Exploring Identity through the Concept of 'Otherness' in D. H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers, The Rainbow and Women in Love

The present thesis explores the relationships between the protagonists in D. H. Lawrence’s three best-known novels in order to find out a common pattern in the representation of their personalities and identity as seen through their ‘otherness,’ a concept developed and applied by Lawrence in different contexts in the three novels.The main character of Sons and Lovers, Paul Morel, whose life shares many details with his author’s biography, struggles to establish a spiritually and physically satisfying relationship with his girlfriend, Miriam. But the possessive love of his mother, impedes Paul’s achieving independence and his union with Miriam is ruined. When his mother dies, Paul’s despondency leaves him “drifting towards death;” however, in the final scene he decides to shed his spiritual bond with the mother and choose life, which may also indicate Lawrence’s desire to abandon his exceedingly subjective and biased method of fictionalising his biography.The Rainbow presents a shift in the author’s focus; now, the obvious biographical elements are absent, and the story depicts the lives of three generations of the Brangwen family, with a strong emphasis on their vicissitudes in love and marriage. Here, Lawrence explores the theme of two opposing, great life-forces: Blood-intimacy and Otherness. The characters are suspended between their need for a basic, organic contact with their native land and people (symbolised by Blood-intimacy) and a need to go beyond it in search of new, modern values (which in turn stands for Otherness). The conflict is not fully resolved and this thread is continued in Women in Love, Lawrence’s controversial magnum opus.In Women in Love, the plot is built around two couples and the relations between all the four individuals. Another of Lawrence’s self-portraits, Rupert Birkin, is struggling to attain a perfect union of separate souls not only with his lover Ursula Brangwen, but also with his male friend Gerald Crich. But Gerald refutes Birkin’s proposition and dedicates himself to a destructive relationship with Ursula’s sister, Gudrun, the failure of which leads him to a self-imposed death. The novel’s conclusion leaves the narrator, as well as the reader, wondering if the perfect union established on the basis of “true relatedness to the other” between Ursula and Birkin is their ultimate destiny or merely an illusion.

Niniejsza praca jest poświęcona analizie prezentacji tożsamości bohaterów trzech powieści D. H. Lawrence’a z perspektywy ich „inności”: koncepcji stosowanej przez autora w różnych kontekstach, przede wszystkim zaś przy opisie relacji między kobietą a mężczyzną, które stanowiły dla niego niejako główną oś do rozważań nad relacją człowieka z rzeczywistością. Każda z postaci w Synach i Kochankach, Tęczy oraz Zakochanych Kobietach jest w jakiś sposób wykorzeniona ze swojej naturalnej rzeczywistości, zagubiona wśród nowoczesnego, uprzemysłowionego świata materializmu. Kontakt z drugim człowiekiem jest dla nich szansą na odnalezienie wartości moralnych spełnienia emocjonalnego, a także na odkrywanie tajemnicy „inności” drugiego człowieka, dzięki której jest im dane zgłębić (lub też nie, jeśli tej tajemnicy nie respektują) pokłady swoich nieuświadomionych potrzeb oraz poznać, choćby częściowo, prawdę o swojej tożsamości.