로렌스와 월콧의 원시주의: 자연과 여성에 대한 인종적∙문화적 관점

Abstract

This study aims to discuss D. H. Lawrence’s and Derek Walcott’s contextual traits of primitivism through their racial and cultural perspectives on sex and nature. It is a matter of course that Lawrence’s humanistic-philosophical theme doesn’t seem to be in contextual line with Walcott's racial-postcolonial one. Yet, Lawrence and Walcott share critical perspectives in that their societies are governed by European value-systems, such as capitalism, colonialism, material culture, and white superiority. And these shared perspectives project their ideal aims on the restoration of the primitive nature and sex which is scorned by the civil code of white society and its value-systems. Lawrence’s and Walcott’s insistence on the restoration of the primitivism reflects their perception that man has lived most of his life in basic contact with the principles of nature and his being is formed by that experience. Lawrence truly intends to say that the primitive nature and sex is more fundamental and active than the civic element. But the final thing Lawrence attempts to show is that the physical being is not all man wants. His ideal aim is that of a mutually coordinated physical-spiritual fulfillment. Meanwhile, Walcott shows how the Caribbean people are victims who have been afflicted and exiled by the West's colonialists and capitalists. And he tries to heal the people’s colonial wounds; however, Walcott doesn’t have any gods to cure their deep painful wounds. His healing perspective, like those of Lawrence, comes from the primitive spirit and mythology of Caribbean nature, which represents a mutually coordinated fulfillment of human and ecological values. Yet the truth of Walcott’s knowledge is that human-natural and physical-spiritual fulfillment cannot mean the historical and cultural wounds of Caribbean colonialism without self-overcoming and self-efforts. Therefore, Walcott’s idea of primitivism is not different from Lawrence’s in terms of how the principles of nature are closely connected with the incarnation of a spiritual value-system.