D. H. 로렌스의 <아들과 연인>과 케이트 쇼팬의 <자각>: 정신과 육체의 투쟁과 분열

Abstract

The ontological dichotomy of the Word and the Flesh is a metaphysical concept which Lawrence recognized at an early stage but which continued throughout his life and works. Lawrence’s concept of polarity confronts the divisions: body and spirit, female and male, impulse and ideal, blood-consciousness and mental consciousness, and so on. In Sons and Lovers, Lawrence embodied this division in contrasting characters, such as Gertrude and Walter, or Miriam and Clara. Paul Morel goes through the internal conflict between the word of Miriam and the flesh of Clara. Miriam is expressed by Paul himself: that she is too spiritual, that she shrinks away from physical reality, that she has a stifling desire to absorb his soul. Indeed, it is Paul, under his mother’s hold, who kills life and desire, by refusing to move in physical relation with Miriam. While Paul, in contrast, is dedicated himself to the fulfilling lovemaking, his powerful desires are embodied in the person of Clara. Miriam and Clara function as emotional, sexual substitutes, making Paul’s eventual return to the maternal matrix. Because of the relation with the mother, Paul is unable to make true personal contact and sensuous intimacy with his two women. A similarly revealing comparison is offered by the deep division of the psyche and the soma in Chopin’s The Awakening. Edna Pontellier, with her romantic feelings and fantasies, persists in loving Robert. Although she does not love Arobin, who is absolutely nothing to her in emotional terms, Edna has affairs with Arobin, an experienced womanizer. Her extramarital relationships with male characters - Robert and Arobin, contributes to her mental and sensual awakening in her solitary quest for identity. For awakening to her sexuality, Edna grapples with the conflict between her romantic and sexual desires. In both novels, Paul and Edna suffers the split between spiritual love and sensual love in two persons, not in single object. Therefore, it goes beyond the normal process to the dualistic tension and balance established between male and female. Moreover, their infirm identities are not ready for the successful and ideal male-female relationship which contains autonomy and independence respectively. As The Awakening and her short stories revolve around the key concerns of the breach in the spiritual and the sensual, the battle between the Flesh and the Word forms an important core of Lawrence’s fictions. Since Lawrence and Chopin have main theme of such polarities, fascinating comparison of further study would be possible. It is likely that Lawrence’s perception of the interdependent polarities of the spirit and the body was the part of his own sense of identity.