Subversion of Gender and the Birth of a Feminine Self in Rainbow - Essay Example

A Critical Analysis of the Subversion of Gender and the Birth of a Feminine Self in Rainbow In his novel “The Rainbow” D.H. Lawrence attempts to explore into the feminine self (or being) by subverting the traditional patriarchy-acknowledged gender-role of women in a male dominated society. Disparaging the Victorian ideals of femininity, Lawrence’s women are found to be self-willed enough to “look out from farm life to the far-off world of cities and government and the active scope of man” (Lawrence 2008, p. 35). But these Brangwen women are not courageous enough to rebel against the patriarchy-authorized social feminine role. While these women’s desire to act as freely as their men have successfully been mitigated and suppressed by patriarchal institutions like marriage, religion, family, etc, Ursula Brangwen, the first of these women, has been able to break through the tradition of being a woman according to the Victorian ideals of femininity. In a society which thinks of a woman, as one who is born to be a loving mother and a passionate and submissive housewife in her husband’s household, Ursula struggles hard to assume a self which is as free and self-willed as a man. In this regard, Lawrence’s heroine defies complying with her feminine role in the society. She grows a strong abhorrence for her mother, Mrs. Bangwen’s fertile domesticity. Then she refuses to be married with Skrebensky, assuming that Skrebensky could mutilate her freedom; also initially she herself has been attracted to him by “a strong sense of the outer world” (Lawrence 2008, p. 194). In short, Lawrence allows her heroine to play in a subverted gender role in the male dominated society. Indeed this subversion remains incomplete till she refuses to marry Skrebensky in the following passage: "I don't think I want to be married," she said, and her naive, troubled, puzzled eyes rested a moment on his, then travelled away, pre-occupied….His drawn, strangled face watched her blankly for a few moments, then a strange sound took place in his throat.….his face twisted like insanity, and he was crying, crying blind and twisted as if something were broken which kept him in control…. In great agitation, part of which was exasperation, she stayed behind, paid the waiter with a half-sovereign, took her yellow silk coat, then followed Skrebensky. (Lawrence 2008, p. 204) In this passage Skrebensky is wallowing in tears at the refusal of Ursula to marry him. It is the perfect subversion of the tyrannous male-role in human sexual relationship. It is common that in traditional love-game, the male-counterpart shrinks from marrying and maintaining a family. Like the tyrannous male, Ursula plays the male role in traditional patriarchy-dominated love-affairs. In the eye of the society where Ursula lives, she will be held guilty of debauchery and infidelity for her autocratic actions. But these very autocratic actions ultimately give her a self or a sense of being and “spiritual stateliness” (Lawrence 2008, p. 201). Ursula exists in the society and emerges out of nothing through her freedom of actions as well as through her defiance to comply with the society-defined codes of the existence of women. In short, she seems to revolt against patriarchic ideals of femininity. Here Skrebensky’s masculinity gets defaced at Ursula’s refusal to marry him. In the novel, by subverting the gender Lawrence attempts to endow his heroine with ‘a being’ through the deconstruction of gender-based-identity in a society. Such attempt of Lawrence can be best explained through Judith Butler’s concept of “Gender Performativity”. Butler’s concept of gender identity primarily refers to the build-up process of gender-identity of any social entity, either the individual or the group, through the society-authorized manners of sexual performances. Butler does not think that gender identity is “natural” or “scientific”. Also she thinks that “body” is not a “mute facticity” or a seat of biological features. Rather “Gender”, as Butler (1990) says in the first chapter of Gender Trouble, “is the repeated stylization of the body, a set of repeated acts within a highly rigid regulatory frame that congeal over time to produce the appearance of substance, of a natural sort of being” (p. 43). Indeed Lawrence’s heroine defies acting “within a highly rigid regulatory frame” of the Victorian society (Butler 1990, p. 43). Ursula achieves the freedom of her ‘self’ and the “spiritual stateliness” in two phases: first, she defies her gender identity by refusing the society-defined “script” of performance; she defies to assume the constrained and predefined role assigned to a particular sex. Then she chooses to act on her own; to act and to decide freely; therefore she begins to exist in a society where nothingness seems to pervade the feminine self. In the above mentioned passage, Ursula, possibly for the first time, begins to perceive her ‘spiritual stateliness’ and realizes the freedom of her being through the assertion that “I don't think I want to be married” (Lawrence 2008, p. 204). This self-assertion of Ursula is not momentary. Rather it is Ursula’s realization of a ‘being’ that has developed through a long process of refusal, denials and desire for freedom. This process of the development of Ursula’s self starts with her desire to be free and culminates in the birth of an ‘I’ in Ursula. She sees her mother to fulfill “the whole of womanhood” (Lawrence 2008, p. 56) by breeding a number of children; but she is disgusted with such womanhood. Instead she wants to struggle with men in “the world of daily work and duty and existence as a working member of the community” (Lawrence 2008, p. 154). She likes “something else besides housework and hanging about.” (Lawrence 2008, p. 187) In her puberty Ursula begins to perceive her ‘self’ with all the awareness of her body or physical existence. Lawrence attempts to uphold Ursula’s sexual tension as her displeasure with the potentiality of her being that is submerged into “her dark days of confusion, soulless, uncreated, unformed” (Lawrence 2008, p. 204). From a Freudian perspective of sexuality in puberty, Ursula’s attraction for Skrebensky can be viewed as her admiration for the qualities, in Skrebensky’s character, what she herself lacks. Not literally, but metaphorically, a type of “penis envy” seems to pervade the relationship between Skrebensky and Ursula. (Freud 1962, p. 21) Her society allocates more freedom of possessing a self through actions to Skrebensky because of his gender. The narrator describes Ursula’s adolescent tension: “She was at this time a nuisance on the face of the earth, with her spasmodic passion and her slumberous torment….because she could not love herself nor believe in herself, she mistrusted everybody with the mistrust of a serpent or a captured bird” (Lawrence 2008, p. 204). She cannot love herself because she does not have the self she will love. Therefore, when she sees that Skrebensky possesses the ‘self’ and the quality of ‘being’ because of his masculinity, she grows an attraction for Skrebensky’s “spiritual stateliness”. In her affairs, Skrebensky’s ‘ability to be’ can be viewed as ‘the excellencies of the sexual object’ which Freud calls ‘sexual attraction’. (Freud 1962, p. 21) Obviously this attraction subsides when Ursula’s sexual appetite is fulfilled and she realizes that Skrebensky can, no more, open “the whole world lying spread before her” (Lawrence 2008, p. 200). Immediately after this realization, Ursula begins to perceive her ‘I’ as an independent entity that can decide on her own, pronouncing: “I don't think I want to be married” (Lawrence 2008, p. 204). Since in a male dominated society men enjoy more freedom than their female-counterpart, Lawrence chooses to subvert the gender in it in order to give birth to his heroine’s self. Indeed, Lawrence’s attempt to work out a free feminine ‘self’ through freedom of choice and freedom of action seems to Nietzsche’s ontology of ‘being’. In “On the Genealogy of Moral”, Nietzsche (1996) asserts that “there is no ‘being’ behind doing, acting, becoming; ‘the doer’ is merely a fiction imposed on the doing—the doing itself is everything” (p. 29). Nietzsche’s ‘doer’ has the freedom to act on his or her own will, though he is not preoccupied with the gender dichotomy of human existence. Through her denial to comply with the society-defined femininity, her refusal to act within the rigid framework, of the society, set for women and her assertion of her freedom, she rather plays a role which is traditionally played by a man in patriarchy. In the long run, this subversion castrates Ursula’s male counterpart, Skrebensky’s privileges, of winning a girl easily, that he enjoys because of his gender. Subsequently, Skrebensky leaves Ursula with “his face twisted like insanity”, and “crying blind and twisted as if something were broken which kept him in control” (Lawrence 2008, p. 204). In fact, what is “broken which kept him in control” is his masculine superiority that is challenged and maimed by Ursula. Being humiliated, Skrebensky, with tears in eye, leaves her behind. But “in great agitation, part of which was exasperation”, Ursula pays “the waiter with a half-sovereign, took her yellow silk coat, then followed Skrebensky” (Lawrence 2008, p. 204). Indeed the passage portrays a perfect subversion of the traditional picture of a love-game in a male dominated society. List of References Butler, J 1990, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, Routledge, New York. Freud, S 1962, Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality Basic Books, Melbourne University Press, Carlton. Lawrence, D. H 2008, The Rainbow, Penguin, London. Nietzsche, F 1996, On the Genealogy of Morals. trans. Douglas Smith, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Read More