Color Words in D. H. Lawrence’s Fictional Works

Abstract

D. H. Lawrence was of greatest figures in twentieth-century English literature. Many of his works deal with issues of dualistic balances between men and men, men and women, men and nature, etc. Very few of critics have noticed color words in his fictional works, though they are prevailing in nearly every piece of Lawrence's writings. As a matter of fact, color words not only reflects Lawrence's metaphysic assertion and strategies applied in narration, but also shows his growing background and influences from other modernists of his time. Therefore, it will be worthwhile to deal with color issues in Lawrence's fictional works, and findings about stylistic, strategic and biographical reasons behind application of color words will be quite helpful to highlight aspects which we may have overlooked and add another dimension to understand Lawrence's fiction. Most of studies on Lawrence deal with Lawrence's philosophy, his language and even his biographical background. It is quite a shame that few of them touches upon question as to reasons behind frequent appearance of color words in Lawrence's work, though it is obvious that Lawrence have a predilection for color terms for their overall appearance in Lawrence's writings in all kinds of genres. Some critics have noticed this phenomenon, but their comments are quite limited. Hugh Stevens thinks that Lawrence's attitude towards races is reflected in colors in characters. According to him, Lawrence's writing strikingly blends eroticism and racial markings such as color of every part of body. He draws attention to contrast of color between and Prussian officer by proposing that the two men are systematically opposed not only in terms of class, age and authority, but also in terms of color: 'light blue eyes' and 'cold fire' of officer are opposed to 'warm flame' of 'swarthy' orderly (Stevens, 2003, p. 55). Anais Nin justifies Lawrence's preference for color terms as one of things which give his work an incredible reality (Nin, 1964, p. 63). In his review about Sea and Sardinia, Jack F. Steward returns to rhetorical issue of Lawrence's language and approaches color usage by referring to Roman Jacobson's theory of metaphor and metonymy as intellectual background. This essay draws attention to a group of color motifs in Lawrence's description of natural scenes. Though these critical studies touch upon specialty of chromatic characteristics of language in Lawrence's writing, still they fail to relate this phenomenon with Lawrence's metaphysic or narrative strategies behind it. This article seeks to highlight Lawrence's application of color terms and tries to give a specific analysis of reasons behind his predilection for color words. In line with that, it will help readers be more aware of importance of color words in Lawrence's fictional writing and give a more panoramic understanding of Lawrencian narration and its relation with spirit of his time. 2. Discussion