D. H. Lawrence and the Avoidance of Darwinian Tragedy

Darwin’s theories helped both to destroy D. H. Lawrence’s early Christianity, and to shape the latter’s beliefs in the primacy of the organic, of non-rational forces, and of the animality of man – even though Lawrence soon saw materialism as begging more questions that it answered. He therefore reinterpreted Darwinism in social terms, and contextualised it on the one hand by the individual’s imperative to flourish on his/her own terms, and on the other by a divine, eternally-creative principle. Individuals’ failure to achieve flourishing in the face of Darwinian-social imperatives are seen by him as tragic in proportion to the magnitude of their attempt, yet always on a limited scale, and wholly contextualised by the comedic, eternal life-generating principle. The same applies to the degeneration of civilizations and even of species, which will always be replaced by more vital forms. Lawrence is therefore firmly amongst those writers whose understanding of Darwinian evolution fits into a comedic rather than a tragic world-view, in contrast to his great novelistic predecessor Thomas Hardy. Yet, in the case of the social Darwinist character, Gerald Crich in Women in Love, the comedic vision struggles to contain the novel’s tragic treatment of his death.