D.H. Lawrence’s Dialogic Consciousness

Abstract

It is in Sons and Lovers that D.H. Lawrence first begins his experiments with a more complex technique for consciousness presentation. While in his earlier novel, The Trespasser, there are isolated attempts to present the thoughts of the two main characters in juxtaposition, these attempts are there simply to expose the differences in their thinking in response to the outside world. In Sons and Lovers the simultaneous presentation of different viewpoints is complicated, so that the characters seem to respond subliminally to each other’s feelings and emotions: