of male control (106).

This theory emphasizes the exploitation of woman and environment, claiming that woman are closely related to the nature. They are mutually supported and represented, suffer the same inferior position. In The Death of Nature, Merchant claims “the ancient identity of nature as a nurturing mother links the women’s history with the history of the environment and ecological change” (16). According to Merchant, nature is a nurturing mother in early human history.

Ecofeminists holds that the oppression of nature and the oppression of woman are figuratively related. The traditional gender system has a valid impact on today’s environmental problems. Human must work to rebalance the feminine and masculine in society.

2.2 Ecofeminism in D.H.Lawrence’s works

Lawrence’s father is a miner, and his mother is a pupil teacher from the middle class. He was living in the coal mining village. Lawrence feels sad that the good natural environment was destroyed by the industrialized revolution. Lawrence is a nature lover. To him, nature has an amazing energy and power. Besides the nature, Lawrence also concerns about woman. In the late 19th centuries, the women’s movement has made progress in the United Kingdom. To the fate of woman, Lawrence is very sensitive. His wife, Frieda, is an aristocratic woman from Germany. Their marriage makes Lawrence have a new understanding towards independent women. Lawrence, in his works, had kept devoting his efforts on exploration of the connections among men, women and nature. Lawrence’s love for nature makes him become a nature writer. Many of his works demonstrate his ecofeminist consciousness.

For example, Lawrence’s famous novel Sons and Lovers is set in a mining town called Bestwood. In Bestwood, the environment suffered from the coal mining industry. In Sons and Lovers, Walter Morel was on behalf of the alienated human under the background of

industrialization. When Morel is young, he is energetic and open-minded. After years of coaling working, he loses his hope of life. He is addicted to drinking. His wife Gertrude finds the consolation from nature. The flowers in the front garden make her forget the sorrows. Paul, their son, shows his detest for industrialism. Paul’s love is disintegrated because of mother’s domination. His three lovers cannot match with him both bodily and spiritually. In Sons and Lovers, Lawrence shows his disgust for the industrialization. In Lawrence’s view, man’s daily life is destroyed by coal industry. As the quick expansion of industrialism, the natural environment suffered a lot. And man cannot betray nature. Man is the son of nature.

3. Man-Nature relationship in Lady Chatterley’s Lover

Man holds the idea that he is the leader of the world. Man is the destroyer of nature and they get the punishment from nature. In Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Lawrence indicates of nature is destroyed by men in rapid industrialization. Connie is a witness of man’s destruction of nature. Clifford and the miners are the criminals and victims.

3.1 Man’s Destruction on Nature

In Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Lawrence introduces the background in the first chapter. The countryside Wragby is located “in a rather line old park of oak trees”; “in the near distance the chimey of Tevershall pit, with its clouds of steam and smoke”; “raw straggle of Tevershall village” and “rows of wretched, small, begrimed, brick houses” (Lawrence 13). Lawrence calls “utter hopeless ugliness”. The world is ugly and it is caused by industrialization. The industrial village stands for the whole industrial dominant in the modern times, especially in the twentieth century England. At that time, the First Industrialized Revolution transformed England into an in industrialized country. The natural landscapes were damaged due to the machines. The ideal survival environment no longer exists.

The wood is next to the ugly houses. The wood, in Lady Chatterley’s Lover, is a symbol of nature. The wood is surrounded by the new mining village, factories, and industrial installations. The wood is also being attacked from beneath. The coal miners and workmen use shovels to dig the coal. They need to dig a deep well and transport the coal up. Since then, the fertile ground of Wragby wood have been destroyed, the rich soil is undermined by the coal miners’ digging. The vegetation and the animals on the ground are reducing. The peace of the wood is threatened by Clifford. Clifford’s motorized wheel chair is a symbol of modernized machine. Clifford goes to the wood carried by his chair, and

his mechanized wheel chair trampled the grass of the earth. Clifford’s arrival intrudes the animals’ natural life too. Once he goes to the wood with Connie, he sees a mole. He says, “Unpleasant little beast, we ought to kill him” (259). Connie walks behind the Clifford, she witnesses the man rudely overriding on the grass, and the beautiful scenery is gone. Connie is the witness of man’s destruction of nature. She hears the “clink-clink of shunting trucks”; “hoarse little whistle of the colliery locomotives” in the “dismal rooms” (13) at Wragby. The man developed his industrial business into a vaster scope. It brings the noises everyday, even at night. Connie smells the house is “full of the stench of this sulphureous combustion of the earth’s excrement”(14). The air is dirty. “The stench” from the underground makes Connie uncomfortable. The air is awful. The dust covers everywhere, nothing could get away from the contamination of the industrialization. Connie drives through Tevershall, she sees the brick dwellings are “blackened”; the “blank state roofs glistening their sharp edges”; the “mud black with coal-dust” and the pavements are all “wet and black” (210).

Lawrence spent his childhood in the coal mining village. He sees man’s greedy brings “soulless ugliness” (13) to the country. He worries about the men “have reduced them to less than humanness” (212). Man’s pursuit of economic profit seems endless. They destroyed the balance of nature. Lawrence shows his suspect of civilization in Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Clifford’s machine was stopped due to the limited power. The chair

which is stumbled in the hill, indeed drives him crazy. Clifford tries hopefully and indignantly to start it up over and over again, but nothing works. Connie is astonished to see that Clifford is defeated by a small difficulty. The reason is that Clifford is only a member of the “crabs” of the industry field. Eventually, with the help of Mellors, Clifford can climb up the hill. The machine ran out of its subjugation power, in the opposite, nature is more powerful. His doubt of civilization is reasonable.

Nature suffers from man’s unlimited desire for benefit. Man becomes the offender for nature’s degeneration. Man despoils nature’s resources and leaves unrecoverable filth on the beautiful landscapes. The natural descriptions in Lady Chatterley’s Lover shows an ecofeminist foreknowledge through the degenerated environment.

3.2 The side effect of over-industrialization on man

With the industrialization developing, nature is ravaged by men. The over-industrialization break up the harmonious relationship between nature and man in the natural world. As a result, man gets the natural punishment and becomes the victim of the degeneration.

In Lady Chatterley’s Lover, the depraved nature can be seen in the figure of Clifford. The paralysis of Clifford is both satiric and symbolic. He got wounded and lost his impotence in the battle. He returned home when the war ends, Clifford suffered both physically and spiritually. Furthermore, Clifford appears to be an vital figure in human’s criminal activity. He wishes to receive higher margin from manufacture modern machines. He becomes the “brute means of industrial production” (146). Clifford is the leader in civilized society. He is full of enthusiastic about creating a system. Through a severe system of control, he can dominate his mine workers. He wants to control the miners to gain more mechanical profits. And he gains confidence from controlling workers and machines. The irony is that Clifford is afraid of the workers. As an industrialist, he is lame. Without doubt, Clifford becomes a slave of machine. As a proprietor of Wragby, Clifford gets punishment from nature for destroying the woods in pain. He is the embodiment for both human’s victim and the destroyer of nature. All the miners are sacrificial lamb in industrialization. They become mechanism without soul. In order to earn a living to support their family, they

have to keep pace with the industrialization. They have to stay in the pit all the time for a meager salary. The strenuous works make them exhausted. The workers are all the victims in the industrialization. They become the servants of the machine. They are alienated. They are dull animals of coal. Connie discovered the side effect of over-industrialization on man. She sees the colliers, “Grey-black, distorted, one shoulder higher that the other, slurring their heavy ironshod boots” (221). They seemed “weird” to Connie. They are “grey faces, whites of eye rolling, necks cringing from the pit roof, shoulders out of shape” (221). They are only the “half of human being” (221). They always “in the pit” (221). They are “non-existent” (221).

In ecofeminism theory, technology is the tool of patriarchal society. And in Lady Chatterley’s Lover, the mine workers are the tool of mechanical civilization. Clifford

considers the workers as the tool of making money. Man’s wrong-doings make themselves become the victims, and they pay for their mistakes.

4. Man-woman relationship in Lady Chatterley’s Lover

People agreed that in the seek for man-woman relationship, Lawrence has been avant-garde. In Lady Chatterley’s Lover, he has probed into the ideal man-woman relationship. Connie is in the victimized situation in the patriarchal society. The roots of Clifford’s power over Connie is patriarchal dualism. Connie’s inferior status in the family has deeply rooted in patriarchal dualism. Connie and Mellors is the ideal mode which stands for the combination of soul and body. Moreover, he has discovered the ideal sexual model earlier than ecofeminists.

4.1 The abnormal relationship between Lady Chatterley and Clifford

Connie comes from the middle class. Connie’s father is an artist and her mother is a cultured socialist, and she has an unconventional upbringing from her parents. But Clifford was “more upper-class than Connie”,“he was aristocracy” (8). Connie’s inferior status caused the abnormal relationship between them.

Clifford and Connie meet at a ball. Soon they get married. Then, Clifford has to go to the war, and when he comes back, he is paralyzed forever. Later they get back to Wragby to begin their marriage life. Clifford is impotent forever and the impotence turn him into “half corpse”. But he still holds the faith that he could “return to life again” (1). Clifford starts writing and becomes a writer. Once Connie’s father concludes, “it’s smart, but there’s nothing in it. It won’t last” (19). Physically Clifford has to rely on Connie and the “wheeled chair”. He is helpless, he needs Connie every moment. Though he is strong, he needs Connie to be there, to ensure his existence. Clifford is “extremely shy and self-conscious” (16), he hates seeing anyone except his personal servants, Connie. In reality, Clifford becomes a “hurt thing”. Mentally Clifford is disabled too, however, he becomes a “lost thing” (17). There is no sexual contact between Clifford and Connie because of the paralysis. Their relationship is only marriage. Clifford pays attention to marriage. They only live together, but there is no love, which is a sort of domestic violence. As for Clifford, the sex in marriage life is not important. His view on sex compensate himself. And his attitude to marriage is different from Connie. In Clifford’s opinion, mind is more important than body, sex is not really necessary. He attempts to make Connie believe that they can live peaceful life without sex. And he tries to assure Connie to overlook the sex and to accept the bondage of marriage. “That’s the real secret of marriage, not sex; at least not the simple function of sex” (18).

Clifford’s denying of sex has two essential reasons. On the one hand, he wants to

make an excuse for his paralysis; on the other hand, he wants to make Connie believe that spiritual love is more important than physical love in their marriage. Additionally, Clifford uses the hypocritical moral criterion to keep him and Connie in a tie. At the same time, he lets Connie to have sex with other man. Because he wants Connie to give birth to a child to be brought up at Wragby, and the child can inherit his manor and his mine business. It is Clifford’s selfish desire without any consideration of Connie’s feelings. He tells Connie that the intercourse with other man is like “the mating of birds” (57). And Clifford declares the relationship between Connie and himself is “the life-long companionship” (57). He wants to keep Connie in control. He does not allow Connie to get a divorce. The reason he says it “since you are my wife, I should prefer that you stay under my roof in dignity and quiet” (416).

For Connie, the marriage is bondage. Though she is married to a rich noble family, she is unhappy. Connie is a romantic woman, she wants a good life, and Clifford could not afford her. Living in the lifeless house, Connie, the young and lively girl, is now a servant. To Clifford, Connie is just a tool of giving birth to a child. He proposes that Connie should give birth to a child with a man to inherit his manor. Connie devotes herself to Clifford, and suffers from Clifford’s control. Her body “is really wakened to life” (327) while Clifford says “the life of body is like the life of animals” (328). Her body is “going meaningless, going dull and opaque, so much insignificant substance” (94). Her life with Clifford is quite unusual and with so little passion. Her spirit is under pressure and her mind is distorted. It makes her feel “immensely depressed and hopeless” (94). Connie loses the connection to the extensive world. There is little vital contact between Clifford and herself. Clifford has created a “simulacrum of reality” (21). In fact, Connie feels nothing really touched Clifford, because Clifford is “remotely interested” (17). And herself “didn’t really, not really touch him” (17). As a result, Connie is living in the “dim” house and taking nice care of

Clifford which makes her sick and melancholy.

Clifford’s domination over Connie is ridiculous. Because Connie is his wife, he wants her to take care of him. He regards her as his property. Clifford not only controls Connie’s body, but also her spirit. Their marriage follows the tradition that men get full-control over women. And this is very abnormal.

4.2 The harmonious relationship between Lady Chatterley and Mellors

In Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Connie and nature are linked symbolically. Woman is naturalized while nature is womanized. They can transform to each other. Mellors respects Connie’s thoughts, and he gives Connie freedom and independence. Lawrence believes that the ideal man-woman relationship is based on mutual respect. Connie and Mellors symbolize the harmonious relationship between man and woman.

At the beginning of the Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Mellors is tired of the insane world and retires to the woods. He is like a solitary man in the woods. Connie goes to the woods for escaping the realistic and cruel world. She often sits in the woods, appreciating the beauty of nature. For her, the woods is sort of paradise. When Connie sees Mellors in the woods by chance, he is bathing. Connie is shocked and felt warm. Mellors’ energetic body stimulates Connie’s female unconsciousness. Connie falls in love with Mellors because he belongs to nature, he is the “son of nature”. She is appealed by his vitality. In Connie’s eyes, Mellors is different from the dehumanized industrial workers, he is a real “living” man. Connie finally gets in touch with the truly inner sustenance of nature. Connie and nature are no longer belittled, and they are integrated as one. Connie’s first love-making with Mellors happens in the woods. It changed her opinion upon the life and sex. Connie

goes to the “sacred” woods to meet Mellors frequently. After the sexual relation with Mellors, she discovers “another self was alive in her” (186). Connie is no longer passive. Her sex-awareness is finally awakened. For her, this is a significant experience to get contact with man. Connie’s female instinct is revived. She can finally to be a woman, out of “nothingness”. “That was life! That was how oneself really was! There was nothing left to disguise or be ashamed of. She shared her ultimate nakedness with a man, another being” (346). Connie gets rebirth again in her love affair with Mellors. Later in the novel, Connie is pregnant. It makes her feel much different from her old self. And she determines to end the marriage with Clifford. Connie regained a new life and she is awakened to a more higher female consciousness.

Connie’s affairs with Mellors liberates her from the sick marriage. In addition, the harmonious union with Connie also rejuvenates Mellors from his failure marriage. Connie eventually finds her love and the salvation for her instinct. They are perfectly matched both bodily and spiritually.

5. Conclusion

D.H.Lawrence, as an outstanding writer, achieved tremendous success in the creation of novels in the history of English Literature. Throughout his life, Lawrence concerns about the man-nature and man-woman harmonious relationship in the universe. Lady Chatterley’s Lover demonstrates his anxiety toward the environment in the industrialized society and

reflected his ecofeminist awareness. In Lady Chatterley’s Lover, nature is dominated by man. Lawrence shows his sympathy to nature. The environment has been badly damaged. Connie is the witness of man’s destruction on nature. Clifford and the dehumanized mine workers are the alienated people. They are both the criminal and victims in the rapid

industrialization. In dualistic patriarchal society, woman is in the inferior position and is also oppressed by man. Connie is in the victimized situation. She suffers from Clifford’s control. Her body is meaningless and her mind is distorted. The relationship between Connie and Clifford is abnormal. After Mellors have become her lover, Mellors inspires her female consciousness. In connie’s love affair with Mellors, she eventually gets her liberation from nature and realizes her female identity.

In conclusion, Lady Chatterley’s Lover is a masterpiece. Ecofeminism is still a new criticism of literature at the present time. Nowadays, the global ecological crisis has become severe, it is of great significance to re-read Lady Chatterley’s Lover from the ecofeminist perspective.

Works Cited

Janice H. Harris. Lawrence and the Edwardian Feminists. Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1990. 70.

King, Ynestra. “Healing the Wounds: Feminism, Ecology, and the Nature/Culture Dualism.” Reweaving the world: The Emergence of Ecofeminism. Eds. Irene Diamond and Gloria Feman Orenstein. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1990. 106-21.

Lawrence D.H. Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Shanghai: World Book Publishing Company, 2009.

Leavis F.R. D.H.Lawrence: Novelist. London: Penguin, 1955. 23.

---. Thought, Words and Creativity: Art and Thought in D. H. Lawrence. London: Chatto and Windus, 1976．

Merchant, Carolyn. The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution. New York: Harper and Row, 1980.