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Deep is the Humanistic Concern

Author: MaYan
Tutor: LiShangHong
School: Shanghai International Studies University
Course: English Language and Literature
Keywords: Lady Chatterley’s Lover San Yan Er Pai women humanistic concern
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Type: Master's thesis
Year: 2009
Downloads: 200
Quote: 1
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Abstract

D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930) is one of the most significant and controversial literary figures in English literature. His works present the peak of modern literature in twentieth century. Different critics, however, made researches about him from different perspectives. Some called him a great artist, while some condemned him as a pornographic novelist. His last masterpiece Lady Chatterley’s Lover, finished in 1927, was denied unexpurgated publication in England until a high-court judgment in 1960 for the audacious descriptions of sexual act. But with the passage of time, more and more readers and critics began to recognize the profound themes embodied in his writing, his concern over human beings in the modern world, his sympathy toward depressed women and his bitter attack on modern industrialism.As a woman scholar, I am particular touched by the sympathy he shows toward Connie in his masterpiece Lady Chatterley’s Lover, which makes him ahead of his contemporaries who still ignored the fact that women should enjoy equal status as men. The same concern and sympathy toward women can also be found in San Yan Er Pai, one of the classics in Chinese literature, which was also once considered as obscene and denied unexpurgated publication for the sexual descriptions.Behind these sexual descriptions, however, we can find the authors’ deep humanistic concerns, particularly, the authors’ sympathy toward depressed women. All the authors appear to appreciate the feminist consciousness and independent female characters. They seem to be arguing the women are not inferior in intelligence or capability, in such field as art, music and literature, they show superior talents. Both works praise women’s fearless struggles for true love and their courage and determination when faced with adversities. They justify women’s sexual desires out of humanistic concern.In the first chapter, I analyze the social factors that bring out the feminist ideas in both works. In the second chapter, I elaborate on the fact that women are as gifted as men in art, music and literature, as have been shown in both works. In further discussion, I focus on women’s courage and determination in pursuing after true love and their perseverance when they are faced with hardships, which is vividly depicted in both works. In the third chapter, I compare the similarities and dissimilarities of the sexual descriptions in both works, and the authors’ humanistic concern toward women in them. Undoubtedly, both works are the vanguards of feminism in the literature of their respective culture.

Deep is the Humanistic Concern

Abstract

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