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Mémoires Année : 2020

Exploring the Psyche: Alienation and Fulfilment in D.H. Lawrence's Short Stories

Résumé

D.H. Lawrence spent his life reflecting upon the individual’s place in a society ruled by the intellect and alienated by the industrialisation and the war. Freud’s theories raised his interest in psychoanalysis, which led him to write two essays which influenced both his novels and his short stories. In that sense, his writings can be considered as an extension of his essays, offering a thinking on the psyche and its role in self-fulfilment. This thesis aims at defining Lawrence’s conception of the psyche and its noxious role in the quest for wholeness in his short stories. It questions the role of both the conscious and the unconscious in the psyche and how it controls the individual’s life. This role can become noxious and prevent the individual from reaching fulfilment. This thesis is based on Freud’s theories as well as Lawrence’s essays which both influenced his short stories. It aims thus at interpreting the text through psychoanalytic theories and demonstrating the important role of the psyche in alienation and self-fulfilment. Lawrence used the stream-of-consciousness technique to voice both the conscious and the unconscious of a given character, allowing them to interact and “discuss” with one another within the psyche. This multiplicity of voices, which all belong to the same character, reminds the reader of schizophrenia in order to express the alienation caused by a conflict between the conscious and the unconscious. At the end of this conflict, repressed drives resurge through physical or mental diseases: this is exactly why Lawrence considered the mind as harmful for the individual. He criticised a society which customs were to prioritize the mind at the expense of the body. His work thus tries to give more importance to the body by glorifying a life apprehended through sensations. He rejected the intellect as the only intermediary between the individual and his surroundings by showing that the body was the only and true vehicle to experience and discover the true essence of things. In that sense, the problem was not the mind in itself but the alienating society imposing morality which induced the mind to repress the body. Lawrence thus thought that the psyche, in fact moulded by modern society, prevented the individual from finding happiness. In that sense, his work also questions the conditions required to reach fulfilment. Morality and self-restraint prevent the individual from being true to him/herself and it is only up to him/herself to undertaking the internal travel necessary for psychological transformation. The end of the adventure should lead to conscious rebirth: the individual becomes aware of his/her own nature as a being made of flesh and soul but also as part of a “whole”, symbolised by the cosmos. According to Lawrence, the harmony with the cosmos is necessary in 80 the sense that it allows the individual to restore his/her own relationship with nature, including universal order and seeing the individual as an organic being. This final step represents the only way to heal both physically and mentally from a noxious society.
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Dates et versions

dumas-03575250 , version 1 (15-02-2022)

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  • HAL Id : dumas-03575250 , version 1

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Laura Moulin. Exploring the Psyche: Alienation and Fulfilment in D.H. Lawrence's Short Stories. Humanities and Social Sciences. 2020. ⟨dumas-03575250⟩
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