The reclaim of womanhood and the revealing union of the sexes in D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover

Abstract

From the very beginning of its creation, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, D.H.Lawrence’s last and most popular novel, was surrounded by controversy as the detailed descriptions of the sexual act and the uncompromising use of four-letter words earned the novel a reputation for pornography. The present article argues that the writer’s intention, when writing this novel, was to provide his readers not with pseudo-sensual easy going fiction but with a work of art which would encapsulate the core of his metaphysical theories namely his commitment to the privileging of the body and his ardent belief that the regeneration of the human being can only come through the physical and spiritual union with the other sex. The article focuses on the way Lawrence has chosen to dramatize these concepts a) by constructing a new feminine midentity, through the delineation of the character of Connie Chatterley and b) by giving prominence to the transformative power of love. It also explores how the use of “obscene” words in his work becomes a live manifestation of his conviction that the human language should dare to express the dictates of the body without any fear or prejudice.