Dr Anjani Sharma

Towards Balancing Gender Roles Dr Anjani Sharma

The question of gender roles has intrigued novelists for ages. The general drama of the universe revolves around the battle of sexes for determining gender roles and dominance of power. Not many novelists of the twentieth century dared to voice so passionately, the problems of relationship between the sexes in a changing world that saw urbanization, industrialization and the World War eroding the age-old foundation of the society, as D. H. Lawrence did. The new age demanded a revision and reconstruction of gender roles, and Lawrence, the first English working-class novelist, boldly disrupted the rigid boundary of the beings. He navigated his way from self-observed chronicles of his adolescence to the sophisticated assessor of women and understood the importance of their role in the regeneration of man. Lawrence often quarreled and contradicted himself before proposing a prophetic ideal man-woman relationship for the society.

That is why, he is hailed as a priest of love and a prophet against mechanized existence. His purpose was so big that his novels still make such nerve-racking readings and have not escaped the critical gaze of many.

This book attempts to explore the causes of failure of relationship between man and woman in the modern age through the study of some of his best novels . It investigates the new kind of relationship based on gender balance, proposed by him, that believes in the necessity to revive the vitality in sexuality to reform the human race. In attempting to discuss his novels, the book approaches the psychoanalytical method and analyses what psychology operates behind his characters that perform different roles.