Degree Name
MA (Master of Arts)
Program
English
Date of Award
12-2015
Committee Chair or Co-Chairs
Daniel Westover
Committee Members
Daniel Westover, Phyllis Thompson, Michael Cody
Abstract
Despite his own conservative values, D.H. Lawrence writes sexually liberated female characters. The most subversive female characters in Lawrence’s oeuvre are the Brangwens of The Rainbow. The Brangwens are prototypical models of a form of femininity that connects women to Nature while distancing them from society; his women are cast as monsters, but are strengthened from their link with Nature. They represent what I am calling the Lawrentian-Woman.
The Lawrentian-Woman has proven influential for contemporary British authors. I examine the Lawrentian-Woman’s adoption by later writers and her evolution from modernist frame to postmodern appropriation. First, I look at the Brangwens. They establish the tropes of the Lawrentian-Woman and provide the base from which to compare the model’s subsequent mutations. Next, I examine modern British writers and their appropriation of the Lawrentian-Woman. The Lawrentian-Woman’s attributes remain intact, but are deconstructed in ways that explore women’s continued liminality in patriarchal society.
Document Type
Thesis - unrestricted
Recommended Citation
Brice, Dusty A., "The Lawrentian Woman: Monsters in the Margins of 20th-Century British Literature" (2015). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 2612. https://dc.etsu.edu/etd/2612
Copyright
Copyright by the authors.
Included in
Feminist Philosophy Commons, Literature in English, British Isles Commons, Modern Literature Commons, Other Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, Women's Studies Commons