D.H. Lawrence Conference 2007 - Archive

Paper Abstracts Friday Session C

Nancy L. Paxton

Northern Arizona University, USA

Seeing is Believing: Yvette, the Gipsy, and the Afterlife of Mourning

Like other short fiction that D. H. Lawrence wrote after his visit to Eastwood in 1923-24, The Virgin and the Gipsy incorporates his critique of modernity especially in his treatment of both Yvette and her formidable grandmother, but the novella also suggests how Lawrence's psychodynamics changed after his father's death in September 1924 and his own serious illness in 1925. Drawing on details from recent biographies, as well as on Judith Butler's analysis of melancholy and mourning, I will argue that the waters that redeem the former and drown the latter express not only the pagan flood of female desire as John Turner and Carol Siegel have argued, they also represent a tide of loss that Yvette recognizes when, feeling abandoned by her gipsy, she surrenders to a "grief over him that kept her prostrate" (77). As I hope to show, this novel thus marks Lawrence's turn from melancholy to mourning, a change which prepared him to enter the deeper waters that he explored in his final works.

Elizabeth Fox

MIT, USA

Andre Green, "The Dead Mother," and D.H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers

To extend work I will have presented at other conferences, I propose to use Andre Green's article, "The Dead Mother" (1980) to consider the dynamics between Gertrude and Paul Morel. Green's suggestion of a Dead Mother Complex takes for its name the case of a mother who is psychically dead. She withdraws attention from her child because she is "bereaved" by her own losses, physical or psychical. Not only do Gertrude and Paul fit the initial scenario envisioned in the theory; but Paul's inability to love, his "blank anxiety" (Green's term), and his difficulties progressing in life also parallel symptoms in the complex. Green analyzes the child's initial withdrawal of love and a mirror identification with a "Dead Mother": I propose to discuss Paul's behavior in term of these first defenses and a second set that Green proposes. Green draws on the theories of Freud, Klein, Winnicott, Kohut, and Lacan, among others; I hope to integrate some of the psychoanalytic approaches to the novel by using Green's theory.

Juan Tomás Matarranz Araque

At home and abroad: sexual and gender constructions in D. H. Lawrence's drama

The aim of the paper is to analyse Lawrence's plays focusing on the ways in which the characters' origin and geographical mobility, as well as the settings in Britain and abroad, are used to shape a whole series of conceptions about gender difference; it also intends to show how the author's ideas develop from his first play in 1909 to his last dramatic writings in the mid 20's.

After revising the representation of the different locations in Lawrence's full eight plays, which range from his native Midlands to Europe or Ancient Israel, it will follow a study of Lawrence 's changes in his ideas of gender differences throughout his dramatic production. It will be done with the theoretical support of modern gender studies inspired in Foucault and in pragmatics. Next, it will be analysed how Lawrence's plays show an evolution in the conception of sexual difference, either by marking a linguistic variation when identifying otherness and identity; or by highlighting a socio-economic difference expressed in terms of hierarchical position between the sexes; travels also have a consequence in the lexicon used by characters, and also in their attitude towards knowledge. There is a clear evolution in the plays regarding the character's conception of the whole society: whereas men are the measure of the whole world, women tend to be excluded, but they are incorporated to the establishment in some of his last plays.

As a conclusion, it will be considered how all these elements affect the creation of psychological and gender differences in relation with early twentieth century society.

Leslie Gautreaux Edwards

Texas A&M University, USA

Creating the Domestic: D. H. Lawrence and Modernist Masculinity

D. H. Lawrence's effort to create his own domestic sphere through Rananim, his concept for a utopian community of writers and intellectuals, presents readers with evidence of his dedication to the supremacy of the dwelling place in intellectual thought and progress. In this paper I argue that more important than his unsuccessfulness in Rananim is the significance that Lawrence places on the home, domesticity, and community in his fiction, art work, and correspondence, which coincides with his own constant efforts to find and establish homes for himself and Frieda. In addition to analyzing the way in which Ottoline Morrell's home at Garsington served as a model of intellectual community and a temporary domicile for the Lawrences, I also wish to explore the way that Lawrence makes another push for Rananim at Cornwall, where he urges John Middleton Murry and Katherine Mansfield to take a home there on the coast. Specifically, I argue, Lawrence uses interior design plans and descriptions of decor in his attempt to entice them to move, while essentially becoming the group's interior designer. At the same time, he challenges critical characterizations of modernist masculine culture and literature as anti-domestic and urban-centered.

Ronald Walker

USA

Snake and the Issue of Homosexuality for D.H. Lawrence

D. H. Lawrence's "Snake" poem has a vitality and intensity that exceeds its simple narrative structure and straightforward content. Taking this as a starting point in the paper, I explore biographical elements of Lawrence's life at the time he wrote the poem in July 1920, understand the poem and its various psychological underpinnings. Lawrence had many severe problems in his marriage, and his wife had accused him of impotence. The couple were trapped while visiting in England by the outbreak of World War I. As soon as Frieda Lawrence was able, she went to Germany in October 1919 to visit her family. Lawrence went to Italy where he met with Norman Douglas and his companion Maurice Marcus. Both Douglas and Marcus were homosexuals; Lawrence was charmed by Marcus who was a complex character as well as a con artist.

Frieda soon returned to Lawrence in Florence, but Lawrence went at Marcus's invitation to visit him at the monastery of Monte Casino where Marcus was staying. Marcus hoped Lawrence would help him get a manuscript published. He was seductive to Lawrence, and Lawrence departed within a week. He returned to Frieda and they moved to Sicily. Marcus turned up at their house there wanting to stay after he'd left Monte Casino precipitously when the police arrived to arrest him for using bad checks. He was rejected by Frieda but stayed on in Sicily, and Lawrence met up with Marcus again when they both chose to go to Malta at the same time. Lawrence spent time with Marcus there, and he wrote to Douglas that he could have easily seduced Lawrence who soon returned to Sicily. He wrote "Snake" soon after. The paper will elucidate the poem in light of Lawrence's conflict about his homosexual desires suggesting that Lawrence never actually involved himself in homosexual activity at any time as many critics suggest.

N. H. Reeve

Editing "Wintry Peacock"

Lawrence was an inveterate reviser of his writings, and his January 1919 story 'Wintry Peacock' is no exception; he made substantial alterations within the original manuscript and between manuscript and published version, and this paper attempts to consider their nature and effects. Various issues come into view, including the story's context - Lawrence's first return to his home regions since his marriage – his immediately post-war sense of sexual battle, and his infrequent and often strangely charged use of first-person narration. The paper is rooted in the preparation of texts of the early versions of the story for the Cambridge edition of : a volume that will gather together Lawrence's uncollected early short fiction.

Jason Ward

The University of Nottingham, UK

The Endings of Odour of Chrysanthemums

Lawrence completely rewrote the ending of "Odour of Chrysanthemums" three times, extensively revised the prose throughout, and tackled the story's main event in half a dozen other texts. This work is perceived as a deeply biographical work and widely believed to mark the flowering of a distinctly Lawrentinian style. Is there any other way to read this story?

The presenter will provide an overview of the critical reception to the three main versions of "Odour of Chrysanthemums" and then will discuss how contemporary adaptation theory, the lens of film and film studies might open up new channels into this 'hypertext'.

It will be suggested that the pragmatic non-judgemental intertextuality of adaptation might offer ways to re-evaluate Lawrence not only in terms of what he did but how he did, and what this continues to do.

The presenter will suggest that adaptations can also bring out and highlight phenomena that may otherwise go unnoticed. To illustrate, the much-reworked ending of the story will be viewed through the lens of Mark Partridge's recent filmic adaptation, and the presenter will discuss how palimpsestic traces from earlier texts seem to resurface in this adaptation of the 1914 version.