分析花在作品《儿子与情人》中的象征意义.doc

Abstract

Lawrence is the famous English novelist and poet in the twentieth century. In Lawrence's autobiographical novel Sons and Lovers, the author applies many symbols. The hidden images and symbolic languages help to illustrate the inner purport of the novel and the complicated and inner most feelings of the character. In a large number of his works, symbolism has been widely used. In his masterpiece Sons and Lovers, he has successfully applied symbolism and presented the image throughout the entire novel that flower image throughout the novel and different flowers symbolize a different personality trait. The hero’s attitudes towards flowers from hero imply the deep themes of the novel. The paper discusses three heroines and three different kinds of flowers symbolize the development of the plot in novels. This paper tries to analyze the symbolic meanings of ‘Flowers’ in Sons And Lovers.
Key Words: D.H. Lawrence; Sons and Lovers; flowers; symbolism

摘要

劳伦斯是二十世纪著名的英国小说家与诗人，在他所创作的大量作品中，象征主义描写占据了相当的篇幅。在代表作《儿子与情人》中，他成功运用了这一手法，赋予了贯穿整部小说的意象“花”以深刻的象征寓意。花的意象贯穿始终，不同的花暗示不同的人物性格特征，从主人公对花的态度来暗示人物的深层心态，揭示小说的深层主题，文中对花的描写象征了小说中的三个女主人公，暗示了小说中情节的发展。本文试从花与主人公的联系来对作品进行解读。
关键词：劳伦斯；《儿子与情人》；花 ； 象征主义

Contents
Abstract i
摘要 ii
1. Introduction 1
1.1 Brief introduction to Sons and Lovers 1
1.2 Aim and objectives 2
1.3 Organization of the paper 2
2. Literature Review 3
2.1 Symbolism 3
2.1.1 Definition and classification of symbolism 3
2.1.2 Symbolism in other works 3
2.2 Previous studies on symbolism 4
2.2.1 Foreign studies on symbolism 4
2.2.2 Domestic studies on symbolism 4
3. The symbolic meanings of flowers in Sons and Lovers 6
3.1 White lilies were reeling in the moonlight and Mr. Morel’s twisted love 6
3.2 Somber white lilies and Miriam’s last test 7
3.3 White rose and the symbol of Miriam’s spiritual love 8
3.4 Bluebell and Symbol of Clara’s longing for true love 10
3.5 Iris and Symbol of Clara’s sexy feature and rebellious spirit 11
4. Conclusion 12
4.1 Major findings 12
4.2 Pedagogical implications 12
4.3 Limitations and suggestions 12
References 13
Acknowledgements 14

1. Introduction
1.1 Brief introduction to Sons and Lovers
David Herbert Lawrence (1885-1930) was one of the most versatile and influential British writers in the early twentieth century. He was born on September 11, 1885 in a Midland-mining village of Eastwood, Nottingham, on which the Eastwood of Sons and Loves was modeled. His father was a miner and his mother was better educated and genteel. Later he escaped from the mining world through education. He always hated the mines, and frequently used them in his writing to represent both darkness and industrialism, which he despised because he felt it was scarring the English countryside. In 1914, he married Frieda in Germany. He died in France in 1930, at age 44. In his relatively short life, he produced more than 50 volumes of short stories, poems, plays, essays, travel journals, letters and, in addition to the novels for which he is best known. After his death Frieda wrote, “What he had seen and felt and known he gave in his writing to his fellowman, the splendor of living, the hope of more and more life he had given them, a heroic and immeasurable gift”. Of Lawrence’s most significant and most controversial novels, including Sons and Loves and Lady Chatterley’s Lover, the best is probably The Rainbow. Another famous novel is Women in Love.
Sons and Lovers is Lawrence’s semi-autobiographical novel, in which he employed rich symbolism to develop his depiction. There is in it a rather realistic representation of mining life in the Midlands, which the author was familiar with in his childhood and early manhood, but more significant, is the resemblance of the strong bond of maternal love between Gertrude Morel and Paul in the novel. To the novelist’s own mother’s strong hold up on Lawrence and the parallel stretches itself to Paul’s early unsuccessful love affairs with Miriam and Clara. Freud’s influence is also quite obvious here, though Paul’s inability to tear himself away from his mother who definitely suggests an illustration of “Oedipus complex” seems rather to have been based on Lawrence’s own experience. It tells the story of a coal miner’s family with the third son Paul as the central character. The thread of the story evolved around Paul’s love for the two girls Miriam and Clara as well as his love for his mother Mrs. Morel.
To be specific, the life of the Morel family is unhappy, tense, and uneasy. Walter Morel is a miner, he and his wife, Gertrude, have two children, William and Annie. Mrs. More is full with handling her husband's temper and caring for the children. She hates that she has to stay home with the children while her husband gets to go out and enjoy himself (i.e. drink). When their third child, Paul, is born, Mrs. Morel does not really want the new baby. After the birth of their fourth child, Arthur, the Morel family is complete.
Mrs. Morel transfers her affections from her husband to her first son, William, who is intelligent and active. He is the apple of his mother's eye, winning awards, doing well in school and finding jobs easily. William catches pneumonia and dies. After William's death, Mrs. Morel turns her love and attention to Paul.
Paul, always sensitive and emotional, gets a job at Thomas Jordan's, a surgical appliances factory and strikes a friendship with Miriam Leviers. Mrs. Morel does not like Miriam because in her view Miriam takes all of Paul's energy, desire, and feelings with nothing left of him for her. After Paul and Miriam have sex, he decides that they are not good for each other, and breaks off their relationship, to Miriam's anger and bitterness. Paul heads into an intensely sexual relationship with Clara.
Mrs. Morel falls gravely ill and grows weaker because of a tumor. Knowing that she is prolonging her death to live for Paul, Paul and Annie cannot stand to see their beloved mother live in such pain that they give her an extra dosage of morphine. Mrs. Morel dies.
Paul goes to see Miriam. They ponder getting married, but Paul confesses that he has neither desire nor any intention of marrying her. Miriam decides to wait as long as it takes for him to come to her. Paul returns home, thinking about the bond he shares with his mother. Their love is still alive in him, even though she has died.
1.2 Aim and objectives
This study aims to learn the connotation and features of symbolism. In general, symbolism can not only interpret the writer’s thought but also enrich the author’s world of art in the novel. By using symbolism, he depicted changes in nature and the subtle emotional changes of the characters. These descriptions reveal the characters’ mind and touch upon their emotion and desire. Symbols can always interpret the writers’ thought and enrich the author’s world of ideas and art in the novel.
1.3 Organization of the paper
This paper is divided into four chapters. Chapter one serves as an overall introduction to the novel and aim of the study. Chapter two is an overview of symbolism and studies related to previous studies on symbolism including foreign studies and domestic studies. Chapter three describes the symbolic meanings of flowers in Sons and Lovers. Finally, Chapter four is devoted to the conclusion in which we will put forward the major findings and implications of the study.
2. Literature Review
In this chapter, we will briefly introduce an overview of symbolism and studies concerning symbolism and previous studies on symbolism.
2.1 Symbolism
2.1.1 Definition and classification of symbolism
Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style had its beginnings with the publication Les Fleur du mal (1857: 378) by Charles Baudelaire.
According to Oxford (2004: 1792), symbol is “person, an object, an event, etc. that represents a more general quality or situation”, e.g.: White has always been a symbol of purity in Western cultures. The dove is symbolic of peace. Symbolism is “the use of symbols to represent ideas, especially in art and literature”.
Human mind is functioning symbolically when some components of its experience elicit consciousness, beliefs, emotions, and usages, respecting other components of its experience. The former set of components is the ‘symbols,’ and the latter set constitutes the ‘meaning’ of the symbols. According to Vivas, the “constitutive symbol” is “considerably more than a matter of intended meaning” (D.H. Lawrence 1913: 274). He defines it further as “a creative synthesis of empirical matter which manifests itself in dramatic and moral terms and which functions categorically” (D.H. Lawrence 1913: 275).
Alfred, North Whitehead (1927) thinks “different epochs of civilization disclose great differences in their attitude towards symbolism. Architecture was symbolical, ceremonial was symbolical, heraldry was symbolical. There are deeper types of symbolism, in a sense artificial, and yet such that we could not get on without them. Language, written or spoken, is such a symbolism. The mere sound of a word, or its shape on paper, is indifferent. The word is a symbol, and its meaning is constituted by the ideas, images, and emotions, which it raises in the mind of the hearer. There is also another sort of language, purely a written language, which is constituted by the mathematical symbols of the science of algebra”.
2.1.2 Symbolism in other works
In recent decades there were large amounts of research achievements about the studies regarding symbolism both in the foreign countries and in China. For instance, among the foreign studies, Henry James (1879), studies symbols in Daisy Miller who are Daisy herself and her younger brother, Randolph. Daisy is often seen as representing America: she is young, fresh, ingenuous, clueless, naïve, innocent, well meaning, self-centered, untaught, scornful of convention, unaware of social distinctions, utterly lacking in any sense of propriety. Charles Feidelson (1953) tries to rein in the mass of contradiction that is “symbolism” by describing what it is not. Nathaniel Hawthorne (1850) studies ‘A’ in The Scarlet Letter is a symbol with many deep meanings. To Puritans, it signifies adultery, a mark of shameful sin; To the people around her, it stands for “Ability”, “Art”, “Acts of apostles”, and even “Angle”. To Hester herself, it stands for her “Attention, Agony” and struggle she under went. In China, Su Yimei(2007) published an article “The Effective Use of Symbolism: an Appreciation of Symbols in Sons and Lovers”, in which she analyzes such symbols as sunset, moonlight, dead birds, horse and paper to develop the character, the plot and the theme of the novel.
2.2 Previous studies on symbolism
2.2.1 Foreign studies on symbolism
There are multitudes of western writers relating their books to religion and sex, but little attention on the symbolic meanings. Spilka, Mark (1959) says “In the novel sons and lovers, the flower is the most important ‘vital forces’. Henry James (1879), studies symbols in Daisy Miller. Charles Feidelson (1953) tries to rein in the mass of contradiction that is “symbolism” by describing what it is not. According to Alfred Kuttner interpreted the novel as the struggle of a man to free himself from allegiance to his mother and transfer his love to a woman outside the family circle. Lawrence’s account stressed the mother’s devotion to her sons, William and Paul, as compensation for the lack of satisfaction in her marriage. Frederick John Hoffman, Harry Thornton Moore (1953), in his The achievement of D.H. Lawrence, discussed the uniquely Lawrencium rhythm of the book, a rhythm of tension and relaxation in the central relationships which, Betsky pointed out, was to become the author’s typical substitute for conversational plot development. Leavis (1953), think that brilliant though Sons and Loves was, it did not explore the social condition of contemporary England in enough depth to rival the achievement of the later Women in Love but developed the subordinate theme of Sons and Loves and might have explored the plight of his English civilization.
2.2.2 Domestic studies on symbolism
Sons and Loves has gained great critical concern not only in the western countries, but also in China during the late 20’s of the 20th. A large number of Chinese writers or translators comment on Sons and Loves. Luo Ting (1996), current president of Human Women’s University, wrote Study on Lawrence, including Lawrence’s life, Works and Thought. Most of the domestic studies related to symbolism, are found in professional literature. Jiang Jiaguo (2003) said, “It is a pale and half-baked yellow moon which made the sky dim and violet, which show us a feeling of being somber and depressed. It also symbolizes the haze life of Paul.” And others like Yi Pusheng (1938) uses the injury ducks symbolize the Mr.Ya and his son the situation that cannot recover after a setback by Willie and the life attitude of mediocre complacent. He used the symbol of wild ducks to judge the men around him. Su Yimei(2007) published an article “The Effective Use of Symbolism: an Appreciation of Symbols in Sons and Lovers”, in which she analyzes such symbols as sunset, moonlight, dead birds, horse and paper to develop the character, the plot and the theme of the novel. Wang Wenxia (2009) thinks that Lawrence uses symbolism to form the important content of the story by means of the reflections of events, scenes and moods. He not only uses a great number of vivid and dramatic symbols to revel the delicate inner feelings and the complex mentality of the characters, but also parallels the symbols and the description to reach the effect of creating atmosphere, developing the plot and the theme. Furthermore, he uses rich imagination to obscure the symbols, making the symbols swinging between the reality and the dream, thus to have conciseness and produce rich symbolism. Pan Hongsheng (2006) studies the symbolic meanings of flowers and moon in Son and Lovers, he thinks Lawrence uses these symbols to reveal the characters’ complicated thoughts, as well as feelings, and further analyzes their inner psychological activities and makes his limited words embody rich and colorful meanings.
From the literature mentioned above, we can see that the previous studies concentrated only covered the novels, novellas and poems of Lawrence. Some papers focus on the study of some feature of one novel, such as the spiritual love, sense and sensibility, Oedipus complex, the social background, modernism and its influence in Sons and Lovers. However, few people concerns on the symbolic meanings of nature and symbolic meanings between the heroes and nature. Due to this reason,