D. H. Lawrence’s The Rainbow as a Problematic Aporia

Abstract

This paper focuses on the way Lawrence treats the closing part of his novel The Rainbow—the last part about the scenes of horse-attack, miscarriage and rainbow. The main argument of this paper is, in the midst of the diverging critical responses about the novel’s ending, to point out that Lawrence’s resolution of the last part is too abrupt and artificial to be regarded as an aporia in a postmodern sense. The above argument is based on Lawrence’s seeming, perilous moral balance that is strongly reflected in his treatment of the ending and his mouthpiece, Ursula’s characterization shown most remarkably in her relationship with her lover Skrebensky. The horse-attack plot and its concurrent miscarriage-event are a good example to show that Lawrence has lost literary control in his somewhat too liberal and individualistic love-vision. His use of the rainbow-symbol as an aesthetic aporia in the end, does not seem very successful, compared to the rainbow potentials in the two previous generations in the novel and compared to the ways that Sons and Lovers or Women in Love ends. The heroine in The Rainbow, Ursula, as well, serves as an interfering element (especially, in her dealing with her lover) in her too egocentric and radical attitude as a liberator of female sexuality. All these in a way prevent the ending of the novel from being a natural flow, merely letting it become a kind of “disruption” in a Formalist sense and also make the reader rethink about Lawrence’ moral vision. This paper is, on the whole, a courageous, Deconstructionist reading of Lawrence’s myth around his novels—especially around The Rainbow.