D. H. 로렌스의 「목사의 딸들」과 『처녀와 집시』에 나타난 두 자매 모티프

Abstract

“Daughters of the Vicar” and The Virgin and the Gipsy are D. H. Lawrence’s famous short story and short novel. Even though they are different genre works and have different situations, both have lots of peculiar characteristics. One of the similar characteristics is that both books are based on the two-sisters motif. The two-sisters motif is a motif that two sisters of different types are main characters of the book. The aim of this paper is to investigate the characteristics of the two-sisters motif in “Daughters of the Vicar” and The Virgin and the Gipsy. The characteristics of the two sisters can be changed according to the birth order and parents-and-child relationship. Thus, the two-sisters motif will be discussed on the birth order and parent-and-child relationship. The two-sisters motif of “Daughters of the Vicar” is typically expressed, compared with The Virgin and the Gipsy. Lawrence does his best to compare Mary’s wrong marriage to Massy with Louisa’s healthy one to Alfred in “Daughters of the Vicar.” And Lawrence praises Louisa highly, since Louisa wanted to marry Alfred, though her social status is higher than Alfred’s. The reason why Louisa can marry her lower-class man, Alfred, is that she is not the first birth-order woman in her family. Generally, psychologists assert that the subordinated man or woman is rebellious and cooperative, whereas the first born child tries to replace the parents’ position. In The Virgin and the Gipsy, Lawrence uses the two-sisters motif, too. However, the two-sisters motif in this work is imperfect, incomplete or perfunctory, since the elder sister, Lucille, does not have an important role, compared with the later sister, Yvette. To tell the truth, the role of Lucille is as a kind of supporter or sponsor of her younger sister who takes the part of Lawrence’s typical prototype needed male sexuality and vitality. In this work, too, Yvette is a second daughter who can defy her father’s wrong thinking. The important thing is that Yvette will be going to compromise with her father at the last part of the short novel. In short, Lawrence tries to express his belief that human beings should be vitalized by true love through the two sisters motif in his “Daughters of the Vicar” and The Virgin and the Gipsy. In addition, this fullness of human beings are attained by the second daughter’s brave behaviour against wrong morality. Lawrence tries to describe the second daughter’s characteristics differently from the first born sister’s ones.