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Isolation examples in literature
Literary theories for isolation
Literary theories for isolation
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A Critical Response to Lady Chatterley's Lover
Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence examines the human condition in the modern era. Through the experiences of the novel's characters, Lady Chatterley's Lover advances techniques for coping with the modern world: retreating from society and engaging in phallic sex. However, the application of these techniques is problematic as phallic sex necessitates the abandonment of social convention, while retreating from society conflicts with phallic sex.
Lawrence's tactics of retreating from society and engaging in phallic sex are a response to conditions that he perceived in England. A problem that afflicts the English people in Lawrence's novel is the pressure of social convention causing individuals to lead unhappy lives. For example, Lawrence examines the lives of colliers: "The iron and the coal had eaten deep into the bodies and souls of the men" (159). Iron and coal are also a reference to the capitalist-industrialist complex that drives the colliery, making it clear that it is capitalist values which are eating away at the men. The village of Tevershall reflects the state of its builders: "The utter negation of natural beauty, the utter negation of the gladness of life, the utter absence of the instinct for shapely beauty which every bird and beast has, the utter death of the human intuitive faculty was appalling" (152). Both the people and their dwellings have been warped by modernity. The narrator sums up the consequences of modern society for the colliers and the English people: "...a new race of mankind, over-conscious in the money and social and political side, on the spontaneous intuitive side dead, but dead. Half-corpses, all of t...
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...f phallic sex.
Two strategies that D. H. Lawrence's novel Lady Chatterley's Lover offers for coping with the modern world are phallic sex and a retreat from society. Unfortunately, the ideal of phallic sex is difficult to achieve due to the necessity of abandoning social convention, while retreating from society conflicts with having phallic sex. Lawrence's ideas offer unconventional methods for coping with modern life. However, a reader who wishes to apply these ideas must bear in mind that no amount of sex or isolation is likely to resolve the problems which plague modern society.
Works Cited
Lawrence, D. H.. Lady Chatterley's Lover. Ed. Michael Squires. New York: Penguin Books, 1994.
Lawrence, D. H.. "A Propos of 'Lady Chatterley's Lover'". Lady Chatterley's Lover. Ed. Michael Squires. New York: Penguin Books, 1994.
Judith R. Walkowitz is a Professor Emeritus at John Hopkins University, specializing in modern British history and women’s history. In her book City of Dreadful Delight, she explores nineteenth century England’s development of sexual politics and danger by examining the hype of Jack the Ripper and other tales of sensational nature. By investigating social and cultural history she reveals the complexity of sexuality, and its influence on the public sphere and vice versa. Victorian London had upheld traditional notions of class and gender, that is until they were challenged by forces of different institutions.
At the beginning of the 1900s, there was a “sexual revolution” in New York City. During this time, sexual acts and desires were not hidden, but instead they were openl...
Sojourner fled from her life of enslavement to find a better life for her and her children. She did whatever she could do to free her children and to keep them safe. After gaining her freedom, Sojourner set out to free others who were enslaved all over the country. She realized that this would be a difficult task to accomplish on her own, but she knew that there was a higher power that governed us all. She believed and had unmovable faith in the almighty God. Sojourner knew that without God, she would have never been as fortunate as she has.
Sojourner Truth was a born slave named Isabella, delivered her speech at a woman’s convention in Ohio in 1851. Women’s rights were a big issue but Black Women’s rights were in worse condition. She stood for feminism, racial equality and religion. She supported freedmen and corner preached about Evangelism after she understood the bible and Christianity more.
...eedom in 1826. She then went to court to recover her son, and shockingly won the case against a white male. Sojourner Truth was named Isabella Baumfree when she was born but she gave herself the name Sojourner Truth in 1843.
Since the dawn of the Victorian Era, society has perpetuated unrealistic gender performance ideals that supposedly find their roots within biological sexual differences. Judith Butler has spent a lifetime seeking to break the mold todays social constructions, specifically surrounding gender and sexuality. The theory this pioneer pegged is now known as Queer Theory, and brought forth in the education system through Queer Studies courses. In the text Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality by author Anne Fausto-Sterling, gender and sex are similarly challenged on both a social and biological level. When reviewing Fausto-Sterling’s work in conjunction with Queer Studies and Human Sexuality, an efficient and effective format is loosely based upon a Critical Literary analysis.
Throughout Sojourner Truths speech she makes several claims about stereotypes, motherhood, hard work, and her relationships with white men and women. By stating she's got robbed of the opportunity to become a mother shows how unfair life in the early 1800's was for women but more importantly African-American females. Throughout history there have been many stories of slaves giving birth and not being allowed to raise their kids or worse their kids being sold to another family. Truth states, "I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus
Irigaray, Luce. “That Sex Which is Not One.” The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends. Ed. David H. Richter. Boston: Bedford Books, 1998. 1467-1471.
Foucault, Miachael. "We 'Other Victorians'" and "The Repressive Hypothesis."The History of Sexuality, Volume I: An Introduction.Trans. Robert Hurley. New York: Vintage, 1980.
Sojourner Truth (1797-1883), born into slavery as Isabella, was an American abolitionist and an advocate of women's rights. She joined the abolitionist movement and became a travelling preacher. She took her new name-Sojourner Truth-in 1843 and began preaching along the eastern seaboard. Her strategy consisted of walking through Long Island and Connecticut, speaking to people about her life and her relationship with God. She was a powerful speaker and singer. When she rose to speak, wrote one observer, "her commanding figure and dignified manner hushed every trifler to silence." Audiences were "melted into tears by her touching stories". She traveled and spoke widely.
One major issue that helps maintain social stability in Brave New World is sex. It is thought of as normal for people to be completely open with their sexual nature. It is typical for children to run around naked during recess playing games that are sexual and sometimes homosexual in nature. Every adult is encouraged to sleep with as many different partners as possible. This outlook on sexual nature is quite different from actual accepted views. Today, sex is most widely accepted as a private, romantic event that should take place between monogamous couples. Because sex is a natural need of the human body, people of Huxley’s society feel pleased by being open with their sexuality. Indulging in their sexual pleasures eases their minds and keeps them from questioning the level of freedom they have.
Boa, Elizabeth. "Wedekind and the 'Woman Question'." Boa, Elizabeth. The Sexual Circus: Wedekind's Theatre of Subversion. New York : Basil Blackwell Inc. , 1987. 167-202. Print.
On the other hand Brantenberg’s novel exploits the real worlds views of sexuality and applies them in th...
Amidst war, censorship, and persecution, D.H. Lawrence channeled his resulting emotions into his writing and emerged a visionary author. Wholly misplaced with regards to the century in which it was constructed and gifted to the populace, Lawrence’s Women in Love was met with criticism for its sexual implications. However, with proper deconstruction of the novel and psychoanalysis of the principal characters, it is apparent that Lawrence’s genuine intention in his creation of Women in Love was to set concepts of new complex philosophies concerning the rituals of marriage, definitions of love, rapidly increasing modernization, and the negative effects of excessive industrialization within the minds of his audiences.
How does 'sexuality' come into being, and what connections does it have with the changes that have affected personal life on a more general plane? In answering these questions, Anthony Giddens disputes many of the interpretations of the role of sexuality in our culture. The emergence of what he calls plastic sexuality, which is sexuality freed from its original relation of reproduction, is analyzed in terms of the long-term development of the modern social order and social influences of the last few decades. Giddens argues that the transformation of intimacy, in which women have played the major part, holds out the possibility of a society that is very traditional. "This book will appeal to a large general audience as well as being essential reading for those students in sociology and theory."(Manis 1)