로렌스, 타자, 그리고 남성의 ‘탄생’

Abstract

This paper aims to explore D. H. Lawrence’s view on man and the way modern man reaches, or achieves his own manhood through the relationship with the other, especially with woman. The critical history on Lawrence including that of feminist criticism shows that it has not properly addressed the importance of male characters in his work, not to mention his unique view of man in general. And yet, Lawrence insists that man and woman are the creative single beings, so they should not be reduced to abstracted, functioning mechanical units. Compared to this view, in the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze, man is regarded as majoritarian par excellence and consequently requested to “become-woman.” That is why it has no term like “becoming-man” in his system of thought. The lack itself is nothing less than a criticism of the basic problems of western thinking which standardizes man as the only norm of human beings and therefore denies the position of woman from the start. On the other hand, for Lawrence, we should have the other as a crucial center of life outside the self if we are to be a man or a woman; the encounter with the other is a vital necessity to the self. Therefore, the sexual identity of each one doesn’t precede the relation itself, rather we can realize ourselves as full sexual beings when we find and achieve the true relatedness to the other. In this context, the novel in which everything is relative to everything else is the best genre to show how modern man and woman attain or fail to reach the balance. For instance, Tom’s marriage with Lydia becomes a limited, but real event in his personal life as well as in the history of The Rainbow, just because he had such a humble courage to accept his own limitation, as well as he finally succeeds to achieve a new relationship with a woman as the other. In contrast, when we come to the second generation, Anna and Will fail to arrive at the balance which Tom achieves with Lydia. And it is not because Will has less knowledge and experience than Tom, but because he is incapable of what Lawrence calls “the creative or religious motive” in the marital life with Anna. Many critics might suggest that sexual differences lie in some ideal properties in characters of man and woman, but this paper argues our self-realisation basically depends on relationship with the other.