GERMB115 – Franca Bellarsi

11th Oct.
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‘Sun’ - DH Lawrence
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 David Herbert Lawrence
 Iconic name in the history of English literature
 Born in 1885 (in Victorian age turning into Edwardian age which is a society very
repressed about sex) & died in 1930 (in the South of France)
 Born in a working-class environment, region of Nottingham at a time where people
were not supposed to be artists
 Someone who transgressed the social order by writing
 His life is in novel in itself, scandalous (sex)
 DHL was controversial in his lifetime & now (not for the same reasons): he lived in a
mining town, in which the industry (of revolution) was very noticeable & the power
of the machines was equally noticeable
 DHL was very concerned by the way in which technology & the machines could
transform the human being (into a more mechanical entity) /
 The machine like consciousness is a less version of the human being
 He believed the contemporary individual was a diminished version of the human
being & there were elements with the cosmos
 DHL was interested in nature, the animal world / travelled a lot – Austria, Mexico,
USA
 DHL escaped England because he was in search of a reconnection with the archaic,
the images of cosmic energies (the machines had forgotten) - also escaped because
reconnecting to the nature meant the gateway to the cosmic order
 DHL was also interested in sex (pornography) but interested in the sexual version in a
way to reconnect oneself to nature – he was seen like a pornographer by the whole
society
 The Victorians were afraid of sex which was a taboo – scandalous
talking/writing/describing sex
 Each author might be controversial like DHL
 Individualistic writer!
 DHL was a major figure in the battle against censorship
 DHL interrogates about connections with nature (broken link?): expressed in ‘Sun’
 Connection with LW: idea/theme of garden of Eden vs impossibility of it =
connection to nature vs impossibility to do it
Beginning of the text
Title ‘SUN’?
 The power of the solar hope upon us
 ‘Sun’ shows that the title foreshadows the importance of light that will be central to
the plot
 ‘Sun’ is intense reminding us of the fact that the sun is a star in the system of nature
 ‘Sun’ is also an element of nature with symbolic & mythical association: relevant
when reading for the 1st time?
 ‘Sun’ as a pagan element is central to the plot
 ‘Sun’ = makes the power of the hope as an escapable, as the sunshine in the txt / =
how symbolic is the title = astronomical entity? Mythological entity?
 ‘Sun’ = initial readership at which the text is directed
 Original audience = British audience, from the beginning of the 20th century = the
sun is sthg they don’t have in England
 The part of the readership is also a working-class audience to he belonged / the
world is very dark
 The son of a cold miner vs the sun is not sthg to be taken for granted = warmth &
light are lacking in the reality of this time
 The title is not taken by chance!
 Already captivates the reader & the central character

Summary
A female central character named Juliet (a lot of ‘she’ in the text) who is from an upper-class
(American background – read about the Hudson river and ship leaving the harbour of NYC).
The journey starts in the harbour of NYC.
Juliet is an American woman leaving the north, leaving a native USA for the Mediterranean.
She leaves her husband behind.
She grows with her environment, gradually she grows one she fuses with the force of the sun.
A force that is not only for the physical health but a force that is also operating a kind of
healing at the mental level.
She is quite near a goddess in the process forgetting about her husband and the process
learning to love her sun a little bit more but this pagan garden (this garden of Eden) gets
intruded upon by a chance visit of the husband who is out of these elements, who represents
the world she left behind.
This battle between the new pagan life that she has embraced and the old world of
contemporary civilization she left behind is allusing one (strength of the environment, force
of the sun, the cosmic force of the sun).

She will not be able to resist the influence of her husband & the influence of the old world he
represents.

 There are 2 worlds in opposition

 An old world of modernity left behind VS a new world (that is an old world) of
myth & paganism that gets rediscovered by female character
 A female character who becomes larger than life
 In this new garden of Eden rediscovered, the female character has no strength enough
to maintain her new way of life

Important elements of the text

1st paragraph
Very powerful beginning

‘Take her away …' - ‘She permitted herself to be carried away...’

 Lack of control, lack of autonomy over her female’s life

 She permits other people to do thgs to her
 Carrying her away suggests a great passivity
 Women’s lack of autonomy in the England is already revealed in this fragment
of text: doctors talked about ‘she’ but we don’t have their opinion
 Child, nurse, mother = at the mercy of husband & father’s authority

 The beginning suggests INCAPACITY, PASSIVITY, INVALIDITY on the central

female character
2nd paragraph
Severe CONTRAST

‘The ship sailed at midnight... Fuller of memories’

 Darkness VS light suggested by the title

 Darkness contrasting with the light that will shine through the Mediterranean
landscape
 Description of nature with a lot of verbs/words (swayed1, heaving2, shaken over,
spilled3) = a sea in movement, a sea with energy
 The sea is presented as sthg mysterious but also as sthg primitive / archaic
 ‘... fuller of memories’: accross time
 ‘It is deeper than one imagines, and fuller of memories’ = she is talking to herself -
Focalization in the 3rd person
 ‘... the serpent of chaos’ = a clue given by the author that we are dealing with a
mythical nature
 The serpent of chaos = the serpent of Universe biting its tail
 A nature that exceeds the human
 Also PAGAN IMAGERY (in opposition with the Christian England of this time)
 DISCONNECTION /ISOLATION of the woman from her husband, from her child
 Conventional couple in which people married out of the need to have a sort of
marriage contract to preserve their position society : no fusion
 ‘JULIET’ = a bit ironic because her husband is not a ROMEO (reference to Romeo
& Juliet by Shakespeare that is about love)
 The child is an imposition of society, a convention to respect (women as good to be
married & breeding machines)
 Description of the GARDEN

1
a swayed sea = a sea that is agitated
2
Heaving /ˈhiːvɪŋ/: moving
3
Spilled dribbles of light: des gouttes de lumière déversées