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Article: D. H. LAWRENCE: PLEASURE AND DEATH.(Critical Essay)
- Article from:
- Studies in the Novel
- Article date:
- June 22, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 University of North Texas. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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D. H. Lawrence was a virtual textbook embodiment of Freud's theories about the pleasure principle and the death instinct. Focusing on acultural determinism, Freud viewed destructiveness and the pleasure principle as equally fundamental to the "vacillating rhythm" of life,(1) yet he also asserts that the pleasure principle "seems actually to serve the death instincts" (p. 63). He conceptualized the desire to move beyond the pleasure principle as "an urge
inherent in organic life to restore an earlier [inorganic] state of things" because "of the conservative nature of living substance" (p. 36). Seeking a key "to a universal logic of human social life," Freud ...