«Elan vital» women's rehabilitation in D. H. Lawrence’s short stories «Sun»

Abstract

Due to D. H. Lawrence’s controversial reputation and the ambiguous reception of his works, his short stories remain underexplored. The majority of studies are devoted to D. H. Lawrence’s novels, while there are few studies on his short stories. The purpose of the article is to analyze the features of the image of a woman in the short story "Sun". The starting point for us is the understanding that a work of art is a system of signs that need to be deciphered and thus help us to understand the author's idea. The study employs elements of motive, receptive-interpretive and psychoanalytic methods of analysis. The study suggests that the novel "Sun" within the frame of a seemingly simple plot (a wealthy young woman is depressed and therefore travels from America to the Mediterranean Sicily) artistically unfolds the problem of women's existence in exclusion from life due to the subordination of their existence to other family members. The personal "recovery" of the heroine becomes possible by her separation from her husband, mother, and child. In the semiotics of Lawrence's text, micro images of the granite rock on the cape, heart, orange, sun, worms, and clothes bear considerable significance. For instance, the granite rock on the cape foretells that the woman will return with a changed consciousness. And the first thing she does is change her childcare pattern. Throwing an orange serves as a symbolic act of transferring the rights to his son's life. The heroine's rejection of clothes should be interpreted as a rejection of civilizational behavioral stereotypes, and by their virtue, a man is ashamed to look at his naked wife and even more ashamed to undress, he restrains and hides his emotions like a snail in a shell. The end-to-end images of the naked sun and the naked woman embody their relevant intentions. The short story "Sun" consistently shows that the protagonist felt emotional harmony and satisfaction with life only after she was free from her mother's care and limited her care for her own child, only then she began to appreciate her body and allowed herself to enjoy the sun and peace.